[Senate Hearing 119-2]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 119-2
REMAIN IN MEXICO
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JANUARY 16, 2025
__________
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
58-505 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
RAND PAUL, Kentucky, Chairman
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma MARGARET WOOD HASSAN, New
RICK SCOTT, Florida Hampshire
JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
BERNIE MORENO, Ohio JOHN FETTERMAN, Pennsylvania
JONI ERNST, Iowa ANDY KIM, New Jersey
TIM SCOTT, Florida RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona
ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan
William E. Henderson III, Staff Director
Christina N. Salazar, Chief Counsel
Andrew J. Hopkins, Counsel
Megan M. Krynen, Professional Staff Member
David M. Weinberg, Minority Staff Director
Christopher J. Mulkins, Minority Director of Homeland Security
Laura A. Lynch, Minority Senior Counsel
Katie A. Conley, Minority Senior Professional Staff Member
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
Ashley A. Gonzalez, Hearing Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Paul................................................. 1
Senator Peters............................................... 3
Senator Johnson.............................................. 12
Senator Blumenthal........................................... 13
Senator Lankford............................................. 15
Senator Kim.................................................. 17
Senator Scott................................................ 19
Senator Slotkin.............................................. 21
Senator Moreno............................................... 24
Senator Ernst................................................ 26
Senator Gallego.............................................. 28
Senator Hassan............................................... 30
Senator Hawley............................................... 31
Prepared statements:
Senator Peters............................................... 41
WITNESSES
THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 2025
Hon. Kenneth Cuccinelli, Former Senior Official Performing the
Duties of Deputy Secretary (2019-2021), U.S. Department of
Homeland Security.............................................. 4
Andrew R. Arthur, Resident Fellow in Law and Policy, Current for
Immigration Studies............................................ 6
Adam Isacson, Director for Defense Oversight, The Washington
Office on Latin America........................................ 8
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Arthur, Andrew R. :
Testimony.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 44
Cuccinelli Hon. Kenneth:
Testimony.................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 42
Isacson, Adam:
Testimony.................................................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 78
APPENDIX
Senator Paul's Monthly Southwest Border Encounters chart......... 98
Senator Johnson's SW Border Encounters chart..................... 99
Senator Hawley's pictures........................................ 100
Statements submitted for the Record.............................. 102
REMAIN IN MEXICO
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THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 2025
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9 a.m., in room
SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Rand Paul, Chair
of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Paul [presiding], Johnson, Lankford, Rick
Scott, Hawley, Moreno, Ernst, Peters, Hassan, Blumenthal, Kim,
Gallego, and Slotkin.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PAUL
Chairman Paul. The Committee will now come to order.
There has been a significant question raised in the past
year or so whether or not the President has enough power to fix
the problems at the border, and that is what this hearing will
be about, is there enough statutory authority for the President
to do things that need to be done at the border.
Over the past four years, we have witnessed an
unprecedented erosion of security at our borders. This
deterioration was marked by a complete disregard for the laws
that were put into place to protect U.S. citizens. Since the
start of the Biden-Harris administration, nearly 11 million
individuals have been encountered attempting to illegally enter
the United States. In his first year in office, President Biden
repealed over 80 of President Trump's policies that had
effectively secured the Southwest border.
What was once a controlled and secure boundary quickly
turned into a revolving door. These open door policies allowed
individuals, many with little to no documentation, to show up,
state their name, or a name, and waltz right into the country.
The Biden-Harris administration claims they check everyone
against criminal databases, but they only do so against U.S.
and allied nations' records, leaving massive blind spots for
criminal from countries that do not share information or have
reliable databases. Criminals and terrorist-linked individuals
were able to slip into the country undetected, often
disappearing without ever appearing at their court dates.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) apprehended nearly 400
suspected terrorists attempting to illegally enter the ports of
entry (POE), another 1,500 at ports of entry. These are just
the ones that managed to get caught. Countless others have
evaded detection.
During these last few years, the laws that exist to protect
this nation were bent, abused, and outright ignored. Parole,
which is meant to be used sparingly, became a loophole, and
asylum laws were distorted to justify an open border agenda.
Tragically, Laken Riley was brutally murdered because the Biden
administration paroled her killer. No other family should ever
have to endure the pain hers has.
President Biden discarded proven strategies like Remain in
Mexico, which was undeniably successful in deterring illegal
entries. The results were immediate and disastrous. During the
last full month of Trump administration, when Remain in Mexico
was in effect, border encounters were under 70,000. After its
repeal, the number surged to over 100,000, and continued to
rise.
Remember this. Under the Obama Administration their
standard for what constituted a crisis was 1,000 attempted
crossing in a day. Under the Biden-Harris administration, there
had been, on average, over 6,000 encounters daily at the
Southwest border, yet they insisted there was no crisis.
Their policies created a pull effect, enticing migrants to
pay cartels thousands of dollars for a treacherous journey to
the Southwest border. The message over time over the last four
years has been if you show up, we will find a way to get you
in. Who has benefited from that? The cartels who profit from
this human pipeline, and terrorist-linked individuals
exploiting the chaos to slip in unnoticed.
All the powers needed to address this crisis, we believe,
already exist under current law. The President has the
authority to implement Remain in Mexico, and the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) can immediately return migrants to a
neighboring foreign country.
The President also holds broad powers to suspend or
restrict entry for any group deemed detrimental to our national
interest. Section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act
(INA) says the President and the Secretary of Homeland Security
may grant asylum, not shall grant asylum. Section 208 also
allows President Trump to make anyone illegally entering the
country ineligible for asylum.
Additionally, under Section 212, President Trump can stop
the entry of illegal aliens altogether. Finally, Section 235
authorizes him to immediately place illegal immigrants back
onto the Mexican side of the border.
The 2024 election was a clear mandate from the American
people to reverse President Biden's disastrous open border
policies. We must reinstate Remain in Mexico and use the other
existing authorities to the full extent. That is why
immediately following this hearing we will vote on affirming
the President's and the Secretary of Homeland Security's legal
authority to secure the Southwest border, including taking
immediate steps to remove illegal aliens, reinstate Remain in
Mexico, and ``catch and release.''
The Trump administration demonstrated that when the law is
enforced properly, it works. This resolution reaffirms that
President Trump, or any President, has broad authority to
resolve the ongoing crisis. I urge my colleagues to stand with
us, uphold the rule of law, and restore order at our nation's
borders.
At this time I will recognize the Ranking Member, Senator
Peters.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PETERS\1\
Senator Peters. Thank you, Chairman Paul.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Peters appears in the
Appendix on page 41.
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As a Member of this Committee, I have long made securing
our borders a top priority. I have been pleased to work with
Members on both sides of the aisle to advance bipartisan,
commonsense legislation that strengthens border security and
provides tools and resources to support our border security
professionals as they carry out their extremely challenging
missions. I look forward to working together to continuing
those efforts this Congress.
I recognize that we face significant challenges at our
Southern border, and I am committed to working in a bipartisan
way to address those challenges.
Today we are discussing the policy known as Remain in
Mexico, which was created during the first Trump administration
and first implemented in 2019. Under this policy, certain
migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border were
processed and returned to Mexico to wait for their next
immigration court hearing in the United States.
Although billed as means of deterring migrants, the
policy's real success was dumping fuel onto the fire of cartel
activity in Mexico. This particular policy accelerated
dangerous, illegal activity lead by cartels in Mexico even
more. It is estimated that these cartels have raked in billions
of dollars from this criminal activity through drug
trafficking, extortion, human trafficking and smuggling, and
ransom kidnappings of asylum seekers.
After the implementation of the Remain in Mexico policy, a
report documented more than 1,500 allegations of violent harm
caused by cartels including homicide, sexual assault, and
kidnapping, in just a couple years.
There are also numerous reports of cartels extorting asylum
seekers for thousands of dollars, so they would not be murdered
by the cartels while they waited in Mexico for their scheduled
immigration hearings, often over the course of several months.
Although today we are discussing a policy and its impact in
Mexico, we know that cartels bring their criminal activity
across our borders and into our communities in the United
States. We should not implement policies that will further
enrich cartels and enable their violent criminal enterprises on
either side of the border. We should be focused on policies
that help frontline DHS personnel get ahead of these dangerous
cartels.
I am committed to working in a bipartisan way to find
commonsense solutions that strengthen border security,
streamline our immigration and asylum processes, and ensure DHS
personnel have the tools and resources they need to complete
their national security missions.
I appreciate our witnesses here today for sharing their
testimony and for contributing to our discussion on securing
our borders.
Chairman Paul. It is a practice of the Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) to swear in
witnesses. Will each of you please stand and raise your right
hand.
Do you swear that the testimony you will give before this
Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help you, God?
Mr. Cuccinelli. I do.
Mr. Arthur. I do.
Mr. Isacson. I do.
Chairman Paul. From 2019 to 2021, Ken Cuccinelli served in
the Federal Government first as the Acting Director of United
States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and then as
the Acting Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland
Security. During his tenure he was a leading spokesman on
immigration, homeland security and election security, and was
appointed by President Trump to serve as an original member of
the Coronavirus Task Force.
In addition to practicing law for over 25 years, Mr.
Cuccinelli served in the Virginia Senate from 2002 to 2010, and
as Virginia's Attorney General (AG) from 2010 to 2014.
Mr. Cuccinelli, welcome to the Committee. You are now
recognized for your opening remarks.
TESTIMONY OF HON. KENNETH CUCCINELLI,\1\ FORMER SENIOR OFFICIAL
PERFORMING THE DUTIES OF DEPUTY SECRETARY (2019-2021), U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Cuccinelli. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members of the
Committee. Thank you for inviting me to discuss the challenges
and opportunities in dealing with illegal immigration as we
look forward to the second swearing in of Donald Trump as
President of the United States next Monday.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Cuccinelli appears in the
Appendix on page 42.
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The President of the United States does have vast authority
to secure America's borders, to determine who may enter, and
under what conditions they may enter. As one example, a
President could reestablish the so-called Remain in Mexico
program that did so much in the latter part of 2019 to drive
down illegal alien efforts to even enter the United States.
I want to emphasize how important it is that the world
knows a President is serious about keeping illegal aliens out.
When someone somewhere in the world is contemplating spending
large portions of their life savings to try and illegally enter
the United States, they want to know they have a good chance
for success before giving away their money and taking that
risky trip.
The real success of programs like the Remain in Mexico
program is not just that they screen out fake asylum seekers,
but that they help deter illegal aliens from coming in the
first place. The goal of true border security is to be so
effective at keeping attempted illegal entrants out, that they
never try to come in the first place.
In that vein, the fastest improvement that the new
administration could make is at the border itself. The swearing
in of Donald Trump to the presidency will instantly convert the
20,000 men and women of the Border Patrol from the world's
largest group of greeters, back into law Enforcement officers
whose goal is to actually defend the border, instead of
facilitating the ongoing invasion that the Biden administration
has offered up. If they are supplemented immediately by
military personnel and assets moved to the border, who actually
block illegal entrants instead of uselessly ``backing up'' the
Border Patrol, then America's Southern border could be
effectively sealed to illegal alien traffic and most of the
accompanying drug traffic between the legal ports of entry in a
matter of weeks. It would be a historic accomplishment and it
is absolutely attainable. Literally the only thing required is
a President with the political will to do it, and I expect that
such a President will be sworn in next week.
Let me say that a different way. The assets and authorities
needed to completely secure our Southern border between the
legal ports of entry already exist, with no additional
legislation or funding needed. That does not mean those things
would not help, but it is at least possible.
But securing the Southern border is only step one. Every
pull factor should be eliminated at both the Federal and State
level. I might add that given the fact that this government is
so hopelessly bankrupt, a good place to start is to end every
dollar of spending for immigrants of any kind, first the
illegals, but also even legal immigrants. This Congress might
as well begin to adjust to the day when severe cuts are
necessary across the board, best to start by cutting spending
on non-Americans as soon as possible, given that such cuts are
already overdue.
Perhaps the single biggest pull factor is work permits. The
administration can ensure that only properly vetted and
qualified recipients ever receive work permits by regulation,
which is the primary source of implementable authority in this
area. Work permits need to be as severely restricted as the law
allows, specifically, to only those aliens who have already
established their legal authority to be present in the United
States, coupled with turning a majority of all Homeland
Security Investigations (HSI) agents to workplace enforcement,
with charges brought against American businesses using illegal
aliens in lieu of American workers, in addition, of course, to
identifying and deporting those here illegally.
Reinstating third-country asylum is critical to keeping the
inflow of new cases down, while the Trump administration works
with Congress to build the capacity needed to finally catch up
on the caseload of illegal aliens already present in the United
States, a situation that is both dangerous and expensive. This
involves expanded deportation capacity, for example, more
immigration judges, prosecutors, and logistical support, as
President Trump has laid out the largest domestic logistical
undertaking of our lifetimes, that being the deportation of the
vast majority of illegal aliens present in the United States.
If the incoming administration makes significant progress
on its deportation goals, likely only with the cooperation and
assistance of Congress, then America will reap the benefits in
greater security, lower crime, more job opportunities for poor
Americans, higher wages for poor Americans, as we saw in 2019,
and more predictable and manageable budgets for State and local
governments that are so severely affected by the invasion of
illegal aliens that America has suffered for so many years.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Paul. Thank you.
We also will welcome Andrew Arthur to our Committee today.
Mr. Arthur is the Resident Fellow in Law and Policy at the
Center for Immigration Studies. Prior to joining the Center in
April 2017, he served as the Staff Director for the National
Security Subcommittee at the U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Governmental Reform. That is a
mouthful.
Mr. Arthur previously served as an Immigration Judge at the
York Immigration Court in York, Pennsylvania, where he heard
thousands of deportation, removal, and bond cases, and
considered applications for asylum and other forms of
immigration-related relief. He has testified before Congress on
13 occasions, and has been quoted in numerous publications.
Mr. Arthur, welcome to the Committee. You are now
recognized for your opening statement.
TESTIMONY OF ANDREW R. ARTHUR,\1\ RESIDENT FELLOW IN LAW AND
POLICY, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES
Mr. Arthur. Chairman Paul, Ranking Member Peters, and
Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me here today
to discuss the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), better known
as Remain in Mexico.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Arthur appears in the Appendix on
page 44.
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MPP was implemented in response to an unprecedented surge
in third-country nationals and adults with children and family
units entering illegally across the Southwest border. Of the
more than 153,000 migrants crossing the border in the first
three months of fiscal year (FY) 2019, nearly half, just over
49 percent, were in family units. That is an issue for a number
of reasons, the most prominent being that, as a bipartisan
panel revealed in April 2019, the children in those family
units are traumatized and exposed to unconscionable risks
during the illegal journey here. That panel also highlighted,
``reports that female parents of minor children had been raped,
that many migrants are robbed, and that they and their children
are held hostage and extorted for money.''
Things became so bad in March 2019, that then DHS Secretary
Kirstjen Nielsen declared a border emergency. She explained the
system was in freefall, as her department scrambled to care for
families in which migrant children were, ``arriving sicker than
ever before,'' after being, ``exploited along the treacherous
trek to the United States.''
It was against this backdrop that the Trump administration
first implemented Remain in Mexico, using authority in Section
235(b)(2)(C) of the INA, DHS returned migrants back across the
border to await expedited asylum hearings at designated port
courts. Those whose claims were granted were admitted, while
migrants whose claims were denied were quickly remoted.
After a phased-in implementation and legal challenges, MPP
was up and running by October 2019, when DHS issued its
assessment of the program. DHS concluded that MPP was, ``an
indispensable tool in addressing the ongoing crisis at the
Southern border and restoring integrity to the immigration
system.''
Border encounters dropped by 64 percent between May and
September 2019, and encounters with, ``Central American
families who were the main driver of the crisis decreased by
approximately 80 percent,'' according to that assessment.
Remain in Mexico was implemented with the consent and
assistance of the government of Mexico. Returnees received
access to humanitarian care and assistance, food and housing,
work permits, and education in Mexico. Our State Department
funded a $5.5 million project in September 2019, to provide
housing in Mexican border cities to approximately 8,000
vulnerable third-country asylum seekers and others, as well as
$11.9 million in cash-based assistance to migrants to move out
of shelters while they were in MPP.
The Biden administration suspended and then twice ended
MPP, and the impacts of those decisions are being felt
throughout U.S. cities and towns to this day.
Congress has given DHS three deterrents it can use to curb
illegal migration to this country: (1) barriers and other
infrastructure; (2) criminal prosecution for improper entry
under Section 275 of the INA; and (3) detention, which is
mandated by statute under Section 235(b) of the INA for illegal
entrants and other inadmissible aliens.
Under a 2015 district court decision, however, DHS cannot
detain children and family units for more than 20 days, and
separating families has proven unacceptable. Consequently,
adult migrants and smugglers use those children as pawns in an
effort to enter and remain here indefinitely. In addition, a
recent settlement agreement entered into by the Biden
administration bars DHS from prosecuting adults and family
units for improper entry, with only limited exceptions,
children or a stay-out-of-jail-free card.
And while barriers impede illegal entry, they cannot
prevent it. Remain in Mexico, under Section 235(b)(2)(C) of the
INA is a potential fourth deterrent because it discourages
illegal entrants from gaming our humanitarian protections by
making bogus or weak asylum claims, solely to be released to
live and work in the United States for years while their claims
are being considered. Asylum claims were expedited under MPP
and decisions issued more quickly. Those meriting asylums could
thus begin their new lives sooner than if they had been
released.
Critics have argued MPP returnees were subject to threats
and predation while awaiting their hearings. In terminating MPP
in October 2021, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted it
was, ``possible that such humanitarian challenges could be
lessened through the expenditure of significant government
resources.''
Respectfully, the migrant crisis over the past four years
has already cost taxpayers tens to hundreds of billions of
dollars, including at the State and local level, where
officials have no say over immigration decisions made in
Washington. If this is simply a question of money, my question
to you is what price do you put on border security.
Thank you again, and I look forward to your questions.
Chairman Paul. Thank you.
We are also pleased to welcome Adam Isacson to our
Committee. Mr. Isacson has worked on defense security and
peace-building in Latin America since 1994. He now directs the
Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) program on defense
there, which monitors security trends in Americas, including
U.S. cooperation with security forces. Since 2011, Mr. Isacson
has also focused on border security. He has visited the U.S.-
Mexico border over 30 times, and has also completed field
research along nearly the entire border between Mexico and
Guatemala, in countries further south, also along the U.S.-
bound migration route.
Before coming to WOLA in 2010, Mr. Isacson worked on Latin
America demilitarization at the Center for International
Policy.
Mr. Isacson, welcome to the Committee. You are now
recognized for your opening statement.
TESTIMONY OF ADAM ISACSON,\1\ DIRECTOR FOR DEFENSE OVERSIGHT,
THE WASHINGTON OFFICE ON LATIN AMERICA
Mr. Isacson. Thank you, Chairman Paul. Thank you, Ranking
Member Peters. It is good to meet both of you. Thank you,
Members of the Committee. It is great to be here with you
today.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Isacson appears in the Appendix
on page 78.
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Now I did do a lot of field work and data work along the
U.S.-Mexico border when Remain in Mexico, MPP, was first
implemented. The evidence I saw was clear. Remain in Mexico
enriched the cartels. It failed to meaningfully deter
migration, and it soured relations with a key ally. Pursuing it
again would harm U.S. interests.
Instead, I urge the Committee to focus on fixing our asylum
system, which I agree is broken. That system does save tens of
thousands of lives every year, but we need it to be both fair
and efficient. No one supports the idea of five-year waits for
asylum decisions. The backlogs do create a pull factor of their
own. But this is an administrative challenge, and the U.S.
Government is good at administrative challenges. It is a
question of processes, case management, adjudication, all of
which are lacking.
People truly did suffer while remaining in Mexico. I
personally heard harrowing accounts of torture and abuse.
Nearly all that abuse was the work of organized crime groups,
the cartels, the cartels' cruelty, their sadism. It was not
just a human rights issue, though. The criminals are not
barbaric just for its own sake. This is their economic model,
and that makes it a national security issue.
Organized crime is trying to extract as much money out of
migrants and their loved ones as it can, while those migrants
are present on the turf that they control. Cartels fight each
other for this business. Remain in Mexico kept migrants on
cartels' turf for very long periods of time, months or even
years, in Mexican border cities, waiting for their hearings.
MPP created a new market--opportunity for cartels.
That is a big difference from CBP One. The app also
requires months-long waits to come to a U.S. port of entry, but
it makes it easier to wait elsewhere in Mexico, in parts of
Mexico that are safer than the Northern border zone, where
States are under State Department travel warnings because of
cartel crime and kidnapping.
When outsiders are waiting for months in Mexico's border
zone, on the other hand, they are sitting ducks for the
cartels. First there is extortion. Foreigners have to pay just
to exist for a long time in cartel-dominated neighborhoods. If
you do not pay, it is not safe to go outside your shelter, even
if the United States is helping support it.
Second, if people wanted to just give up on this long wait
for MPP, the cartels were there offering coyote services, the
chance to cross the border and try to evade border patrol for
thousands of dollars.
Third was kidnapping for ransom. Cartels held people in
horrific conditions, raping, torturing them as their relatives,
frequently in the United States, had to wire thousands of
dollars to get them free. The financial scale of that
exploitation was staggering.
Let's just consider it. Imagine that each person in MPP, on
average, had to pay about $1,000 in cartel fees. I ran this
number by a few folks I have worked with at the border, and
they laughed at how low that estimate was. But if it is right,
71,000 people in the MPP program times $1,000, that is $71
million that cartels made, in addition to what they were
already making as a result of MPP. That is an amount that you
could use to pay the base salaries of 1,000 Border Patrol
agents.
For all that, Remain in Mexico really did not do that much
to reduce or control migration. For more than 10 years now
there has been a series of crackdown on asylum seekers. My
testimony maps them out in a graphic that looks like this, if
you look at the written testimony. These crackdowns follow the
same pattern. You get an initial drop in migration, then it
lasts a few months, and then there is a rebound. Classic
example is Title 42 and all of its expansions. We saw migration
increase, even though there was no asylum access at the border.
After it expanded in June 2019, Border Patrol's
apprehensions did fall for four months. They fell steeply. Then
the migration numbers plateaued, at the same level they were in
mid-2018, at the same level they were, on average, for all
eight years of Barack Obama's administration, and that is where
the number stayed. Then in the first months of 2020, Border
Patrol apprehensions started rising slowly, maybe not even
slowly. They were on pace to grow by double-digit percentage
margins in March 2020, but then Coronavirus Disease 2019
(COVID-19) came, and that all ended that month, 10 days early,
so we never really could tell.
Title 42 ended up eclipsing Remain in Mexico. No more
hearing dates for anybody. Asylum seekers just got expelled.
Remain in Mexico basically became irrelevant for the last 10
months of Donald Trump's administration. We are talking about a
few dozen people a month by the end.
MPP also strained relations with Mexico. The Mexican
government at first resisted the program, agreeing to it only
after very heavy diplomatic pressure. This complicated
cooperation on other shared priorities, and there are a lot of
shared priorities in our relationship with Mexico, from trade
to fentanyl. Mexico is one of the 10 largest countries in the
world in population, number 14 economy in the world. Even if we
did not have this 2,000-mile border there would be a whole host
of interests that we do not want to spend too much bandwidth
on, trying to get them to agree on one program, a program that
actually strengthens drug cartels and actually does not have
that much of an effect on migration.
Thank you. I really look forward to your questions and
discussion, and I appreciate the invitation.
Chairman Paul. Thank you all for your testimony. I am going
to defer my questions for now and recognize Ranking Member
Peters.
Senator Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to first ask
for unanimous consent (UC) to submit 20-plus statements for the
record\1\ from a wide range of organizations against the
reinstatement of this program, including from the nonpartisan
American Immigration Council (AIC), Church World Services
(CWS), and the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP).
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\1\ The statements submitted by Senator Peters appears in the
Appendix on page 102.
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Chairman Paul. Without objection.
Senator Peters. Mr. Isacson, can you start with telling us,
who actually benefited the most from the Remain in Mexico
policy?
Mr. Isacson. The biggest financial benefit definitely went
to the cartels, who suddenly had this large base of people they
could extort.
Senator Peters. So could you walk us through what it looked
like when an asylum seeker was returned to Mexico under the
Remain in Mexico policy?
Mr. Isacson. It is pretty vivid, and actually, even if you
or I were to walk across the port of entry into a town like
Matamoros or Reynosa, you would see cartel spies everywhere.
You would see people, a nice man in a suit, just standing
there. He is looking to see who is crossing. The guy selling
tamales on the bridge, he is looking to see who is crossing.
Now imagine you are somebody who is maybe wearing DHS-
issued sweatpants, and maybe a bag that says DHS on it, or
shoes with no shoelaces on them. You are immediately seen as
somebody who is ripe to be kidnapped. It is widely known that
the first half hour after being returned to Mexico, go from
MPP, always at the same exit, usually roughly the same time of
day, was a very dangerous time for you.
Then you would be in a shelter, sometimes U.S.-funded,
sometimes a government-run shelter, sometimes charity-run, and
it was pretty clear that you could not leave unless you had
made an extortion payment to the cartels.
Senator Peters. How does this type of activity that you
have just described, taking place right across from the border,
how does that impact our national security?
Mr. Isacson. By enriching the cartels and giving them a new
income stream, it strongly impacts our national security. We do
not want transnational organized crime to be wealthier that
close to our border line. In the recent years, even since, as
we have had higher numbers of migrants coming, it has become
bigger and bigger business for the cartels. Instead of mom-and-
pop smugglers, we now have Sinaloa and Jalisco and La Linea,
and other major national cartels in Mexico, running the
business and fighting each other for it. That just makes it
more dangerous for the United States.
Senator Peters. Yes, and the money the cartels are raising,
they are getting enriched because of this policy, they
basically increase their other operations like sending fentanyl
across the border, to poison our kids and our people.
Mr. Isacson. Yes. It costs only about $60,000 to set up a
fentanyl lab. What they are making from that extortion money
could be reinvested in that.
Senator Peters. Actually helps their drug trafficking in
the United States.
Mr. Isacson. It is all fungible.
Senator Peters. Can the Remain in Mexico policy even be
reimplemented without the cooperation of the government of
Mexico?
Mr. Isacson. It involves sending people to Mexico's
sovereign territory, so I do not know how you could send people
back, without Mexico eventually noticing that you are doing
that.
Senator Peters. That is for sure. We know the cartels have
long made money off of the smuggling routes to the United
States, but how did cartels exploit the Remain in Mexico policy
to threaten them? You have talked a little bit about that, but
maybe elaborate more.
Mr. Isacson. How did they use the policy to threaten
people?
Senator Peters. Yes.
Mr. Isacson. They knew that people had a date by which they
had to get back to the port of entry. They had an appointment.
They had to be there. And boy, does that make them motivated to
pay more, to have to call more of their relatives and get that
ransom money wired, which, of course, is a crime that involves
U.S. soil, somebody on U.S. soil having to wire the money. It
made them more motivated and raised the prices that they could
charge.
Senator Peters. We have seen changes in migration patterns
worldwide recently, and during the initial implementation of
Remain in Mexico my understanding is that a significant portion
of migrants encountered were from Mexico or Central America.
Mr. Isacson. Right.
Senator Peters. Because we live in a different world today,
how would today's immigration flows impact Mexico's ability to
accommodate a new Remain in Mexico?
Mr. Isacson. As late as 2020, 90 percent of your migrants
were from four countries, Mexico and the so-called Northern
Triangle of Central America. Now that is only 52 percent of the
total. You have a United Nations of people coming here. Last
year, one in nine were not even from this hemisphere. That is
because new routes have opened up, like the Darien Gap or
Nicaragua, and that does mean you have a lot more nationalities
that Mexico might be required to accept. Is Mexico going to
take Chinese people? Indians? Bangladeshis? Or even people from
Brazil or Haiti, who don't really speak Spanish? That would be
a huge issue to have to negotiate with the Mexicans.
Senator Peters. Mr. Isacson, because we want to address
border security asit is absolutely essential we do that, what
do you believe the United States can implement, along with our
other partners, to proactively address these worldwide
migration trends that have changed dramatically over the last
few years?
Mr. Isacson. Imagine we had an asylum system that could
hand out decisions in a matter of months, with full due process
and had that capacity. You would have a lot fewer people trying
to attempt to enter that system if they knew that the decision
would be turned around that way. You are not sitting here five
years with a work permit, unable to decide.
Imagine you had a program like CBP One that actually made a
lot of these entries and waits in Mexico--it is not a perfect
program, but it did make it more orderly. That would free up a
lot more Border Patrol agents to be on the line instead of
having to do this processing.
Senator Peters. Great. Thank you.
Chairman Paul. Senator Johnson.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think by now most
people have seen this chart.\1\ It has become a lot more famous
from when I started developing this as Chair of this Committee
back in 2015, different versions of it. This chart I gave to
President Trump in April 2024, that he liked, adopted, started
using in the campaign, and only July 13th, turned his head and
saved his life. that is obviously the biggest benefit, the most
important benefit of this chart.
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\1\ The chart referenced by Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix
on page 99.
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But prior to that, what I like most about this chart is it
showed cause and effect. It showed the effect of different
policies, different court decisions, like the reinterpretation
of the Flores decision. But in particular it showed how
effective the Migrant Protection Program was, Remain in Mexico,
and it is obvious. Mr. Isacson and Senator Peters, I cannot
believe that you are sitting here telling us that MPP, the
Remain in Mexico, did not work. It obviously worked.
This was a crisis for the Trump administration, by the way,
crisis caused by deferred action on childhood arrivals (DACA).
That is the catalyst that sparked all of these crises since
that was implemented in June 2012. When President Trump faced
his immigration crisis he did something about it. He used the
existing law. It was a lie over the last four years that
President Biden did not have the executive authority to secure
the border. He had it. He used that exact executive authority
to open the border back up and caused this clear and present
danger to America.
I think it was actually the Ranking Member that said we are
dumping fuel on the fire of the cartels. At this point it is
570 encounters a day. I think the record was over 14,000 in
December 2023. When you have those migrants paying 5, 7, 10,
$15,000 to the cartels, I mean, do the math--$10,000 times,
versus $1,000 for the thousands that were in migrant
protection.
We were protecting people by deterring them from trying to
come into this country illegally. There is no doubt about it.
The cost, we have, I think, the House Subcommittee on this has
determined the cost of taking care of this massive flow of
illegal immigration. It was $150 billion a year. Again, have
you not heard of the taunting trees, the panty trees, the rape
trees during this time? The cartels are just basically taunting
CBP by putting the undergarments of the young girls that they
rape, but they are also getting 5, 7, $10,000 for the
trafficking.
There is absolutely no doubt the Remain in Mexico program
worked, that the President has the authority to do so, to
implement this, and implement it again. I think it is important
to note that one of the keys was the threat of tariffs against
Mexico. We needed Mexico's cooperation here. We implemented MPP
I think in the summer of 2019, and we still saw numbers rise
until President Trump called up the President of Mexico and
said, ``We need your cooperation. You are going to hit with
tariffs,'' and you see the dramatic result.
Mr. Cuccinelli, can you talk again about what authority
exists. Talk about, really, what a lie we have been told over
the last four years that President Biden did not have the
authority. He obviously did. He used the same authority to open
up the border and cause this catastrophe.
Mr. Cuccinelli. Yes, he absolutely did, and the cartels
have never been so flush with cash because of that open borders
policy. I would point out, we look at the border from the
north, and if you think about Mexico, and the northern part of
Mexico, but not just the northern part of Mexico. The Federal
Government of Mexico does not control Mexico. One-sixth of the
country is controlled by the cartels. One-sixth is contested
between the cartels and the government. Mr. Isacson says within
30 minutes of leaving MPP, the same thing happens over and
over. That cannot happen if Mexico is actually policing the
border, which they are not, and they are not able to.
I would also add that a lot of the violence that occurred
both between Mexicans, and directed at illegal migrants in
Mexico by the cartels, over the years has been fairly widely
reported in Mexico. There are reasons the cartels go after
those journalists. But we do not see any of that reporting
here, none of it. It is brutal, it is vicious, and it has been
fueled by the explosion in traffic in the last four years. The
President has the tools to turn that traffic off.
We saw, as you noted on the chart, that you can have an
effect on the direction of the traffic, meaning the numbers. I
fully expect President Trump will do that. Remain in Mexico is
just one tool. There are other tools, as well.
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Paul. Senator Blumenthal.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BLUMENTHAL
Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Mr. Chair. I agree there are
other tools, and in 2013, we passed, in the U.S. Senate, a
comprehensive immigration reform that, in fact, would have
implemented those other tools toward securing our border. I
continue to support more robust efforts at border security. I
think that view is shared by most, if not all, of us here in
the U.S. Senate. I am still hopeful that we can do another
comprehensive border security and immigration reform that
addresses all of the facets of our broken immigration system. I
am hoping that President Trump, once he is sworn in, will
pursue that objective and he will find, I think, very favorable
responses on both sides of the aisle here in the U.S. Congress.
I am, as a former prosecutor, and Mr. Cuccinelli shares
part of my background as a State Attorney General (SAG),
focused on how we actually deal with the nuts and bolts of
these cartels. I think all three of you have extensive
experience in this area. Could the Mexican government, in
cooperation with our law enforcement, be doing more to counter
these cartels, under the authority, and I agree the President
has the authority to do more, and how would those resources be
focused? Specifically, how can we secure more cooperation from
the government of Mexico?
Let me go down the line and I am going to stop talking so
that I give each of you the maximum amount of time.
Mr. Cuccinelli. Senator, this is an area where Congress
could be quite helpful. One of the things that is thrown out
all the time is declaring the cartels terrorist organizations,
foreign terrorist organizations. If you look at the statutes
that address foreign terrorist organizations, they come with
very sweeping connections to the rest of the community. That
statute was designed with isolated cells of Islamists in mind.
The cartels are integrated into the communities. They take
advantage of the communities they live in. They make money off
them. We need a different statute. It would be very helpful if
Congress formulated a much more surgical approach to dealing
with something like the cartels, that use terrorist tactics for
organized crime goals, and they are quasi-governments, because
they control territory in Mexico that the Mexican government
simply will not contest. This government will not. The last
administration would not. Granted, that is a significant
challenge.
That is an area where this Congress could be quite helpful
is in providing more of those tools, specifically to go after
the cartels. People think in terms of kinetic action, but they
are about money. When you boil it down, they are about money.
Any legislation along those lines should include the ability of
the Treasury Department to seek out and seize their assets
around the world.
Senator Blumenthal. Thank you. Mr. Arthur.
Mr. Arthur. Senator, I wholeheartedly agree with Attorney
General Cuccinelli. It is important to note the fact we talk
about the impacts the cartels have on the United States. It is
deleterious. It is horrible with the fentanyl. They have an
equally deleterious corrosive effect in Mexico. Mexico has been
waging a drug war now since the early 2000's. Mr. Isacson could
tell you all about that, 34, 37,000 people dead. The problem is
that when Mexico cuts off the head of the cartel, it just gets
worse because the people that come up underneath are even
worse.
We need to work very closely with them. Ken is right. Money
is the lifeblood that fuels the cartels. We need to have drug
reduction in the United States. I do not think Americans
understand. Women get raped in Mexico because they use drugs in
the United States. If they knew that, I think that would be a
game changer.
But yes, I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Cuccinelli. We
need to have additional authorities, go after them, seize the
money, cutoff the head, and help the Mexican government help
themselves.
Senator Blumenthal. Mr. Isacson.
Mr. Isacson. You are going to hear a lot of consensus here.
I would add the element of corruption, though, even though it
might make the Mexican government uncomfortable to talk about
it. An organized crime group is not an insurgency. These are
not leftist guerillas. This is not Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria (ISIS). If you pound them harder, you have not weakened
them. You have not gained control over that territory.
They are harder to fight than an insurgency because they
depend on their relationship with corrupt elements in the
Mexican government. Mexican security chief, for six years, is
now in jail in the United States for having worked with the
Sinaloa cartel. We have to know who we are working with, and if
you cannot depend on your partner to actually help
disarticulate those organized crime groups, you have to take
that oxygen away from them.
Mr. Cuccinelli. Can I offer one more thought, just very
short, that it should be a strategic goal of the United States
to help the Mexican government get control of 100 percent of
Mexico. Just to put it in very strategic national level terms.
Senator Blumenthal. I think these thoughts are really
excellent. My time has expired, but I would like to pursue the
suggestion that seems to unite all of you, that we need to
develop the tools, the law enforcement tools, to treat these
cartels as terrorist organizations. Their ideology is simply
dollars and cents. It is not about converting the world to
another religion or another political system. It is about money
for them, and I think they need to be treated as terrorist
organizations, even if they are of a different brand.
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Paul. Senator Lankford.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD
Senator Lankford. Mr. Chair, thank you. Thanks to all of
you for the work that you do on this.
To go back to the dollars and cents of what Senator
Blumenthal was talking about, in 2022 I was at the Rio Grande
Valley (RGV) and asked some of the Border Patrol folks there
how much do the cartels make just trafficking people in this
region, just this region, which is that section of the border,
how much they make just trafficking people. The response was,
``We estimate $153 million a week that they make trafficking
people.''
The open border policy that happened in the last four years
has facilitated incredible financial gain for the cartels. When
they were making $153 million a week moving people through at
the highest numbers they possibly could, that facilitated that.
In addition to that, other criminal organizations around
the world saw how much money the cartels were making, and they
wanted a piece of the travel agent money, and we started
getting ISIS individuals coming in from Tajikistan because they
were being facilitated in my criminal organizations coming in,
because it was easy to move. This is incredibly important to be
able to shut the money down. I do agree with Senator Blumenthal
on that, and it is incredibly important that we actually use
the authority that is already there to be able to get this
done.
Mr. Cuccinelli, thanks again for all the work that you have
done on this for so long on this. You were very outspoken on
H.R. 2, which is a great bill, very thorough, and you were very
forward to say Congress needs to pass this bill. What are the
aspects of that that you would say still need to be done?
Mr. Cuccinelli. Well, the Chair started with the
President's authority to close the border, which I agree he has
now. But H.R. 2 really starts to get at the longer-term
enforcement arc, processing of folks, and keeping them out,
closing loopholes. Even if you close the border between the
legal ports of entry, people will still come to the ports of
entry, and there will be, I will call it, a bit of a
negotiation, a bit of a game there about who can get in and who
cannot. In the last four years, everybody has gotten in.
You really need to give your Office of Field Operations
(OFO) officers in those ports of entry the legal tools to turn
people away, anyone away, who cannot demonstrate a then-current
basis to be in the country, and H.R. 2 really advanced that.
As you know, Senator, this whole area of law has been
tangled up in knots with court rulings.
Senator Lankford. Yes, we were talking before about the
Flores.
Mr. Cuccinelli. Right. Flores is a major one.
Senator Lankford. That is an issue that has to be settled
in law. We have to be able to go and engage in Congress to say
what this is going to be, because the court just literally
created the 20-day time period.
Mr. Cuccinelli. It did.
Senator Lankford. Now we are stuck with it because Congress
has not been able to respond. Mr. Arthur.
Mr. Arthur. Senator, if I could add to that, there was a
truly bipartisan report that was issued in April 2019 by the
CBP Families and Children Care Panel. Leon Fresco, who was
Barack Obama's guy at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), was
on that panel. They talked about all of these issues. They
suggested solutions, including processing and detention centers
down at the border. But they also called on Congress to fix
Flores. Congress has the ability to fix it. Again, when there
is a bipartisan recommendation like that, it is almost
incumbent on Congress to at least give it a look, because this
is a huge problem. The kids are suffering. I mean, everything
that you have heard today is caused by that.
Senator Lankford. Yes, it is. I look at things like safe
third country as an area, trying to be able to get clarity
there, ending the parole abuse, which we do not have a clear
definition of humanitarian parole. We have to be able to make
that very clear. Dealing with a Title 42-like authority for
emergency moments, to say when the cartels hold a bunch of
folks and they rush a Border Patrol station or an area, at that
point what to be able to do on that. The Trafficking Victims
Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), Flores, all these
different areas. These are areas that Congress has to be able
to act on and provide clarity, because courts are going to
define it in different ways. The rules are even different in
Texas than what they are in California or in Arizona, based on
different court actions. We have to be able to have some
clarity on this, and that is an area where Congress has to be
able to act.
Saying all that, the other issue that was brought up before
was about what are called special interest aliens. These are
folks that are coming in from Tajikistan and other areas, that
the Mexicans are not going to take back. These are recalcitrant
countries that are not accepting folks back. We have to have
some sort of legal response, but we also have the authority of
the administration to be able to put State Department pressure
on some of these countries, as well. But this is an area that
we have to be able to clarify in law on the recalcitrant
country.
Any comments from any of you specifically about those
individuals? Mr. Arthur.
Mr. Arthur. Senator Lankford, when I was the Chief of the
National Security Law Division at the U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS), I worked for Janet Reno. Whenever
we picked up a special interest alien at the border, Ms. Reno
would call me day and night. We got a lot of calls from the
Command Center in the middle of the night.
Today, those individuals are being released into the United
States. They are being processed by line Border Patrol agents.
This is a completely ridiculous situation. We have heard the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Chris Wray talk
about every light is blinking.
I served at the INS before September 11th, we are in a
situation right now that is so much worse than what we were
looking at then.
Senator Lankford. We had 70,000 people that were special
interest aliens (SIAs) that came in last year, that we know of
at this point from DHS records, and FBI told me, point blank,
because Chris Wray sat right there and I asked him, he told us
point blank that he is not aware of all the SIAs that are
coming in. The DHS was not informing him of those individuals,
so we are not tracking those once they are in the country.
Mr. Chair, thank you.
Chairman Paul. Senator Kim.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR KIM
Senator Kim. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the three
of you for coming on out here. I am Senator Andy Kim from New
Jersey.
When I have gone around New Jersey and talked to a wide
array of people in terms of some of our objectives, what are we
trying to achieve when it comes to the border, when it comes to
immigration, a couple of things came up over and over again.
No. 1, about making sure that we can provide security for our
Nation, keeping our communities safe, our families safe. Two,
addressing the migrant backlog, just the amount of pressure
that we are feeling in different towns, communities, cities all
over the country. Three, about how do we try to have an orderly
process. I think everyone was in agreement. We are a sovereign
nation. We should have control over our sovereign borders,
whether air, land, or sea.
I try to approach this in that kind of lens, and I
appreciate your thoughts on other types of categories to kind
of think through. Mr. Isacson, I think I would like to start
with you. When it comes to the security, I think you made a
compelling argument about some of the challenges faced by the
cartels. As Mr. Cuccinelli, Mr. Arthur, and others have also
articulated, we continue to face these challenges with cartels
now. It was not just unique to that moment where Remain in
Mexico was in place.
I guess I wanted to just ask you, in particular, when it
came to the Remain in Mexico period, how did that affect our
security specifically? I heard a lot about the atrocious
behaviors and how it affected those that were waiting. Was
there a particular effect on us there, or is it just
cumulative? I mean, we are experiencing a lot of those problems
right now from cartels. Was there something unique about that
moment that Remain in Mexico empowered the cartels to be able
to achieve?
Mr. Isacson. I would say both during the Remain in Mexico
period and also since, when you have seen this larger surge of
migration in the Biden years. You have seen cartels get
wealthier. You have seen them consolidate. You have seen,
rather than smugglers just paying a fee for the right to be in
a territory, the cartels themselves were taking over that
territory, which made them more wealthy.
How does that affect us in the United States? Really, it is
more indirect. Having wealthier cartels who can reinvest in
more criminal activity that ultimately crosses the border
affects us.
We have not seen what you would call spillover violence, or
cartels actually carrying out their hits or their kidnappings
very much on the U.S. side. The same way they would not do that
in a wealthy neighborhood in Mexico City because they want to
live there, they do not do anything on the U.S. side. They have
their kids going to school here, et cetera. They also do not
want to do anything that would trigger a border closure.
You do not always feel it in day-to-day side on the U.S.
side, but you do feel it indirectly.
Senator Kim. Yes. I appreciate it. I do not want to linger
too much on it because I think you have answered this. I think,
again, there is wide agreement across bipartisan about wanting
to go after the cartels, making sure we have that security.
Mr. Isacson and Mr. Cuccinelli, you both raised something
in your remarks, talking about that orderly process, addressing
that migrant backlog, more than one way we can do that. Remain
in Mexico tried to get at it from one angle. One thing that
kind of seemed to stretch across is that need for some type of
orderly process, whether an increase in judges or other aspects
of that, that try to shorten that timetable, shorten the window
so that we could try to adjudicate this, and that will help
bring down the backlog.
I guess I just wanted to ask each of you, is that an area
that we can find agreement on? Is that a place where we can
drill in on as a Committee, to be able to try to address? Why
don't we start with Mr. Isacson and make our way down.
Mr. Isacson. I hope so. Section 208 of the INA says that if
you are on U.S. soil and you fear for your life if you are
returned, you do have the right to ask for asylum and get due
process. Now, whether you are going to do that harshly or
whether you are going to do that gently, right now you have
only got 700 judges and 700 asylum officers, more or less, to
do that entire backlog. We need more capacity.
Senator Kim. Is everyone in agreement we need more than
700? Mr. Arthur.
Mr. Arthur. Yes. Having been an immigration judge myself, I
ran a very busy docket. My wife did not see me much, and
neither did my son.
But the important thing to keep in mind, Senator Kim, when
you are talking about this, is how effective detention is. If
individuals know that they are going to be detained until they
are actually granted asylum, people with bad asylum claims are
not going to come. That is good for two reasons. One, because
it makes it easier for Border Patrol. Two, people who deserve
asylum need to be allowed to restart their lives in the United
States. A lot of them have family back home who are in danger,
too. As soon as we give the asylum, you can bring your family
to the United States.
But when I left the bench in 2015, the median detention
time for people, basically the time it took to do their asylum
claims, was 36 days. When you contrast that to 846 days or
1,013 days, what it has been in recent years, that is a
problem.
One of my facilities that I heard cases from was a family
facility in Berks Shelter in Pennsylvania. Nobody wants to
detain families. But it was the most humane situation you could
imagine. If I say it looked like a college campus, my college
campus did not look that well. I went to University of Virginia
(UVA).
You could do it in a humanitarian manner, do it quickly,
get it done. We need more resources. Seven hundred thirty
judges is not enough.
Mr. Cuccinelli. If I may, just very briefly, we heard talk
about the CBP app and how you wait at home to do that. Well
really, that is what you should be doing with your application.
You should be applying from your home country, and we should be
leaving people in their home country or putting them back in
their home country pending the outcome of any process, to deter
bad actors from coming, but also so that we are in a position
to process the people who are playing by the rules and fitting
within the boundaries of our laws as opposed to gaming them.
Senator Kim. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Paul. Senator Scott.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SCOTT
Senator Rick Scott. Mr. Cuccinelli, can I ask you, and
maybe I do not understand the law well enough. Let's say they
come from a country that they do not want to accept the
individual back, but they get into Mexico, and then they? come
to the United States, why shouldn't that be Mexico's problem.
Why should we just say, ``You are the one that let them into
your country.'' I do not get why it is our problem. It is their
problem.
Mr. Cuccinelli. I agree, Senator.
Senator Rick Scott. Raise their tariffs until they do it.
They are the ones that opened their border, right, to allow
them into the United States.
Mr. Cuccinelli. Mexico has long had very permissive entry
into Mexico, and they are very happy to shuttle people along to
our border. I agree with you 100 percent. We talk about MPP and
agreement of Mexico, and so forth, but one of the changes in
the universe of illegal immigration to our borders now is how
much of the rest of the world, other than this hemisphere, is
showing up there.
I think Mexico would start to finally develop some vetting
for people coming into Mexico if we dumped everybody back into
Mexico. There are people in this room I am sure would not like
that, and it would be ugly for a period of time. But if people
knew they could not get into the United States, and they would
not be allowed to wait around for the 1,013 days for the
hearing, that they would not show up for, they will not come in
the first place, overwhelmingly, which again, also allows you
to properly treat the people playing by the rules, who are also
delayed because of all of these backlogs.
Senator Rick Scott. So why don't we do it?
Mr. Cuccinelli. I think it is just a question of political
will. We want to be cooperative with Mexico.
Senator Rick Scott. When they are not cooperative with us?
Mr. Cuccinelli. When they are not cooperative with us. When
Donald Trump rattles the tariff sword, as he did in 2019, they
need us economically more than we need them. I would say one of
the mistakes people make is to think of Mexico as an ally.
Mexico is not an ally to the United States. It is a neighbor,
and we want to get along with our neighbors. But not all
neighbors are allies. Mexico operates in many ways that are
very inimical to the well-being of the United States and our
security and the people who live here.
I think that, frankly, a period of being much tougher, as
you described, Senator, will result, after you get through that
hump and the difficulty that will arise with Mexico because
they will not want to be treated that way, that they will
adjust. They will adjust. When Mexico wants to be tough with
their immigration laws, they are so much faster than we are,
and they are so much tougher than we are. It would shock you to
see the comparison.
Senator Rick Scott. Do you think the cartels should be
designated as terrorist organizations?
Mr. Cuccinelli. I actually do not support that because with
the current foreign terrorist organization designation statute,
that sweeps in a massive proportion of the people in northern
Mexico who you would not really want to be targeting. Again, as
I mentioned earlier, it is because that statute was really
drafted to get after cells, not an organized crime entity that
has integrate itself into the community, and frankly, is a de
facto government in many parts of Mexico.
We do need a new statute to give the President the tools,
the Treasury the tools to get after the cartels, both as a
matter of kinetic action, and when that is appropriate--you all
set the boundaries on that--and to get after their finances,
which, frankly, I think you should be unleashed a great deal
more on.
Senator Rick Scott. Trump has said he is going to do all
these Executive Orders (EO) to secure the border day one,
right. What does he need besides what he has got the authority
to do under the Executive Orders?
Mr. Cuccinelli. As I mentioned earlier, in response to the
Chair's comments, I think it is a lot simpler under current
authority to secure the border than it is to deal with the rest
of the problem. All of the backlogs we were talking about, that
takes congressional support and help. The deportation effort
that the President has talked about is going to be complicated,
it is logistically challenging, and it will take support from
the Congress to really accomplish that.
Senator Rick Scott. Is it money or laws?
Mr. Cuccinelli. Both. We talked about Flores. That is one
you are all familiar with. It is an incredible hurdle to
running an orderly immigration system, all from one judge in
California, 30 years ago. You all can fix those things. TVPRA
Senator Lankford mentioned. There are some major holes that
were not know at the time, say, TVPRA, Flores created itself,
but that really only Congress can fix.
Senator Rick Scott. Did you want to add something?
Mr. Arthur. Yes, with respect to TVPRA, I have no doubt
that it was passed with the best of intentions. I knew many of
the people who worked on it. But it has truly had the worst
results, Senator Scott. Kids are trafficked today because of
TVPRA. President Obama asked Congress, in I believe it was June
2014, to close the loophole. Congress did not act. Washington
Post said that it inadvertently provides incentives to non-
Mexican children to come to the United States.
When Ken Cuccinelli, Barack Obama, and The Washington Post
all agree on something, it is probably time to take action.
Senator Rick Scott. Thank you.
Chairman Paul. Did you want to make a comment?
Mr. Isacson. Sure. Thank you. I would point out, the Flores
agreement prohibits locking up children for more than 20 days,
but it prohibits locking them up for more than 20 days in a
place that is not a licensed child care facility, like Berks
County is, with a very small capacity. We do not do that
because it is really expensive.
As far as the TVPRA, we need to find some middle ground. It
does create some very perverse incentives. On the other hand,
simply dropping unaccompanied children off in Managua or
Guatemala City may not be something we want to do willy nilly
either. We have to find some other way.
Chairman Paul. Senator Slotkin.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SLOTKIN
Senator Slotkin. Thank you. Thanks for being here today. I
am a new Senator. I am a former Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) officer and Pentagon official. I did three tours in Iraq
alongside the military, and my specialty is Middle East
terrorism and militias. I feel deeply connected to the mission
of protecting the homeland.
I think the thing that I struggle with is we are a nation
of immigrants with a broken immigration system. It is literally
working for no one. It works for no one, not employers, not our
economy. I am northern border State, Michigan, so we know what
an orderly, organized border looks like, right. We also know
what it is like when all our CBP officers and Border Patrol are
pulled off of our border to go serve down at the Southern
border. They no likey. Like we do not like that. We like our
cold climate. We do not like what is going on down there,
right. If we had the same situation, that Texas had, with all
these people coming over, Michiganders would lose their minds,
right.
In the House I did more border legislation than any
Michigander in the House, Democrat or Republican, because I
feel passionately about it. The thing I feel also passionately
about, though, is that no matter which administration is in, if
we only do border security and that is it, and not the
immigration part, then we are attacking the symptom and not the
overall system. We all know that the majority of those asylum
seekers who are trying to come over the borders are economic
migrants, like many of our grandparents, our great-
grandparents. They want a job. They want to make money. We
would all, in their shoes, probably be looking to do the same
thing. But our system does not work so they can quickly get in
and work at our employers who need them, in places like
Mackinac Island or our farms or whatever in Michigan.
I guess my question, yes or no, is just are we all in
agreement, Democrat and Republican, that we can attack border
security, and I am here for that. But it is not the entire
story. We also have to do immigration reform, and that includes
action by this body. We are not absolved, in this room, of
responsibility for what is going on at the border. Can I just
get a yes or no, starting with Mr. Cuccinelli?
Mr. Cuccinelli. You are not absolved. There is a lot more
than the border, a lot more than the border. You all have a lot
of work to do.
Senator Slotkin. Yes.
Mr. Arthur. Senator, our immigration system is out of line
with our leading allies, the United Kingdom (UK), Canada, New
Zealand, and Australia, when it comes to who we bring in. You
are absolutely correct.
Senator Slotkin. Great.
Mr. Isacson. Yes, there has been no important reform to our
immigration system since 1990.
Senator Slotkin. I just think that, and again, I am coming
from the House. I was on the Homeland Committee there for many
years. This is the most politicized issue I have ever seen, on
both sides of the aisle. We all have a shame on our heads for
not doing our work in this body, and I include myself in that.
It is hard, but we have to do it. I actually hope that for all
the tough stuff that Mr. Trump is saying, that it also comes
with ``border, and,'' all the other things. Our employers are
the ones who are going to be kind of screaming from the
rooftops on that.
I am interested in this idea, as someone who spent my first
half of my career going after terrorist groups, on using some
of the designations. I understand, and I think agree, that
militarizing and allowing hot pursuit, U.S. military, active in
Mexico without their permission creates a whole new set of
issues. But some of our most powerful financial tools on
designating a group as a terrorist group comes from when they
have any link in the United States. If ISIS is working and they
have someone who is sending them money, or they have some sort
of tie to an American citizen, those laws that we implemented
after September 11, 2001 (9/11) allow us to go after that
American citizen and attack in a way that is different.
Do these cartels, Mr. Cuccinelli, just because you are most
recently in, do they have American links that would allow us to
be effective if we used that, those statutes?
Mr. Cuccinelli. They do have extensive American links. They
are criminal networks by which they make money. There is two
ways they make money, overwhelmingly--drug trafficking and
human trafficking. In recent years, human trafficking has
probably rivaled the money they were making from drug
trafficking.
We talk about the Sinaloa cartel, Jalisco New Generation
Cartel (CJNG), they, in turn, work with the MS-13s and the
Latin Kings and so forth. There are relationships from Mexico
into the gangs, international gangs, that are operating in our
communities. When I was the Virginia AG, the most significant
violent crime threat in Virginia was MS-13. Now we have seen
Tren de Aragua to rival that in speed and violence.
But they do have connections. I would not say they are
necessarily connected to American citizens. They are importing
their allies through illegal immigration, who are working with
the gangs. The exception to that is where there is a financing
arrangement where people owe the cartels money after they
arrive into the United States, and running those to ground--and
frankly, banks in Central America participate in executing
those transactions.
Senator Slotkin. Yes. I know my time is up. I would just
say, I am super interested in that concept. Again, military
force is something a little different, and I would be real
cagey to be quickly authorizing something like that in Mexico.
But on the financial stuff I think it is an area of interest
for a lot of us.
Chairman Paul. Since you are new, we are not going to
institute the waterboarding that we often do----
Senator Moreno. I would not try that with her. [Laughter.]
Mr. Arthur. Mr. Chair, if I could add just one more thing,
very briefly. This is a real issue on the Northern border. We
think about the Southern border. We have seen Tren de Aragua in
Colorado, and there are reports that they are setting up cells
in places like Montana, because, of course, people like drugs
in the United States. They should, and they do. People like
drugs in Canada, too. The last thing we want to see is more
organized crime moving through the United States. That is the
only point I wanted to add.
Chairman Paul. I would just like to also interject briefly
on this. The question has always been, border security. What
about legal, lawful immigration? Can't we do something? I am
one who is for more lawful immigration. Not everybody in my
party is, but I am one that is for more lawful immigration. But
I am pretty much for zero illegal immigration. I do not want
millions of people coming in.
But I am more than willing to double the legal amount or
increase the legal amount. I have bills, like on the
employment-based (EB) visas, there is one through five, to
double the numbers and take off country caps. That is not a
particularly radical thing, and I have addressed it with people
across the aisle. The complaint I always get is, ``We don't
want to do a little bit. We want to do comprehensive.'' So the
word ``comprehensive'' has been bandied around for probably
decade.
The problem, and the big sticking point between one side
and the other is that those of us who are open to more lawful
immigration, we are really not open to making 18 million people
who came here illegally voters. It changes the country, and it
obscures things.
I have not seen this poll done, but if you were actually to
poll people here illegally--it is hard to poll people because
they do not want to come forward--but poll them; they are here
working--would you accept a work permit if it did not involve
voting, because you did break the law to get here. We would not
make you go back to Mexico. Some would say that. I would not
say that, actually. I would say you are a law-abiding person,
you want to work here, but you do not get to vote. Your kids
are going to get to vote, but you do not get to vote. There
would be some sort of process for that. But that would be the
in-between.
But most of the time the debate devolves toward one side
wants voting, pretty quick voting, and the other side says, we
are just not going to do that. That sort of has held up any
smaller incremental. I have an H-2A bill. There is H-2B, H-1B.
All these things could be made a little better and even expand
the numbers on, which some of us are for, but we never get
there. I think the impasse, at least in my opinion, is over the
aspect of quick voting for people who came in illegally. That
is just my opinion.
Next is Senator Moreno.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MORENO
Senator Moreno. Thank you for being here, and I may say
something that has never probably been said ever in the United
States of America, which I think there is common ground between
Ohio and Michigan on this topic. [Laughter.]
I thank you for your willingness to help on this.
Chairman Paul. You have gotten over that football game in
November, have you?
Senator Moreno. Could we strike that from the record? Is
that possible to do that?
When is Michigan playing on Monday? Oh, they are not. All
right. [Laughter.]
I just want to point that all. All righty.
Look, for me this is a very personal conversation because I
am the one person probably here on the panel, and testifying,
that would not literally be here if it was not for a legal
immigration system to this country. I was not born here. I was
born in Colombia. This country welcomed me and my family.
This issue does not have to be difficult. We have made it
very difficult. I can tell you, after campaigning 2,000 miles a
week to every corner of the State of Ohio, I hear voters, and I
am sure my colleagues do too, say, ``Why can't you fix this?
This is not intellectually complicated. It really isn't.''
I would start with a simple premise that I would ask the
three of you to answer. Should we have an immigration system
that benefits the United States of America as the No. 1
criteria for any legal immigration? Yes or no.
Mr. Cuccinelli. That absolutely should be the priority.
Immigration for America is for the benefit of America, first
and foremost. It is true that the immigrants benefit, but that
is a secondary benefit to the focus of a nation. We have to
take care of ourselves first, and we have not done that for
decades.
Mr. Arthur. U.S. citizenship is probably the most precious
status in the world, and we should treat it accordingly, and we
should use it to the benefit of all the American people.
Mr. Isacson. Absolutely, and I have heard some points of
agreement in this room today, which actually surprises me.
Senator Moreno. I think that is how we can move forward on
this. To Senator Paul's point, I do not think we have to boil
the ocean all at once. I think we can agree that, for example,
if we are talking about the hyper-specific legal status of
asylum that we can remember what it means.
I would ask each of you to define to me what it means to be
a refugee seeking asylum. For the people who may not be into
this topic every single day, what does that mean, to be a
refugee seeking asylum?
Mr. Cuccinelli. To put it in street terms, it is someone
who--it is easy to use countries as an example--Cuba, who is
persecuted for their political view by a Communist regime. I
actually think if you think of it in terms of persecution by
the government, and only the government, then you can start to
simplify this. For example, in the Western Hemisphere there is
probably not a good reason for any other countries other than
Venezuela and Cuba to ever have any asylees, period.
If you cannot be an asylee from any of the other countries,
because it is not the 1980s in Central America or Colombia, for
example, any longer, than you can streamline rather
dramatically the Western Hemisphere piece of that equation.
Senator Moreno. To follow up on that, is there a scenario
in which there are actual refugees from Mexico? In other words,
would you classify Mexico as even in the realm of possibility
of having actual refugees, people being persecuted for their
race, nationality, or religion, from Mexico?
Mr. Cuccinelli. No, and Mexico is, as noted, the 10th
largest country in the world, population-wise. It is the belief
of the U.S. Government, and it has been for a long time, that
if an individual who is a Mexican citizen is being persecuted
somewhere in Mexico, they can go elsewhere in Mexico, and that
is their solution, which is why the caveat of persecution by
the government is so important to qualify as an asylee.
Refugees can be different. They can be people who are
displaced by war, for example. We are one of the few countries
that uses those two terms somewhat differently, asylee and
refugee.
Mr. Arthur. So persecution is defined, you are eligible for
asylum if you show past persecution of wealth and a fear of
future persecution on account of your race, religion,
nationality, membership in a particular social group, or
political opinion. I took Mr. Isacson's line. But it also
important, Mr. Cuccinelli mentioned that that persecution has
to be either inflicted by the government or a group that the
government cannot or will not control.
When I was a Judge, I heard asylum claims from Ireland, the
United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia. Yes, there are
definitely safe places in this world, and we probably need to
work harder diplomatically to make those places safer, so that
people can return to them.
Mr. Isacson. There are a lot of asylum claims in the U.S.
Immigration Court from Mexican citizens. They do have a
relatively low approval rating, or grant rate, but it is not
zero. Basically the argument is usually the Mexican government
cannot or will not protect them from organized crime or from
whoever is discriminating against them.
Senator Moreno. Would it be reasonable not to allow asylum
seekers to cross through a non-designated port of entry? Would
that be reasonable, something that we can all agree on?
Mr. Cuccinelli. You mean would it be reasonable to not
accept asylum requests from people not coming through a legal
port of entry?
Senator Moreno. Correct.
Mr. Cuccinelli. That would be eminently reasonable. It is
unreasonable not to implement that sort of vetting.
Senator Moreno. You would agree, Mr. Isacson?
Mr. Isacson. That is the current rule in place right now,
and it does hurt some vulnerable people. There still has to be
a process.
Senator Moreno. OK.
Mr. Arthur. The best part about it, Senator Moreno, very
briefly, when we talked about the money paid to the cartels,
cartels charge a piso to cross their territory and to help you
get across the border illegally. If you come through the port
you take that money out of the cartels' pocket.
Chairman Paul. One follow-on to Senator Moreno's question.
He mentioned having a definition and having it be governmental,
and Mr. Cuccinelli, you responded, you thought maybe just Cuba
and Venezuela. Do you think the law permits a President to
define asylum that way now and just say Cuba and Venezuela,
those ought to be vetted, but nobody else is basically eligible
because there is no systemic governmental persecution?
Mr. Cuccinelli. I do think the authority, the regulatory
authority for the implementation of asylum exists to do that. I
would note that the State Department has been historically
wildly uncooperative in doing anything of that nature.
Chairman Paul. Senator Ernst.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ERNST
Senator Ernst. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you,
gentlemen, for being here today.
I would like to paint a little bit of a picture for
everyone. We have already purchased border wall materials, lots
of border wall materials. They were basically abandoned by the
Biden administration, so they are just sitting in Arizona and
other places, unused, and they are collecting dust in the
desert.
But here is kind of the kicker for everyone, is that they
are not just sitting there. They are actually protected by a
fence. If anybody sees the irony in that, I do, and I actually
saw it personally. The administration did everything with these
materials except actually build a wall. We are talking about
$250 million worth of materials that were purchased. They are
paid for. They could have bolstered our security. But instead
we have just left them there to waste.
This is to add insult to injury, every month the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers (USACE) spends $160,000 to store these
materials, 20,822 unused panels. These materials were
eventually auctioned off by the Biden administration, and those
that purchased the materials paid pennies on the dollar to buy
those items. That is a huge loss for taxpayers.
Mr. Cuccinelli, why don't we start with you, please. Can
you talk about the role that physical barriers play in securing
our border and the message that it is sending to the cartels
and other bad or illicit groups when the Federal Government
just leaves these materials unused, they are rusting away in
the desert, and how we should be thinking about border barriers
in the future with the incoming Trump administration.
Mr. Cuccinelli. Thank you, Senator, for that question.
First of all, the intentional abandonment of the border wall
materials was part of the open borders policy and narrative. It
was a visual part of that narrative. Unfortunately, it was
effective in inviting people from all over the world to come
across our border. We saw the numbers in the last four years on
one of the charts. They exploded, absolutely exploded. Because
it is not just our hemisphere so overwhelmingly any longer, we
have massively complicated every aspect of dealing with those
illegal immigrants.
The border barriers work when the political will is behind
those barriers to actually protect immigration law. The barrier
itself, however tall you make it, people can get over, and if
they get over and know they can stay, you might as well not put
it up in the first place.
But I will say that putting those barriers up
strategically, intelligently, helps keep your Border Patrol
agents safer. It helps them manage the illegal flows in ways
that are more predictable, and thus they can respond to them
better. You get more efficiency in your law enforcement, and
you get more safety. I know that is important to you and
everyone on this Committee.
All of those folks are safer when they have the wall, when
they have the road behind the wall, when the lights and the
technology are in place, that allow detection to take place out
at a distance, and allow your Border Patrol agents to respond
effectively, efficiently, and not in a harried, last-minute
sort of manner. They are safer and more effective.
Senator Ernst. Thank you. Yes, thank you very much. Eons
ago I served as a military engineer, and part of the role of
military engineers is to physically shape the battlefield and
direct the flow of the enemy. I am not saying that everyone
coming to the border is an enemy, but you understand the
illustration there.
Yes, Mr. Arthur.
Mr. Arthur. Senator, if I could, one, I would note the fact
that you and 39 of your colleagues sent a letter to the
Comptroller General (CG) in March 2021 about this.
Senator Ernst. Yes.
Mr. Arthur. I disagree with the Comptroller General's
opinion about the Impoundment Act. I think it was an
impoundment.
But the more important part of that is when we talk about
the border wall, we talk about the border wall system. It is
the wall and the roads and the lights, and the fiberoptic
cable. When you are out in the middle of the desert, when you
are far away from civilization, where much of the border is,
Border Patrol agents cannot just pull out their phone and use
cells, because there is no cell tower. That fiberoptic cable
would have enabled them to actually communicate.
When President Biden shut down the border wall system, he
stopped the cable. The lights sit unhooked up. We literally
leave our agents in the dark, blind, because we do not have
those things. The quicker we can get that up and running, the
better, the safer it is going to be for everybody.
Senator Ernst. Yes. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Thank you.
Chairman Paul. Senator Gallego.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR GALLEGO
Senator Gallego. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our
witnesses, and thank you for being here.
As we examine the first Trump administration's Remain in
Mexico policy, it is important to remember that there is no
substitute, in my opinion, for comprehensive immigration reform
as part of that overall strategy, and that Congress has the
sole authority and responsibility for making that happen. We
owe it to our border communities and all Americans to fix the
system.
Mr. Isacson, I have a couple of questions for you. In your
testimony, you emphasized that the Remain in Mexico policy
enriched cartels by giving them a new, large base of migrants
to extort and take advantage of, something that I did see in
Arizona also. You also mentioned that smugglers looking to
profit from illegal border crossings benefited from Remain in
Mexico as migrants look to illegal means of entry into the
United States.
This organized crime does not stay on the side of the
border. We know that for a fact in Arizona. It crosses into our
border towns and even further into Tucson, Phoenix, and beyond,
and endangers everyone. Any action that will increase cartel
activity is a major concern for me, and obviously for U.S.
citizens. What actions could the Trump administration have
taken to keep cartels from benefiting from Remain in Mexico. I
am not saying like he should not have done it. But what I am
saying is obviously it happened, but what could have been done
to stop the kind of benefit that they ended up receiving from
it, in your opinion?
Mr. Isacson. If the Trump administration were, in fact,
moving people still into Mexico for several months at a time,
well, first of all, had the capacity to be able to address
these cases more quickly. Don't make people wait for several
months in Mexico. Have enough judges on hand so that it can be
there. Invest way more in shelter and protection, and really
check up on whether the Mexican government is really providing
that shelter and protection and keeping the cartels at a
distance from these people, which they absolutely were not.
Obviously, I do not favor the program as a whole, but there
were ways to actually mitigate that.
Senator Gallego. Your testimony also discussed the impacts
of Remain in Mexico on our bilateral relationship with Mexico.
In 2019, President Trump proposed tariffs on Mexican goods
until illegal immigration through Mexico was remedied. He also
floated the idea of high tariffs on Mexican goods in this next
administration. According to your testimony, and just from my
experience in Arizona, we are a richer State because of border
trade. Mexico was U.S.'s top trading partner in 2023, with $800
billion in bilateral trade, $1.5 million per minute. Arizona's
ports of entry and border communities are major hubs of
transnational trade, and we both benefited from that
relationship.
How do you anticipate that the United States trade
relationship with Mexico would be impacted by the
reimplementation of Remain in Mexico?
Mr. Isacson. If Mexico, at all, proved unwilling to
implement Remain in Mexico, or it maybe did not like the list
of countries that the Trump administration wanted them to
receive, et cetera, you would likely see a tariff threat. You
would see maybe tariffs implemented. If you had tariffs
implemented, if they were high enough it would be the
equivalent of an embargo on Mexico, and that $800 billion would
shrink quite a bit, no matter what. At the Mariposa port of
entry, right here in Nogales, things would be a lot quieter.
Senator Gallego. How would this be different than the
effects we saw under the last administration?
Mr. Isacson. Mexico did agree to the last Remain in Mexico,
and ultimately the effects at ports of entry were not great. A
lot of the tent courts and the people forced to return were at
ports of entry where cargo was not crossing very much. Of
course, it took some bandwidth away from CBP, who had to handle
all of this, but ultimately it was not a huge effect on trade.
Senator Gallego. There was a discussion about some of the
asylum seekers. They come from countries where, if we wanted to
deport them back, we would not be able to actually deport them
back. Part of deterrence is for people to understand you will
be deported. You have processes of deportation. Why waste your
time, money, why pay a coyote, or whatever it is, for this if
there is a high likelihood, chance that you will go before a
judge, you are going to be deported, you are going to be
rejected.
But what about those countries that we do not have a
solution, so those countries that will not accept them back,
the Cubas, the Venezuelas? What can this incoming
administration do to ensure we have somewhere to send these
people who are deemed inadmissible?
Mr. Isacson. It is tough, because, if somebody is coming
from a country that is so badly governed, they very well may
have a strong asylum case. These countries are not our friends
for a reason, just because their governments are really bad.
That is one thing. You have to give them a fair hearing.
Senator Gallego. But even if we give them a fair hearing,
before a judge----
Mr. Isacson. They are turned down.
Senator Gallego [continuing]. And they say you do not have
a good case for asylum, where do we deport them? Because we
have to do something, is what I am saying, because that is the
biggest solution. In Arizona, when we see surges, it largely is
from these countries where they will not take back their asylum
seekers.
Mr. Isacson. Yes. There is no great answer for that. You
could do a lot of diplomacy to have the burden shared through
the Americans. Some countries like Colombia are doing a heck of
a lot to integrate people, but other countries could be doing
more. That is something that was being started with the Los
Angeles declaration process in the Biden administration.
But ultimately, yes, there is no place to put somebody from
Venezuela right now, and there are 600,000 of them in the past
couple of years.
Senator Gallego. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Paul. Senator Hassan.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HASSAN
Senator Hassan. Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thank you and the
Ranking Member for this hearing. Congress certainly needs to
work on a bipartisan basis to improve our border security, and,
in fact, of course, we had a bipartisan border security deal
last year that made major improvements to security at the
Southern border, including with some important changes to
asylum standards. It also included hiring significant
additional law enforcement personnel. It had the support of the
National Board of Patrol Council (NBPC), and I strongly
supported that deal. Unfortunately, as we all know, President-
Elect Trump decided to kill that deal for purely political
reasons.
I am hopeful that we can move past politics and actually
get back to work on the kind of bipartisan deal that I think we
are hearing agreement about in this room.
Like Senator Slotkin, I am a Northern border Senator, so I
also do not want us to take our eyes off the need for a
Northern border strategy. Senator Cramer and I have had
bipartisan legislation that this Committee actually passed, and
I hope we will revisit that, as well.
Going forward, we need to work together to examine the most
effective ways to secure the border and weaken cartels. Part of
that is examining the effects of the Remain in Mexico program
during President-Elect Trump's first term.
Mr. Isacson, I want to follow up on Senator Gallego's
questions a little bit. Your testimony states that the previous
Remain in Mexico policy enriched the cartels. I want to repeat
that it enriched the drug cartels that are poisoning our
country and create enormous violence. They kidnapped and
extorted immigrants waiting in border towns for their court
dates. Public reporting showed that ransom payments routinely
cost $4,000 to $7,000 per person, and that a single criminal
gang in a single border town could steal $35,000 a day from
people.
Mr. Isacson, your testimony notes that in 2019 and 2020,
cartels and criminal gangs extorted at least $70 million over
the two years in this way, in large part fueled by the Remain
in Mexico program. If the Remain in Mexico program were
reinstated, how would you expect the cartels to attempt to
profit from extortion and ransom?
Mr. Isacson. I think the cartels would continue to extort,
perhaps at even higher rates, because they are more powerful
now even than they were then. They would still have those three
income streams--the ransoms, the extortions, and the coyote
service. Yes, that was a very conservative estimate. The money
would be more.
Senator Hassan. Yes. OK. I also want to just touch on the
issue of cooperation with the Mexican government. Law
enforcement in the United States works closely with Mexican
authorities to interdict drug smuggling, human trafficking, and
other crimes committed by the cartels. By the way, Mr. Arthur,
I think it was you who said that we need to continue to work to
reduce drug demand in this country. That is something I have
heard from the Mexican government too.
The other thing that we have worked on in a bipartisan way
on this Committee is our southbound weapons and cash to the
cartels are a real problem, and Senator Lankford and I have
worked together on a bill that would do much more screening
southbound to try to stem the flow of cash and weapons to the
cartels from this country, which are used as payment for the
illicit drugs.
But one of the things that we do with the Mexican
government is Mexico allows our Homeland Security Investigation
agents to work with Mexican authorities to target drugs and
precursor chemicals that are being shipped from China to
Mexico. They are then made into fentanyl, and then they are
entering the United States. Sometimes they are not made into
fentanyl down there, and sometimes they are made up here.
But how, Mr. Isacson, would reinstating the Remain in
Mexico program potentially affect cooperation with Mexico on
joint efforts to disrupt drug smuggling?
Mr. Isacson. The question is how we were to go about it. If
Mexico was reluctant, the administration decided it was really
going to push and bully and publicly humiliate Mexico until
they agreed to take these people, Mexico would be much less
willing to cooperate on other things like fentanyl.
Senator Hassan. OK. I was pleased to hear kind of consensus
growing around thinking through what targeted legislation would
look like to really treat the cartels as the kind of hybrid
organizations they are, using some terrorist techniques for
organized crime purposes. I think it was really interesting
that all three of you seemed to coalesce around some important
ideas in that regard.
As one of the States that has been particularly hard hit by
the fentanyl epidemic, I would be very interested, and I know
my colleagues on both sides of the aisle would be too, on
working on how we really go after those cartels. We have
comprehensive immigration reform to do, to be sure, but that
should not stop us from going after some of the most predatory
criminal organizations in the history of mankind. Thank you.
Chairman Paul. Senator Hawley.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HAWLEY
Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks for calling
this hearing. Mr. Isacson, if I could just start with you. In
March 2024, you wrote, ``The murder of a nursing student in
Georgia has a lot of people on the right talking about migrant
crime like it's an actual issue.'' That would be Laken Riley
you were talking about?
Mr. Isacson. Laken Riley was an unusual case.
Senator Hawley. Yes. Here, let's have a look. Here is Laken
Riley.\1\
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\1\ The picture of Laken Riley appears in the Appendix on page 100.
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Mr. Isacson. Yes.
Senator Hawley. Her horrific murder at the hands of this
illegal migrant, who was also unlawfully paroled in the United
States, her death not an actual issue?
Mr. Isacson. It is a tragedy.
Senator Hawley. But not an actual issue?
Mr. Isacson. Migrant crime is much less of an issue than
U.S. citizen-committed crime.
Senator Hawley. Not an actual issue? Those are your actual
words. Her death not an actual issue. I just want you to say.
Mr. Isacson. Of course, it is an issue. It is a tragedy.
Senator Hawley. What did you mean by your quote? It is not
an actual issue, meaning we should not be paying attention to
it? The Senate is wasting its time this week on the Laken Riley
Act that would address the circumstances of her murder? What is
your advice to us--we just discontinue those proceedings now?
Mr. Isacson. I think the Laken Riley Act could do a lot of
harm. It would allow me to say, oh, this person shoplifted, and
that would be enough probable cause to get somebody deported.
Senator Hawley. Interesting. Who invited you to this
Committee hearing today, Mr. Isacson?
Mr. Isacson. The minority party.
Senator Hawley. Yes. It is interesting. You are here as a
spokesman for the minority party. I just want to make sure the
record is clear on this. The spokesman for the minority party
is advising the Senate that the Laken Riley Act is a bad idea,
and we ought to stop it. The spokesman for the minority party
is saying that Laken Riley's death and migrant crime is not an
actual issue. I can't frankly believe that I am hearing these
words.
Mr. Isacson. I said migrant crime.
Senator Hawley. You said it is not an actual issue. I read
you the quote.
Mr. Isacson. Laken Riley's death was not an actual issue.
Senator Hawley. You said the murder of a nursing student in
Georgia has a lot of people on the right talking about migrant
crime and you put it in quotation marks, square quotes, like it
is an actual issue.
Mr. Isacson. Not Laken Riley's death.
Senator Hawley. She is dead because of migrant crime,
right?
Mr. Isacson. Migrant crime----
Senator Hawley. Let's try something else. Do you know who
this young man is?\1\
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\1\ The picture of Travis Wolfe appears in the Appendix on page
101.
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Mr. Isacson. I do not.
Senator Hawley. Travis Wolfe, 12 years old, from my State
murdered by an illegal migrant who was also, like Jose Ibarra,
illegally paroled by the last administration.
Mr. Isacson. Is your expectation that no, zero, migrants--
--
Senator Hawley. Let me tell you what my expectation is, is
that those who commit crimes in this country will be
appropriately dealt with.
Mr. Isacson. Absolutely.
Senator Hawley. And that we should not be allowing
migrants----
Mr. Isacson. Absolutely.
Senator Hawley [continuing]. Who commit crimes into this
country, and that, yes, migrant crime, that kills people like
Travis Wolfe, whose death was shocking, whose death is
inexplicable, indefensible--I actually do think, yes, I think
it is----
Mr. Isacson. How can you be sure that zero----
Senator Hawley. Wait a minute. It is my time, Mr. Isacson.
I actually think, and I want the record to be clear on this,
that migrant crime is a real issue. I think the Laken Riley Act
is absolutely necessary. In fact, I propose an amendment to the
Laken Riley Act that will cover people like Travis Wolfe. I
think that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ought
to be detaining, ought to be required to detain, those illegal
migrants who commit violent crimes against children, like
Travis Wolfe.
Mr. Isacson. Of course.
Senator Hawley. And yes, I happen to think, as a former
prosecutor, I happen to think that their violent murders are
actual issues. The fact that you would say otherwise, sit here
and advise the Senate that the Laken Riley Act is a bad idea,
that the whole thing is not an actual issue, made up, I think
is outrageous. I think it is absolutely outrageous.
The fact that you were invited here to give this testimony
is stunning to me, I have to say.
Absolutely stunning to me.
Mr. Cuccinelli, let me just ask you something else that Mr.
Isacson has said is that the Remain in Mexico policy was a
program of death.
Is that your experience, having seen it implemented, a
program----
Mr. Cuccinelli. As part of implementing it, my answer would
be no, it was quite the opposite. As I said in my statement,
that the deterrent effect for illegal aliens to come that was
gained by the Migrant Protection Protocols, the Remain in
Mexico program, prevented a lot more abuse, child abuse, abuse
of women on the journey, and death along the way, than any of
the crimes that occurred addressed to the people, where the
people in Remain in Mexico were the victims.
So any time we have illegal immigration going on, we have
victimization of that population. It would be my view, and I
think the dollars play it out, especially as you have seen
since 2019, that the idea that the cartels benefited from the
Remain in Mexico program is relatively ludicrous compared to
the alternative. The alternative we have lived with the last
four years has been the greatest enriching of the most evil,
vicious people in the Western Hemisphere, in the history of
this hemisphere.
Senator Hawley. Yes. I wish the Remain in Mexico program
had still been in effect when the killer of Travis Wolfe
crossed the border and was paroled illegally into the country.
He might still be alive today. If that is not an actual issue,
I do not know what is.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Paul. I think we have had a good discussion on the
issue, and I think it is an important issue, and I think we
have to have these discussions. Both sides have to be heard,
and we have to figure out how to move forward.
The one sort of dispute we have, like in a court of law you
have the facts and you hear both sides, and someone says this
is a fact, I think there is something here that is in
contention, and that is whether or not the Remain in Mexico
policy enriched the cartels.
This chart\1\ is kind of similar, not as famous as Senator
Johnson's chart, but it is similar in the sense that you can
see with Remain in Mexico, the encounters come down to about
20,000 or so. Here they are up around 300,000. So you have
essentially a tenfold increase.
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\1\ The chart referenced by Senator Paul appears in the Appendix on
page 98.
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So if we say, and we understand that cartels make money by
getting people across the border, it seems hard to me to argue
that when you have 300,000 encounters, that they would not make
more money here than they make here. I just find it really
hard.
I would like to give each of you a chance to respond to
that. Why don't we start with Ken Cuccinelli.
Mr. Cuccinelli. Mr. Chair, you are right, and the CBP intel
assessments, e do not audit the cartels, right. But the intel
folks who track what they do, as best we can, believe that they
are financing, they money they were making on human
trafficking, probably passed drug trafficking in the Biden
administration. The chart here serves as a proxy to money they
were making from this form of work.
Chairman Paul. If we wanted to know more for certain, and
it is an estimate because it is all done illegally----
Mr. Cuccinelli. Right.
Chairman Paul [continuing]. Is there someone who makes an
estimate of this, somebody in our intel who is looking at this,
that we could bring here?
Mr. Cuccinelli. The CBP intel shop.
Chairman Paul. Do you think they make an estimate month by
month on what they think they are making? So it is still going
to be an estimate, but if we wanted further information on it
we could ask the CBP.
Mr. Cuccinelli. Correct. Yes, sir.
Chairman Paul. All right. Mr. Arthur.
Mr. Arthur. Absolutely, Senator. It is not just the
cartels. It is also the smuggling organizations. It is always
important to keep the two separate. Smugglers actually do the
heavy lifting. The cartels then skim the cream off of the top,
to let those individuals cross what they call their
territories. Then you have also got the human traffickers that
can feed in that environment, as well.
When you are talking about the money that is floated to the
pockets of the cartels, right there. But it is not just simply
from taking fees or shaking down migrants. When you send large
numbers of people across the border you create what Chief
Rodney Scott, the CBP Commissioner Designee, called
``controllable corridors.''
So you send a bunch of kids and adults over, Border Patrol
rushes over to get them, and then it creates a void in the line
that the cartels can use to run the drugs to the United States.
Absolutely crucial part of this. They are feasting right now.
Chairman Paul. So you would agree that the argument that
when there are more encounters and more traffic going across it
would be proportional to more profits not the reverse.
Mr. Arthur. Absolutely.
Chairman Paul. When you have Remain in Mexico down here, it
is a little hard to argue they are making more money when there
is a lot less people going across the border, as opposed to
here.
Mr. Arthur. Absolutely. It is also a lot less human
carnage, Senator, and Ken had talked about this. Doctors
Without Borders did a report in 2017, in which they estimated
that about 68-plus percent of all migrants are physically
abused during that illegal journey to the United States. Just
under a third of all women are sexually abused. When you cut
down the number of people coming, you cut down the number of
crimes.
Chairman Paul. Thank you. Mr. Isacson.
Mr. Isacson. On that chart I would point out that that low
point there was the beginning of COVID, and just before that
Remain in Mexico was almost done. Between then and when it was
actually terminated you had about 4,000 or 5,000 people put in
that program over all of that months. It was hardly in
existence.
Chairman Paul. Say that a little bit louder, please.
Mr. Isacson. Sure. Remain in Mexico was hardly in existence
from the time that COVID began until it was actually
terminated, when Joe Biden was inaugurated. Maybe 4,000 or
5,000 people put in the program in that entire space. It was
not much of a deterrent at that point. Title 42 had really been
what was on people's minds if they were thinking of crossing
the border.
Chairman Paul. Basically you are making the argument that
quite a bit of the dip is COVID. Is that what you are saying?
Mr. Isacson. Yes. At the bottom there it is COVID and Title
42.
Mr. Arthur. Senator, I will note the fact that the pandemic
was not declared until March 20, 2020. You can see the bottom
of your chart there.
Chairman Paul. Right.
Mr. Arthur. One of the things that opponents of Title 42
would say is that the numbers were inflated because of
recidivism. I would gently disagree with Mr. Isacson. I would
say that when you look at that right there, you get people
stopped under 42, they get turned back, and then they just come
around, because there is no deterrent effect. There is no
punishment for reentering under Title 42. There is one with
MPP.
Chairman Paul. If the Trump administration is saying they
want to correct some of the problems of all the people that
have been paroled, and millions of people are here, one of the
big complaints is that their hearing will not come up for 1,000
days, or whatever, three or four years. Does the President have
the power, if he wished to, to simply say all the hearings are
going to be in one month, and designate enough people to hear
these? If you basically came up with a rule and said Cuba is
eligible and Venezuela is eligible and nobody else is eligible,
and the proceeding will now be that you show up and someone is
going to ask you where you are from, and if you can prove you
are from Cuba or Venezuela you are going to get a hearing, if
you do not your hearing is over and concluded, and there is a
much speeding up of the process.
We will start with Mr. Cuccinelli. Do you think that power
exists? Would that be something you would recommend?
Mr. Cuccinelli. It is a good question. It is probably a
close question about whether that power exists. It would
certainly be litigated, of course, because everything will be
litigated. But I believe there is already existing a lot more
authority by the President to not consider asylum petitions
from various countries. Whether that is by the third country
regulation being reinstated--so if you pass through Mexico and
you do not apply for asylum there, you do not get to apply for
asylum here.
That was extremely effective. But it was lost in the wash,
statistically, of COVID. We are looking at one program, but
there were other programs. For example, expedited removal was
also used more heavily starting in 2019.
It is hard sometimes to disentangle the data. I think the
DHS report about the success of MPP is your best conclusive
source of information for how that was successful, and the fact
that it was very successful in keeping people out and deterring
others from coming in.
Chairman Paul. On the same lines, Mr. Arthur, if the
definitional change can be controlled by the President, would
this help with the expediting of all these cases, instead of
1,000 days, going back to the 36 days you talked about, if we
just make the job easier. I frankly think most of these people,
by definition, should be ineligible for the process, and that
is what we should do, moving forward.
But even looking backwards, we tell people, ``Your
detention hearing is next month,'' and you are supposed to go
back to where you came in illegally. If that is in Texas, you
are supposed to go back. It would be a directive for people, at
least those who are going to voluntarily do as they are told,
to go back. It would also be a law that if they break that law,
and you tell them they have to be there in two months, and they
are not there, I would think then you have grounds for no
hearing. They have broken a law that is the law, and now they
would be immediately deported, wherever they are.
But what do you think about the President's power to have a
definitional change and whether or not we could expedite or
move their dates up on detention hearings?
Mr. Arthur. Sure, absolutely. The first thing it is
important to note, and many of you may not be aware of this,
the law already says asylum claims are supposed to be heard,
from beginning to end, in 180 days. So they have just ignored
Congress' admonition with respect to that.
Chairman Paul. Say that again, between and two and 180?
Mr. Arthur. No, within 180 days.
Chairman Paul. Within 180.
Mr. Arthur. From beginning to end, 180 days.
Chairman Paul. OK.
Mr. Arthur. But the other part of that is, the way that the
asylum statute is written it has two parts. One, anybody could
apply. Then there is a separate section for who can be granted.
The potential argument is, yes, the President can say anybody
can apply, but only these people can be granted.
Now it is going to get litigated. It was litigated the last
time and never got up to the Supreme Court. The President used
his 212(f) powers to prevent people from applying for asylum.
Mr. Cuccinelli knows all about that.
But it got to the Ninth Circuit, and it was stopped at the
Ninth Circuit. Respectfully toward the judges, it was an awful
decision. It was just poorly reasoned. Had it gone to the
Supreme Court I think it would have gotten overturned.
Basically, though, that is what the Biden administration is
doing right now. Mr. Isacson has referred to that. We are not
allowing those individuals to apply for asylum, with
exceptions. But they came too late to that conclusion.
Chairman Paul. Mr. Isacson.
Mr. Isacson. I mean, sure, you have 1.5 million or more
asylum cases pending. That is a matter of appropriations. You
have to have the capacity. You have to have people, no matter
what you are doing.
Now, banning certain countries, I personally do not think
the statute backs that up. 212(f) appears to be usable to block
someone from coming to the United States, but once they are
here asking for protection, that is a different case. I think
this would be litigated to death if you were to try that.
Chairman Paul. I think the hearing has been useful and very
informative. Thank you all for coming. We are going to vote
here in just a couple of minutes.
Before we adjourn, if anybody has a pressing question, we
will start with Senator Peters. Anything else? Anybody else on
this side? Yes, Senator Moreno.
Senator Moreno. Yes, if I could just add. Maybe a recap of
what we agree on would be worthwhile. I think there is broad
consensus that you should only be able to claim asylum at a
legal port of entry and that you should be barred from claiming
asylum at a legal port of entry if you have not made that
application in Mexico. Would you agree with that, Mr.
Cuccinelli?
Mr. Cuccinelli. Absolutely. In terms of incoming flow, it
would do an awful lot to throttle the numbers, most
particularly targeting really baseless cases. I should note,
since this was an MPP-focused hearing, when you look at the
asylum claims that came out of MPP, they were granted at
something like a tenth or less of the rate of just the average
asylum caseload. Those are decided by the exact same case
officers and judges as decide all the other cases.
MPP successfully screened out an awful lot of fraudulent
asylum seekers, and the numbers bear that out.
Mr. Arthur. Senator, I would note the fact that every
country in the Western Hemisphere, except for Cuba, an island,
and Guyana, an enclave on the coast, grant some sort of asylum.
If you need protection, you can go to any of those countries.
People cross through 7, 8, 10, 20 countries to come here.
Colombia, your home country, grants asylum. You can go there.
You do not have to come here. You do not have to take the risk,
and risk your children.
Mr. Isacson. Many do. Yes, 20 million people in migration
around the whole region, and they are not all coming here.
But your question, I mean, should people be able to just
come to a port of entry instead, and that be the only way? Yes.
I think we would need a lot more capacity than we have right
now at ports of entry, so you do not have people in Mexico, and
in Mexico for so many months. You would have to have some
exception for the most vulnerable, the people who are the most
critically urgent cases--I will die if I stay here.
Senator Moreno. But that is not going to be the situation
if they are in Mexico, because we have just discussed the fact
that Mexico is a safety country, in which you can go to a
different part of Mexico. They have also somehow made it to
Mexico, which, in and of itself, is a pretty incredible
accomplishment for somebody who in that kind of grave danger.
You have traversed nine countries to make it to the Northern
border of Mexico.
I think we have broad consensus there.
One last thing, Mr. Chair, if you can indulge me. We can
also agree that Congress should not be absolved. I think you
said it, Mr. Cuccinelli. What is preventing Congress from just
passing laws so that we do not need to have Executive Orders to
solve our immigration problem?
Mr. Cuccinelli. That is a separate question.
Senator Moreno. We are going to have to have a conversation
after this.
Mr. Cuccinelli. Yes.
Senator Moreno. Freshman question.
Mr. Cuccinelli. I would just note that when I was the
Acting Deputy Secretary, many of your colleagues would call me
on the annual H-2B, for example. I would get pitched and
pitched and pitched, because you all would give the Secretary
the authority to raise that number, one year at a time. Every
single Senator, I said the same thing--``This is your job. This
is not my job. You are supposed to tell us the number.'' ``I
know, but we just cannot manage it.''
Every single Senator, and I talked to maybe a half dozen,
all conceded that the process was not working for the Congress
to be legislating on those things. You have noted areas of
agreement. Looking back 20 years, one of them is literally the
physical ports of entry. Mr. Isacson mentioned capacity.
There is also the question of physical capacity at the
ports of entry, that I think you can probably achieve by
partisan agreement, on updating and upgrading those. You do
need to do that, and if you are going to do the southbound, I
will call it inspections, you must expand your ports of entry.
If you do that southbound type of investigation that Senator
Hassan was talking about, you take Mexico's biggest excuse off
the table. That is their biggest national government excuse,
and by that I mean for the U.S. Government.
But that is something that needs to happen, and to use
things like the non-intrusive technology for doing those
searches at the border can happen a lot faster. But it going to
take upgrading those facilities. They are long overdue for it.
Chairman Paul. Senator Lankford.
Senator Lankford. Yes, no, we are wrapping this up, but
thanks, you all, for the testimony and the work and the
research that you have all done on it. What I did hear as
common ground, is Congress needs to re-look at the TVPRA, and
say we have got to be able to figure this out. Right now, if a
child comes from Mexico, we return them back to their parents
in Mexico. If a child comes from Guatemala, even if they have
got a parent in Guatemala, we keep them here. And that just
makes no sense. And I have heard over and over again from
governments in Central America saying to me, point blank,
``Give us our children back. Why does the United States keep
our children?'' We have got to be able to figure that part out,
and that should not be hard for us.
And the other one I have heard is the designated terror
organization trying to be able to figure out how do we actually
get this resolved, that we can put more financial pressure on
these cartels on it.
So thanks again for the testimony.
Chairman Paul. I would like to thank our witnesses for
joining us here today, for their testimony and expertise.
The record for this hearing will remain open for 15 days,
until 6 p.m. on Thursday, January 23, for the submission of
statements and questions for the record.
The hearing is now adjourned. We will meet again in about 2
minutes to begin our markup on voting.
[Whereupon, at 10:57 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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