[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 79 (Wednesday, May 30, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H3236-H3239]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       SECURE BORDER ACT OF 2011

  Mr. KING of New York. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and 
pass the bill (H.R. 1299) to achieve operational control of and improve 
security at the international land borders of the

[[Page H3237]]

United States, and for other purposes, as amended.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 1299

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Secure Border Act of 2011''.

     SEC. 2. STRATEGY TO ACHIEVE OPERATIONAL CONTROL OF THE 
                   BORDER.

       (a) Strategy to Secure the Border Between the Ports of 
     Entry.--Not later than 180 days after the date of the 
     enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security 
     shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a 
     comprehensive strategy for gaining, within five years, 
     operational control of the international borders between the 
     ports of entry of the United States. The strategy shall 
     include an analysis of the following:
       (1) Staffing requirements for all border security 
     functions.
       (2) Investment in infrastructure, including pedestrian 
     fencing, vehicle barriers, and roads.
       (3) The use of unmanned aerial vehicles, camera technology, 
     sensors, and other innovative technology as the Secretary may 
     determine.
       (4) Cooperative agreements with international, State, 
     local, tribal, and other Federal law enforcement agencies 
     that have jurisdiction on the northern border and southern 
     border.
       (5) Other means designed to detect, respond to, and 
     interdict unlawful cross-border activity and to reduce the 
     level of violence.
       (6) A schedule for implementing security measures, 
     including a prioritization for future investments.
       (7) A comprehensive technology plan for major surveillance 
     and detection technology programs, including a justification 
     and rationale for technology choices and deployment 
     locations.
       (8) The recommendations made in the December 2010 
     Government Accountability Office report entitled ``Enhanced 
     DHS Oversight and Assessment of Interagency Coordination is 
     Needed for the Northern Border''.
       (b) Securing the Border at Ports of Entry.--Not later than 
     180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the 
     Secretary of Homeland Security shall develop metrics to 
     measure the effectiveness of security at ports of entry, 
     which shall consider, at minimum, the following:
       (1) The number of infractions related to personnel and 
     cargo committed by major violators who are apprehended by 
     U.S. Customs and Border Protection at such ports of entry.
       (2) The estimated number of such infractions committed by 
     major violators who are not so apprehended.
       (3) The required number of U.S. Customs and Border 
     Protection Officers, Agricultural Specialists, and Canine 
     Enforcement Officers necessary to achieve operational control 
     at such ports of entry.
       (4) Infrastructure improvements required to achieve 
     operational control at such ports of entry, including the 
     installation of nonintrusive detection equipment, radiation 
     portal monitors, biometrics, and other sensors and technology 
     that the Secretary determines necessary.
       (5) The deployment of resources based on the overall 
     commercial and passenger traffic, cargo volume, and threat 
     environment at such ports of entry.
       (6) The recommendations made in the December 2010 
     Government Accountability Office report entitled ``Enhanced 
     DHS Oversight and Assessment of Interagency Coordination is 
     Needed for the Northern Border''.
       (c) Evaluation by Department of Energy National 
     Laboratory.--The Secretary of Homeland Security shall request 
     the head of an appropriate Department of Energy National 
     Laboratory with prior expertise in border security to 
     evaluate the measurement system required under subsection (b) 
     to ensure its suitability and statistical validity for 
     analyzing progress for the interdiction of illegal crossing 
     and contraband at ports of entry.
       (d) Consideration of Alternative Border Security 
     Standards.--If in developing the strategic plan required 
     under subsection (a) the Secretary of Homeland Security makes 
     a determination to measure security between border ports of 
     entry by a standard other than operational control, the 
     Secretary shall request the head of an appropriate Department 
     of Energy National Laboratory with prior expertise in border 
     security to evaluate such alternative standard to ensure the 
     suitability and statistical validity of such standard with 
     respect to measuring the progress for the interdiction of 
     illegal crossings and contraband that pass between such ports 
     of entry.
       (e) Reports.--Not later than 60 days after the date of the 
     enactment of this Act and annually thereafter, the Secretary 
     of Homeland Security shall submit the appropriate 
     congressional committee a report on the following:
       (1) A resource allocation model for current and future year 
     staffing requirements that includes optimal staffing levels 
     at all land, air, and sea ports of entry and an explanation 
     of U.S. Customs and Border Protection methodology for 
     aligning staffing levels and workload to threats and 
     vulnerabilities across all mission areas.
       (2) Detailed information on the level of manpower data 
     available at all land, air, and sea ports of entry, including 
     the number of canine and agricultural officers assigned to 
     each such port of entry.
       (f) Definitions.--In this Act:
       (1) Appropriate congressional committee.--The term 
     ``appropriate congressional committee'' means the Committee 
     on Homeland Security of the House of Representatives and the 
     Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of 
     the Senate.
       (2) Major violator.--The term ``major violator'' means a 
     person or entity that is or has engaged in serious criminal 
     activities at any land, air, or sea port of entry, including 
     possession of narcotics, smuggling of prohibited products, 
     human smuggling, weapons possession, use of fraudulent United 
     States documents, and other offenses serious enough to result 
     in arrest.
       (3) Operational control.--The term ``operational control'' 
     has the meaning given such term in section 2(b) of the Secure 
     Fence Act of 2006 (8 U.S.C. 1701 note; Public Law 109 367).

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. King) and the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson) each 
will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York.


                             General Leave

  Mr. KING of New York. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their 
remarks and include any extraneous material on the bill under 
consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from New York?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. KING of New York. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I would just suggest to the ranking member, since we are running 
short on time, I'm going to abbreviate my remarks. I know that your 
eloquence is unbounded, but I will try to restrict myself.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1299, the Border Security Act of 2011, requires the 
Secretary of Homeland Security to develop a strategy to gain 
operational control of the border within 5 years.
  I want to commend Congresswoman Miller, who's the chair of the 
Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, for her leadership on 
this issue.
  Border security is an integral element of homeland security. We must 
secure our borders. Since 2004, Congress has allocated billions of 
dollars to secure the border through investments in personnel, 
technology, and infrastructure; however, our borders remain vulnerable.
  We know from the documents made public after the Abbottabad raid on 
Osama bin Laden's compound that al Qaeda continues to examine crossing 
the border to gain access to the U.S. It is critical that the 
Department produce a comprehensive strategy to gain operational control 
over the border.
  This legislation is commonsense legislation. It has bipartisan 
support. I urge my colleagues to support it.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1299, The Border Security Act of 2011, requires the 
Secretary of Homeland Security to develop a strategy to gain 
operational control of the border within 5 years.
  I would like to thank Congresswoman Miller, Chair of the Subcommittee 
on Border and Maritime Security, for her leadership on this issue.
  Border security is an integral element of Homeland Security. We must 
secure our borders to prevent drug smugglers, terrorists, and others 
who pose a threat to the Homeland from entering the Country.
  Since 2004, Congress has allocated billions of dollars to secure the 
border through investments in personnel, technology, and 
infrastructure. Through such investments, the size of the U.S. Border 
Patrol has doubled to more than 21,000 agents; almost 700 miles of 
vehicle and pedestrian fencing have been built; and significant 
investments have been made in camera detection technology. Without 
question, these investments have significantly increased security at 
the border.
  However, our borders remain vulnerable and attractive for illegal 
aliens, criminals, and drug smugglers. We know from documents made 
public after the Abbottabad raid on Osama bin Laden's compound that al 
Qaeda continues to examine crossing the border to gain access to the 
United States.
  It is critical that the Department of Homeland Security produce a 
comprehensive strategy to gain operational control over the border. As 
we move forward, Customs and Border Protection should explain what 
technology is being acquired, where it is being placed, and how those 
choices will fit into a comprehensive strategy to secure the border.
  I am concerned that DHS has determined that they will no longer share 
operational control numbers with Congress as they have always done in 
past years in the annual budget submission. This legislation will 
ensure that these figures continue to be shared with Congress and that 
a National Laboratory will evaluate any new metrics developed by CBP.

[[Page H3238]]

  We cannot continue to make ad hoc investments in border security; 
rather, border security funds should only be allocated as part of a 
larger strategic plan that gets us closer to a legitimately secure 
border both at and between the ports of entry.
  This is a common sense bill, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

                              {time}  1750

  Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 
1299, the Secure Border Act of 2011, and I yield myself such time as I 
may consume.
  This bill would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to submit 
to Congress a comprehensive strategy for gaining operational control of 
our borders within the next 5 years. This bill defines operational 
control as the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United 
States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, 
instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.
  While this is a laudable goal, it is also extraordinarily ambitious, 
and the bill authorizes no additional resources to achieving this goal. 
I am pleased, however, that the bill would require the Secretary to 
submit to Congress a resource allocation model for Customs and Border 
Protection staffing requirements at all land, air, and seaports of 
entry. This is important information that our committee has repeatedly 
requested from CBP on a bipartisan basis but has not yet received.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. KING of New York. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may 
consume to the distinguished chair of the subcommittee, the gentlelady 
from Michigan (Mrs. Miller).
  Mrs. MILLER of Michigan. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, among the enumerated powers of the Constitution, 
providing for the common defense is, in my mind, the most important 
responsibility of the Congress. A key part of the common defense, of 
course, is ensuring that we secure the Nation's borders.
  H.R. 1299, the Secure Border Act, moves the Nation closer to a more 
secure border by requiring the Department of Homeland Security to 
develop a plan to gain operational control of the border within 5 
years. As part of that plan, the Department must account for staffing 
requirements, investments and infrastructure, and the justification and 
rationale for technology choices and deployment locations.
  Since 9/11, this Nation has spent billions of dollars to increase 
security along our borders. We've doubled the size of the Border 
Patrol; built 700 miles of fence; and have invested in technology, such 
as UAVs and a wide array of surveillance equipment, for use along the 
border. Most of these investments have been worthwhile. Yet, instead of 
spending money in an ad hoc fashion, the Department of Homeland 
Security needs to develop a comprehensive and coherent plan to achieve 
control of the border while taking into account personnel, technology, 
and infrastructure needs. The need for a comprehensive strategy is 
apparent as previous border security efforts succeeded in shifting 
smuggling and illicit activities from urban areas of the Southwest 
border to more rural and remote areas, such as Arizona. However, this 
balloon effect has only succeeded in shifting the problem.
  How we determine or measure what a secure border looks like has been 
the subject of a lot of debate, but the fact remains that the Congress 
and the American people should have a verifiable way to determine if we 
are making progress along the border. For years, we've relied on 
operational control as sort of a proxy for border security, and it has 
become a de facto term, but at the last count, only 44 percent of the 
Southwest border was under operational control, and less than 2 percent 
of the northern border was adequately secured.
  In 2010, the Department of Homeland Security stopped reporting the 
numbers of miles of border under operational control, and as yet has 
really not supplied an alternative measure of border security to 
replace the discarded operational control measure. Just a few weeks 
ago, the Border Patrol released its new 2012 strategic plan, which 
makes no mention of operational control.
  It is clear, Mr. Speaker, that the Department believes operational 
control is probably not the right measure to describe security at the 
border, and is working on something called the ``border condition 
index,'' which is supposed to be a holistic measure to inform our 
border security efforts. I think we are all open to a new, more robust 
standard if it supplements operational control and better describes 
what is happening with security at our border.
  To this point, I don't think we can automatically assume that this 
new measure stacks up against operational control. With an issue this 
important, we just can't change the rules if we don't like the results. 
So, if the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security decides to 
use a measure other than operational control, this bill would require 
that any other measure of border security would be vetted by a national 
laboratory with prior expertise in border security. I think that boils 
down to ``trust but verify.''
  Security along the border is more often than not described in terms 
of fences, Border Patrol agents, UAVs, and camera towers. However, that 
is only one side of the story. We also need to increase security at our 
ports of entry--the conduit to much of the commerce and cargo that 
sustains our way of life. This bill requires the Secretary to develop a 
measure which gauges our progress at the points of entry so that, when 
combined with operational control or its successor, we have a very full 
picture of our border security.
  Mr. Speaker, the men and women of the United States Border Patrol and 
the U.S. Customs and Border Protection have a very difficult job. I 
know that we all want to thank them for the very hard work that they do 
in some very demanding conditions to help secure our Nation. Certainly, 
it is our hope that the requirement for a comprehensive strategy will 
inform the Congress of the resources needs of the Department of 
Homeland Security, will give the men and women on the border the tools 
that they need, and will move us toward a more secure border both at 
and between the ports of entry.
  I certainly would encourage all of my colleagues to support this 
bipartisan legislation.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I have no more speakers if 
the gentleman from New York is prepared to close.
  Mr. KING of New York. Ranking Member, I have one further speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe).
  Mr. POE of Texas. Thank you for yielding the time, and I appreciate 
Mrs. Miller for offering this legislation.
  Having been a resident in Texas, a border State with Mexico, I see 
firsthand the situation on the border. We hear everything politically 
from ``the border is safe'' to ``it's a war zone,'' or somewhere in the 
middle. We actually do have a border security problem. Here are just a 
couple of statistics to show you how the border is so porous:
  In our Federal penitentiaries, there is a group of people called 
``criminal aliens.'' These are people who are illegally in the country 
and commit a felony in the United States. Twenty-five percent of the 
people in our Federal penitentiaries are criminal illegal aliens--
illegally in the country, convicted and sent to our Federal 
penitentiaries. I regularly go and visit with our border sheriffs, and 
I ask them periodically, How many people in your jails are foreign 
nationals? The latest statistic that 17 border sheriffs in Texas gave 
me was: 34.5 percent of the people in our jails are foreign nationals.
  So, yes, that crime comes into the United States is just one aspect 
of the lack of border security. But there is more.
  I recently met with some ranchers down on the Southwest border. The 
owner of this ranch on the border comes out to meet me, and he is 
wearing a bulletproof vest. Yes, he has to wear a bulletproof vest on 
his own land because the drug cartels come through his land, and it's 
dangerous, which is just one more example of the porous border that we 
have.
  And most recently, to show that the border is porous and that what 
happens in Mexico doesn't stay in Mexico, a couple of weeks ago, there 
was a family in our church back in Texas who had this problem: Their 
cousins in Mexico had been kidnapped by the Zeta drug

[[Page H3239]]

cartels and held for ransom. The family here in the United States, in 
Texas, paid the ransom to get the two cousins back. The drug cartels, 
the Zetas, they murdered them anyway.
  So we have the problem of kidnappings taking place; we have the 
problem of extortion; and we have the problem of cross-border crime--
but it is all because of the fact that the border needs to be more 
secure than it is. A plan is a good idea. A plan to actually address 
all of these issues of a porous border is something that's long 
overdue, but I'm glad to see that we're moving in that direction--to 
have a plan so that we know exactly what will take place and how we 
will protect our borders.
  After all, the job of the Federal Government is to protect the 
national security.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. In closing, I thank the lead sponsor of 
this bill, the gentlewoman from Michigan, Representative Miller, for 
her leadership on border and maritime issues and for her willingness to 
work on a bipartisan basis in areas of shared concern. I support the 
bill.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. KING of New York. Mr. Speaker, devising a comprehensive plan to 
secure our Nation's borders is the first step on the road to a more 
secure homeland. This bipartisan bill is a good start, and I ask my 
colleagues to support its passage.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today as a proud 
cosponsor of H.R. 1299, the Secure Border Act of 2011, authored by my 
good friend, Candice Miller, and urge my colleagues to support it.
  This bill requires the Department of Homeland Security to develop a 
comprehensive strategy for gaining control of our borders at all ports 
of entry. In developing that strategy, an analysis of current security 
effectiveness will help define the needs and requirements of an 
implementable border security blueprint.
  Mr. Speaker, the reason this is necessary is because illegal 
immigration is one of the biggest crises facing our nation and securing 
our borders is of paramount importance.
  The Government Accountability Office recently reported that less than 
half of our southwest border is under operational control. At the same 
time, only 32 percent of our northern border operates at an 
``acceptable'' security level.
  Mr. Speaker, keeping our nation safe is the federal government's 
chief responsibility, and that's why it is so important that we pass 
this legislation.
  I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. King) that the House suspend the rules and 
pass the bill, H.R. 1299, as amended.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the 
rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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