[House Hearing, 109 Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] SECURING OUR BORDERS: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED FROM GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES AND CITIZEN PATROLS? ======================================================================= HEARING before the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ MAY 12, 2005 __________ Serial No. 109-24 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house http://www.house.gov/reform ______ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 21-365 WASHINGTON : 2005 _____________________________________________________________________________ For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800 Fax: (202) 512�092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402�090001 COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut HENRY A. WAXMAN, California DAN BURTON, Indiana TOM LANTOS, California ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DIANE E. WATSON, California CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland DARRELL E. ISSA, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland JON C. PORTER, Nevada BRIAN HIGGINS, New York KENNY MARCHANT, Texas ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia Columbia PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina ------ CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina (Independent) ------ ------ Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director Rob Borden, Parliamentarian Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel C O N T E N T S ---------- Page Hearing held on May 12, 2005..................................... 1 Statement of: Bonner, Robert C., Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland Security........... 30 Bonner, T.J., president, National Border Patrol Council, accompanied by Daryl Schermerhorn, regional vice president, National Border Patrol Council; Chris Simcox, co-founder, the Minuteman Project; and Janice Kephart, former counsel, the National Commission of Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.............................................. 73 Bonner, T.J.............................................. 73 Kephart, Janice.......................................... 96 Simcox, Chris............................................ 82 Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by: Bonner, Robert C., Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, prepared statement of............................................... 33 Bonner, T.J., president, National Border Patrol Council, prepared statement of...................................... 75 Brown-Waite, Hon. Ginny, a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida, prepared statement of................ 69 Cannon, Hon. Chris, a Representative in Congress from the State of Utah, prepared statement of....................... 144 Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State of Maryland, prepared statement of............... 52 Davis, Chairman Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, prepared statement of................... 4 Issa, Hon. Darrell E., a Representative in Congress from the State of California, prepared statement of................. 146 Kephart, Janice, former counsel, the National Commission of Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, prepared statement of............................................... 98 Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from the State of Ohio: Letter dated March 8, 2005............................... 25 Prepared statement of.................................... 17 McHenry, Hon. Patrick T., a Representative in Congress from the State of North Carolina, prepared statement of......... 63 Porter, Hon. Jon C., a Representative in Congress from the State of Nevada, prepared statement of..................... 148 Ruppersberger, Hon. C.A. Dutch, a Representative in Congress from the State of Maryland, prepared statement of.......... 8 Sanchez, Hon. Linda T., a Representative in Congress from the State of California, prepared statement of................. 129 Simcox, Chris, co-founder, the Minuteman Project, prepared statement of............................................... 84 Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the State of Indiana, prepared statement of.................... 13 Van Hollen, Hon. Chris, a Representative in Congress from the State of Maryland, prepared statement of................... 126 Westmoreland, Hon. Lynn A., a Representative in Congress from the State of Georgia, prepared statement of................ 149 SECURING OUR BORDERS: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED FROM GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES AND CITIZEN PATROLS? ---------- THURSDAY, MAY 12, 2005 House of Representatives, Committee on Government Reform, Washington, DC. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:15 p.m., in room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Davis (chairman of the committee) presiding. Present: Representatives Tom Davis, Gutknecht, Souder, Duncan, Brown-Waite, Marchant, Westmoreland, McHenry, Dent, Cummings, Kucinich, Van Hollen, Sanchez, Ruppersberger, and Norton. Staff present: Keith Ausbrook, chief counsel; Jennifer Safavian, chief counsel for oversight and investigations; Anne Marie Turner and Jim Moore, counsels; Rob White, press secretary; Drew Crockett, deputy director of communications; Brian Stout, professional staff member; Teresa Austin, chief clerk; Sarah D'Orsie, deputy clerk; Corinne Zaccagnini, chief information officer; Andrew James, staff assistant; Tony Haywood, minority counsel; Earley Green, minority chief clerk; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk. Chairman Tom Davis. Good afternoon. We are here today to discuss border security. This hearing has been a long time in the making, as it builds on the committee's 2 years of extensive oversight of Customs and Border Protection [CBP], including numerous committee trips to the southern border and a subcommittee hearing in Arizona. Ensuring the integrity of our Nation's borders has always been important, but since September 11, 2001, it has become essential. The primary obligation of any government is the safety and security of its citizens, and to fulfill that obligation, we must first be able to prevent those individuals who seek to do us harm from entering the United States. Our concern is not naive or misplaced. In addition to the ongoing threat of criminals engaged in human or drug trafficking, recent congressional testimony from the Department of Homeland Security [DHS], has highlighted intelligence reports suggesting that al Qaeda is considering using the southwest border to infiltrate the United States. Concern for the integrity and control of our borders is far from new, especially along the southern border. This area has long been targeted by the Federal Government for enhanced security due to the overwhelming volume of illegal crossings. In 1993, a study commissioned by the Office of National Drug Control Policy concluded that the southwest border was being overrun, estimating that 6,000 individuals attempted to enter the United States illegally every night along a 7\1/2\ mile stretch of the San Diego border. As a result, the Southwest Border Strategy was created, calling for additional personnel, equipment, and infrastructure improvements. The strategy also involved multi-year operations, such as Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego, Operation Hold the Line in El Paso, Operation Rio Grande in McAllen, and Operation Safeguard in Tucson to target the most vulnerable and most heavily trafficked border areas at that time. More recently, on March 16, 2004, in response to the continuing high levels of apprehensions in the Tucson sector, CBP launched the Arizona Border Control [ABC], Initiative, which just recently moved into phase 2. ABC seeks to coordinate Federal, State and local authorities to control the Arizona border by detecting, arresting and deterring anyone seeking to enter the country illegally. The initiative seeks to increase the use of technology and the number of ``boots on the ground'' to establish a benchmark for resource allocations and commitments in order to gain operational control of the Arizona border. Despite all of the work of Legacy INS and CBP through these various initiatives, the fact remains that we do not yet have operational control of our borders. These operations have been successful in increasing the number of apprehensions at those targeted areas of our border. It does not appear, however, that we have been able to translate the lessons learned into a comprehensive plan that shuts down our borders to illegal traffic. In fact, we currently do not even have complete visibility and awareness, there are many points along our borders where the Federal Government is effectively blind. Recently, citizens frustrated by the number of individuals entering our country illegally on the southern border have begun to band together and start their own citizen patrols. During the month of April, the Minuteman Project announced the placement of 857 volunteers along the Arizona border. The project claims their efforts resulted in the apprehension by the Border Patrol of 335 individuals illegally crossing the border, and we will hear more about their efforts today. Officials within DHS have repeatedly stated that we are moving in the right direction, and I have no doubt that we are. The concern of this committee, and many others in Congress, and the American public, is the pace and the efficiency of the effort to make progress. We need to move beyond broad policy statements and get down to the facts. How will we know when we have achieved operational control of our borders? How many boots on the ground and cameras in the sky will it take to get there? What are the funding requirements going to be? Congress needs to hear the hard truths about the state of the border so that we know what we must do to achieve our mission. We need to move beyond discrete initiatives and take what we have learned to create an effective, agile, layered and comprehensive border security strategy. There is not only great urgency in addressing these needs, but a vital requirement that we do this right. Therefore, we must not only work harder and faster, but smarter. Technology applications such as sensors, cameras, blimps and unmanned aerial vehicles have the ability to serve as force multipliers, and there is no question we need more of it. Let me also say this is not the time or the forum to point fingers. Debates about immigration policy have no place in this discussion. Whether you favor a more permissive or restrictive stance on immigration, a functioning and structurally sound border is the basic building block of any workable policy. We hope to learn today about technological advances and infrastructure improvements that CBP is currently implementing at the border. We also hope to learn some answers to the question of whether CBP is adequately staffing and training agents at the border. Finally, we hope to address the public's growing concerns about the capability and the will of the Federal Government to establish operational control of the southern border. [The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.002 Chairman Tom Davis. I now recognize Mr. Ruppersberger for an opening statement. Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Chairman, thank you for having this important hearing. First, protecting our borders must be our No. 1 priority with respect to our national security. We must do everything we can to stop illegal immigration. We are here today to talk about our borders and if we are doing enough to keep our country secure. We are also going to discuss the actions of private citizens and their efforts to protect our borders. We all know, the drug dealers know, the terrorists know that our borders are a sieve. This is a serious concern, and I know that the Members in the border States have been working on this issue for awhile. We must look for more agents on the border. We need better technology, and we need a more comprehensive solution. The question is how we stop illegal immigration. In my opinion, the only way to stop illegal immigration is to have the manpower or the boots on the ground to patrol and stop the crossings. I have introduced legislation to add an additional 2,000 agents per year for the next 5 years to our borders. That is 10,000 agents in total. Manpower and boots on the ground is an important tool to fill the gaps in our border. I would also suggest a comprehensive border solution where we bring DEA, border agents, customs, CIA, FBI, and NSA into an interagency task force like we have with the JTTF, which is a Joint Terrorism Task Force to fight terrorism, or the Joint Interagency Task Force in Key West that fights drug shipments. While that is what we are focusing on in Congress, and hopefully in our law enforcement, we need to look at what the citizens are doing. There has been an issue with the Minutemen, and some people are concerned that they might be considered vigilantes. There are other people who think they are doing the job. My former job when I was a Baltimore County executive, we had citizens on patrol, and these were volunteers that worked with police and the only equipment they had were microphones. They were eyes and ears. They were not involved in any arrests. They worked tremendously. Whenever we had a citizens on patrol in a neighborhood that had a serious crime problem, crime dropped. One of the most important issues with the citizens on patrol, as we need to do with the Minutemen, is that they need to be managed properly. They need to be managed properly by law enforcement who have the jurisdiction on the border. Law enforcement needs to know what they are doing at all times and that they have an agenda because everyone needs a boss, and we have to have that accountability. My concern is we have well-meaning people with the Minutemen, but one person who steps out of line and creates a vigilante-type situation could hurt the entire program. It is management at the top and making sure that they know what they are supposed to do and that the people in charge are always there and working with them. They can be a tremendous asset and tool. They can be eyes and ears because we do not have enough people working on our border patrol to deal with this entire problem. We must as a country focus on this issue. We need to remove the fear and politicization of the issue out of Congress. For too many years, Congress has used immigration as a tool for votes without much action and without real solutions. Because of that, people have sought to fix a problem where there should be a solution to this issue of illegal immigration. We need to stop abrogating our role in Congress, and we need to fund more Border Patrol agents and get more technology on the border. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Hon. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.003 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.004 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.005 Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you. We have the chairman of the Subcommittee on Drug Policy, Mr. Souder. Mr. Souder. Mr. Chairman, I am grateful to you and the ranking member, Mr. Waxman, for holding this hearing discussing the critical issue of securing our borders. As chairman of the subcommittee charged with oversight of all drug control programs, as well as an original member of the Committee on Homeland Security, I am very familiar with the challenges of securing our borders. My subcommittee has focused extensively on narcotics smuggling activities across the borders. And in July 2002, we issued a comprehensive congressional report which discussed the challenges about which you will be hearing today. The southwest border remains a primary conduit of illegal drugs into our country. With up to three-quarters of the narcotics coming across it, the problem is not going away. Drug seizures here have risen significantly during this decade, even as they fell in other parts of the country. It seems almost every week, law enforcement agents discover huge shipments of drugs in this area. Drug smuggling and related crime have taken a toll on the environment and the quality of life for local residents, besides presenting a threat to the entire Nation. According to the Centers for Disease Control, preliminary estimates for 2003, over 25,000 Americans died of drug-related causes. To put this in perspective, we have never lost this many Americans annually to a post World War II military or terrorist campaign. This staggering statistic is significant when we consider that we have lost over 1,500 brave Americans in Iraq since Operation Iraqi Freedom began, accounting for less than 3 percent of those lost to drugs over the same period of time. We have lost more Americans to drugs than were killed in all terrorist acts to date. Therefore, it is vitally important that we maintain vigorous efforts to control the sources and supplies for narcotics as we attempt to secure our borders. The Department of Homeland Security is an absolutely crucial player in our efforts to secure the borders. When Congress created the department in 2002, it combined some of the most important border security agencies in the Federal Government: The Border Patrol agents, the former INS and Customs inspectors, the Customs special agents, the former Customs pilots, represent America's front line against smugglers and drug traffickers. Although there are certainly other Federal agencies with vital roles in our fight to achieve some type of border control, the Department of Homeland Security and specifically CBP, is largely responsible for manning the front lines in this mission. Without them, we would have little or no defense against the smugglers, people or drugs at our borders. Thus, it is vitally important that these agencies remain focused and adaptive to various threats as they attempt to secure the borders and that they be provided the tools and authority to do their jobs. Several issues have arisen, however, that need to be addressed to ensure that DHS remains on track in the struggle to secure our borders and protect against drug trafficking. In particular, Congress and the administration need to work together to ensure that the structures and procedures at the Department reflect the importance of border security and counternarcotics. No one doubts the individuals currently serving at the department have a strong personal commitment. In particular, Mr. Bonner here today, to controlling the borders and stopping drug trafficking, but we need to make sure that over the long term, the Department is institutionally committed to these challenges. The first and foremost obvious issue is what is the plan? Does CBP have a strategic plan to address border security, a comprehensive, layered interagency plan to address border security? If we do not have a comprehensive idea of what we want to achieve, which threats we need to address and which agencies will lead, then we cannot believe our border security efforts will be successful. For example, at present there are two entities within CBP that have substantial air and/or marine operations, the Office of Air and Marine Operations [AMO], and the Border Patrol. These entities do not communicate with each other on a systematic basis about their fights or marine operations, even when they overlap with respect to mission and their geographic area. This has created a significant problem with duplication of effort and a safety issue for the pilots and boat operators involved. Additional issues of intelligence sharing, coordinated investigations and operational deconfliction must be addressed if CBP is to maximize its effectiveness along the borders and against drug traffickers. As the gentleman with us today fully knows, I think that is an artificial distinction and ICE and CBP need to be combined, and we will continue on that mission as long as I am in this position and until it is recognized. And Department of Homeland Security and everybody in the field knows it, and most of the leaders know it. We just need to get this done. I am concerned that although surge operations, as we have just seen, may be temporarily successful in controlling a portion of the land border, we may be at the same time permitting gaping holes somewhere else in the arrival zone. At a recent hearing in my subcommittee, we heard about critical shortages of marine patrol aircraft to support known drug smuggling activities in the maritime transit zones. Are we giving up our transit zones to secure the Arizona border? Are we catching the little fish and missing the big ones? We need to closely examine how well the multiple agencies charged with border security responsibilities are coordinating their efforts with each other and with their State and local law enforcement partners. We know we still lack adequate technologies and integrated information systems to maximize our efforts. We are working toward that goal. It is my hope at this hearing we will learn what steps Department of Homeland Security and CBP are taking to improve agency cooperation and security in securing our borders. I also hope to hear about what new initiatives CBP agencies have put in place to stay ahead of the smugglers and traffickers. These issues are all very important and extremely urgent. We look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about ways to address them. I thank everybody for taking time for this hearing. [The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.006 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.007 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.008 Chairman Tom Davis. All members will have 5 days to include statements for the record. Our first witness has a time limit. I know Mr. Kucinich wanted to say something. Mr. Kucinich. I will be brief out of deference to the Chair's concern about the witness' time. I will ask that my opening statement be included in the record. Chairman Tom Davis. Without objection. [The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.009 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.010 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.011 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.012 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.013 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.014 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.015 Mr. Kucinich. The questions we are talking about dealing with border security also involve cases which reflect major deficiencies on the part of our government's investigation of custom and border violations. I want to cite two quickly. First of all, how U.S. Customs handles an investigation of slave labor allegations regarding a product that we import into the United States. And as you know, importing products made with slave labor has been illegal since 1930. Allegations of slave labor used in the production of pig iron in the state of Brazil came out in the summer of 2002 as the United States reportedly imports 92 percent of the pig iron produced in Brazil, most of which is produced in Podda. It is probable that this importation violates section 1307 of the U.S. Tariff Act of 1930. I sent a letter to U.S. Customs asking which actions have been taken in response to this violation of law. I got a response back that says that the Amazon basin in Brazil is in a remote area where the majority of the roads are only accessible by way of four-wheel drive vehicles. They cannot investigate it, but for some reason, pig iron can get carried out but our investigators cannot get in. Finally, there is another case that involves the presence of an international terrorist, Luis Posada Correas, who has been in the United States, it is my understanding, for 6 weeks. He crossed the border illegally. He has arrived clandestinely in our country, and apparently in violation of many national laws. I would just like to point that out as you get into the hearing to talk about the work of U.S. Customs and the Border Patrol. Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you. [The information referred to follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.018 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.016 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.017 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.019 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.020 Chairman Tom Davis. All opening statements by Members will be included for the record. Our first witness today is the Honorable Robert C. Bonner, Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. It is our policy that all witnesses be sworn. [Witness sworn.] Chairman Tom Davis. Your entire testimony is part of the record. STATEMENT OF ROBERT C. BONNER, COMMISSIONER, U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY Mr. Robert Bonner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the committee. I would like to make a brief opening statement and frame some of the issues that I see with respect to our border patrol security situation. Let me begin by saying, as I think all of you know, this is National Police Memorial Week, and I came this morning from CBP headquarters where we honored the sacrifice of CBP Border Patrol agents, three of whom were killed in the line of duty this past year. It is always a poignant time of the year when we pause to acknowledge the contributions and sacrifices of our law enforcement officers and their families, the sacrifices they make to protection our Nation and protect our borders. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to appear before the committee today to discuss U.S. Customs and border protection, and in particular, what it is doing to better secure our borders. I mean, all of our ports of entry, and between those official ports of entry or official crossing points along the Mexican and the Canadian border. In the post September 11 era and the era of global terrorism, securing our borders is not only a matter of national sovereignty, it is a matter of national security. As the chairman suggested, in the age of global terrorism, control of our borders is essential. A little over 2 years, the personnel and all of the front line border agencies of the U.S. Government were unified into one agency and that is U.S. Customs and border protection, one of the principal operational agencies of the Department of Homeland Security. With 42,000 employees, it represents nearly one-fourth of all personnel of the Department of Homeland Security. CBP's priority mission is homeland security, of course, and specifically that means keeping terrorist and terrorist weapons from getting into the United States, but we also continue to perform some traditional missions, and that includes everything from interdicting and seizing illegal drugs to arresting and apprehending smugglers of drugs and people, to apprehending people that are illegally entering the United States. As the Nation's single front line border agency, for the first time in our Nation's history, we are able to develop and implement a comprehensive national strategy for securing our borders between our ports of entry. As part of that overall strategy, you have asked me to talk about a part of it, which is the new national border control strategy for controlling our borders. That strategy deals with between our ports of entry. Let me say this, the strategic goal of the National Border Patrol strategy, and it has never had one before it came over to CBP, the strategic goal is nothing less than operational control of our borders. The new Border Patrol strategy does build upon prior Border Patrol initiatives, everything from Operation Gatekeeper and Hold the Line, but it goes beyond those concepts. It focuses on five key objectives. One is centralized command over all of the 20 sectors of the Border Patrol, something that did not exist when the Border Patrol was part of the INS. Second, it focuses on the need for technology to better detect all illegal intrusions across our borders. Third, it talks about the capability of the Border Patrol to rapidly respond to those intrusions. Fourth, it contemplates a defensive strategy that is lateral to interior check points as well as transit areas coming away from our border. And five, and this is probably the most important, adequate numbers of well-trained Border Patrol agents. Recognizing the old adage that the chain is as strong as its weakest link, we have strengthened security at our ports of entry, our official crossings, and we are increasing our efforts between those ports of entry, including at the very weakest parts of our land border, and that is the Arizona border with Mexico. It is the weakest because last year, 52 percent of all of the 1.1 million illegal aliens apprehended by the Border Patrol crossing into our country were apprehended in Arizona, crossing the Arizona border. That is close to 600,000 illegal aliens apprehended in Arizona alone. Arizona has three primary corridors that illegal aliens and smugglers of drugs use to get either drugs or people into the United States. One is the west desert corridor, the other is the Nogales-Douglas corridor, and the other is the Yuma corridor. The first phase of the Arizona Border Control Initiative was focused primarily on the west desert corridor. We did achieve some of our objectives last year with the Arizona Border Control Initiative in terms of increased numbers of arrests, reduced numbers of people illegally entering through that corridor, reduced numbers of deaths in the desert, decreased crime, and decreased damage to the environment, but we did not achieve operational control. Two months ago on March 25, we launched the second phase of the Arizona Border Control Initiative, which is a full court press to reduce the number of illegal aliens crossing our border into Arizona and to reduce the illegal activity at our borders, concentrating first in the west desert corridor. Our aim is to gain operational control of the Arizona border, and to do that by putting more boots on the ground and that is directing the deployment of 534 more Border Patrol agents to the Arizona sectors. We immediately deployed in March 200 additional Border Patrol agents on a TDY basis, so we have more boots on the ground. We have doubled the number of aircraft operating in Arizona for air surveillance purposes and rapid air response. We have interior check points along the highway and are interdicting laterally from those check points. Border Patrol disrupt units are working with ICE investigators to disrupt the organizations that illegally smuggle aliens into the United States, and we are using the Border Patrol's new centralized command structure to rapidly deploy additional resources when and where they are needed to address the hottest and weakest spots on that border. Just 2 months into the second phase, we are seeing results. Just last month in Arizona, the Border Patrol arrested 79,000 illegal aliens crossing the border in Arizona. Including about 2,000 of whom were nationalities other than Mexican. Yesterday alone in Arizona, the Border Patrol apprehended 1,670 illegal aliens. Just a brief comment on the Minutemen Project and the topic that will be addressed certainly by your next panel. Last month, citizen volunteers stationed themselves along a 23-mile stretch of the Arizona border to help stop illegal aliens crossing our border from Mexico. The Minutemen brought significant media attention to an extremely important national issue. The actions of the Minutemen were well motivated, and we all know, saying that, that law enforcement is a very dangerous profession and that border environment is a dangerous environment. We are grateful there were incidents. There were no acts of vigilantism, and that is a tribute to the organizers of the Minutemen Project. Mr. Chairman, we are not going to control our borders overnight, and it is not easy. I believe we have a sound strategy, a good operational plan, and with sustained enforcement efforts and sufficient resources, we can and will gain control of our Nation's borders. This is not an impossible task. It is doable and we need to do it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [The prepared statement of Mr. Robert C. Bonner follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.091 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.092 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.093 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.094 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.095 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.096 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.097 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.098 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.099 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.100 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.101 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.102 Chairman Tom Davis. Commissioner Bonner, you said the Border Patrol will need more agents, but you have not said how many more, in addition to what I think is currently about 11,000. In testimony before the 9/11 Commission, former INS Commissioner Ziglar testified that 31,700 Border Patrol agents were needed to carry out enforcement. Do you have an opinion on his estimate? Mr. Robert Bonner. I have not had a chance to talk to Jim Ziglar to hear how he arrived at that figure. But let me say, we need more Border Patrol agents. There is no question about that. Chairman Tom Davis. Would you say a lot more? Mr. Robert Bonner. Certainly we are talking about two things. It is not all about agents. It is also about getting the optimal technology to detect interdictions and getting those agents and having the capability of rapid response to intrusions across our borders. If we had optimal technology, we are certainly talking about an increase in the numbers of agents. It is, I would say, in the thousands. I cannot go further. We worked up a number. I am addressing that through the appropriate channels through the Department of Homeland Security. We do have an idea based upon the optimal level of detection technology the number that is needed, but I don't feel comfortable at this point given the need to further brief and discuss this with Secretary Chertoff, who is very much aware and on top of this issue in the very short time he has been at the Department of Homeland Security as Secretary. Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Ruppersberger talked about the neighbors on patrol in his opening statement that they used in Baltimore County. In my county, we have neighborhood watch where citizens can volunteer. They work with the police. They are not working contrary to them. It is an adjunct to the police, adding more eyes and ears. They do not have arresting power. They are not posse comitatus. Do you have any role for that, where you have people coming forward and volunteering? Have we thought about utilizing that in any way, shape or form? Mr. Robert Bonner. Yes. The Border Patrol, and we continue to value the support of citizens. These are the eyes and ears of the Border Patrol along the border. This is particularly important in what I would call the thinly or more rural parts of the border which are the ones that are the most difficult to control. The Border Patrol has made significant progress in gaining greater control, not perfect control. These tend to be areas along some of the larger urban areas. In a nutshell, the Border Patrol, Customs and Border Protection, we value citizen help. We value having citizens that are eyes and ears to tell us when there is suspicious activity. The question would be is there a way to let us say better and more effectively harness the citizen volunteers? That is something that we are looking at. I don't have the answer, but we want any kind of force multiplier we can get. But the border is a dangerous area. We want to be able to provide at least some insights, possibly even training to any citizens that are volunteering to go down. Chairman Tom Davis. We use volunteers for fire service and a lot of other public service safety areas as well. We are going to hear from people who have been there. It is important that you channel them appropriately. It sounds like you are thinking this through. Mr. Robert Bonner. We think it is worthy to consider how this might be done. Chairman Tom Davis. I am concerned that we are not using the best capability in our UAV technology to protect the southwest border. We should not be using drones that lack the satellite capability to fly beyond the line of sight missions required to reach the most remote areas, such as the west desert areas of Arizona. Can you give us, make available to the committee the results from the UAV tests from the southwest border? Mr. Robert Bonner. I am sure that we can work with the committee on that subject. We deployed a UAV last year on a pilot basis in Arizona. By the way, the jury is out on this a bit. We think that the UAV or something equivalent to the UAV could play an important role in terms of continuous aerial border surveillance, which would allow us to take Border Patrol agents doing surveillance duty on a static deployment basis and allow them to be part of a rapid response capability to detect and move--not detect, but to move against detected apprehension. We are moving forward on essentially---- Chairman Tom Davis. Do you have a time line for that? Mr. Robert Bonner. In terms of talking to our procurement people or getting something else in place, and by the way, I am as anxious to move forward on this as anybody here, but I would say right now we are hopeful, just given the procurement process, to have something selected, if you will, by around August. There could be some slippage in that. But that is how long my procurement people say it is going to take. We would hope to have something deployed by September, something up in the air. That is our goal. Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you. Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Kucinich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Bonner, are you familiar with correspondence that you received relative to slave labor occurring in the power state in Brazil from my office? Mr. Robert Bonner. I am not as I sit here, Mr. Kucinich. I heard you talk about the situation in Brazil. I am not specifically familiar with the details of the potential use of slave labor for the manufacture of pig iron in Brazil. Mr. Kucinich. I sent two letters, and I am going to ask staff to provide copies to Mr. Bonner, one is dated September 24, 2004, and one dated May 4, 2005. In response to the letter in September, I got a reply from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which among other things, said that the Amazon basins in Brazil, where the majority of these violations take place, the roads are only accessible by four-wheel-drive vehicles. I am calling this to your attention, Mr. Bonner, because there have been widespread reports about people working as slave laborers in Brazil, particularly with respect to the power region. Reports have surfaced that indicate that the United States is directly benefiting from the proceeds of slavery, that 92 percent of the pig iron produced in the forest is exported to U.S. mills, and much of the smelting is done by forced labor which contravenes section 1307 of the U.S. tariff act of 1930. You are familiar with 1307. Mr. Robert Bonner. I am familiar with the law on that subject, yes, sir. Mr. Kucinich. Information which has been brought forward suggests there is a violation that has occurred. Is Customs looking the other way at slave labor in Brazil because it is benefiting U.S. interests? Mr. Robert Bonner. It is not, but you use the word ``Customs.'' There is no U.S. Customs any more. The DHS reorganization, they took essentially the investigators that had been in Customs and put them in an entity called ICE. That is why it was not me that responded to you. Mr. Kucinich. ICE has enforcement? Mr. Robert Bonner. They have the investigators, and the overseas attaches. Mr. Kucinich. Is enforcement on ICE? Mr. Robert Bonner. It is a shared responsibility. I have part of the responsibility here, but if you are talking about investigating overseas, it is totally ICE. I have no attaches in Brazil. ICE does. I have no attaches any place in the world. The investigative responsibility---- Mr. Kucinich. So you are saying you have no responsibility for these matters whatsoever? Mr. Robert Bonner. We do have responsibility. When ICE tells us there is a shipment of pig iron that is as a result of slave labor, we seize it. We depend upon getting information from ICE to enforce the laws that are made against products made with child labor. We do that and we are serious about doing it, but we are dependent on getting that information from some investigative agency, and that is ICE principally. Mr. Kucinich. Are you familiar with whether any materials, pig iron from the power region of Brazil, have ever been interdicted, any shipments ever blocked by Customs? Mr. Robert Bonner. Customs and Border Protection now at the ports of entry. As I sit here, no. Mr. Kucinich. Do you have any interest in this at all? Mr. Robert Bonner. Yes, I have an interest. I will followup with ICE and Mr. Garcia, who is the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who has the investigators. I will personally followup with him for you. Mr. Kucinich. I would like to do that, because according to the information I have, in this one particular area, 534 rural workers were reported as killed in the last 30 years until 2001. That is 26 times the national homicide average. U.S. Customs, when they are asked to comment on a story about a guardian, say, there was no one familiar with the problem available to comment. I trust as a result of this hearing, you will become familiar with the problem enough to give us a report? Mr. Robert Bonner. I will be happy to. But I want to say on March 1, 2003, U.S. Customs was split. The investigators were split out of Customs into ICE. Mr. Kucinich. To the extent that you can be responsible for any of this, will you? Mr. Robert Bonner. Absolutely. I will followup with you on this. Mr. Kucinich. Thank you. The next question is with respect to Luis Posada Correas. Are you familiar with him being in this country? Mr. Robert Bonner. I have heard that he is in this country. Mr. Kucinich. Is he in this country illegally? Mr. Robert Bonner. I am not sure we know for sure how he entered the United States. Mr. Kucinich. Are you interested in how he entered? Mr. Robert Bonner. Of course. Mr. Kucinich. Will you find out whether he is in this country illegally? Mr. Robert Bonner. I said I will undertake to see if I can get that information. Mr. Kucinich. Thank you. Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Souder. Mr. Souder. First, let me thank the gentleman from Ohio for pointing out the almost silliness of separating ICE from the border, because it is ridiculous to have one group watching the border but not be able to followup. I hope as they reorganize that Mr. Bonner, who knows full well these challenges, will be given more authority to figure out how this interrelates. We even have the air and marine divisions in Colombia and inside, and this clearly, and I know the Department is looking at it right now, and they need to look at it aggressively. I have a couple of things in the line of questioning. Two basic parts. One directly relates to the Arizona surge. I would like some idea of how many additional people came through Texas and California while we were moving assets from all over the country for an Arizona surge. I was in Texas at the time, and saw assets moved. I was in California at the time and saw assets moved. To some degree you even had to move assets to watch the Minutemen. To some degree, while it has the great advantage of focusing attention on the problem, it was relatively counterproductive if what we do, and particularly, when these things are announced, they just moved to another area. It is not like we were fixing either with the surge or with the Minutemen Project. I held hearings at Sells. I saw hundreds myself moving through. Unless we in Congress deal with a reasonable immigration policy and start to address this, your agents are overwhelmed. It is impossible to picket fence this whole border. We have to get the coyotes and the networks, and not overreact to every media story. We held hearings in Douglas and Nogales. I held hearings in California, multiple places on the Texas border. This problem is not just Arizona, it is across the board and we have to have a comprehensive backup network. We have to follow as they move in and see where they are hitting the road and networking like it is a trucking company. We need to make sure that the drugs and terrorist networks are inside that. In my original statement, and you responded by saying you had a Border Patrol strategy. My question was broader. Is Homeland Security going to coordinate, FBI, DEA? Are you going to get the Coast Guard involved? Are you going to have a comprehensive border strategy? Second, you did not mention information sharing. We are proliferating the intelligence. Each agency wants its sub area of intelligence. How is this going to be coordinated so we do not have everybody in 10 meetings figuring out how to talk to each other? How can we coordinate this? Third, NORTHCOM is looking at getting this in a big way. One of the fundamental questions here is: Is Department of Homeland Security going to get organized enough to merge the border and the ICE people and get this coordinated, or do we have to move it over to the Department of Defense and NORTHCOM, and have them be the coordinator of intelligence and use the Guard and so on. I appreciate all of the time you have given me to talk with you about this. But I want to get on the record some of your thoughts as well. Mr. Robert Bonner. You have raised some extremely broad issues, Mr. Souder. First of all, there is a broad strategy for the front line border that is not just the Border Patrol strategy. It also includes all of our official crossing points, so we do have a comprehensive strategy to keep things that we do not want in our country out. Whether that is illegal drugs or potential terrorist operatives. Everything we do and have done to improve our posture on the border to be able to better perform our homeland security mission, keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out, improves our ability to keep illegal drugs and drug smugglers out as well. That said, you touched upon an issue of great importance and that is, how do we get the best information to our front line border agency to allow them to respond in the best and most effective way. You have been to the border. We seized 2.1 million pounds of illegal drugs on our border. We are paying attention to this issue. On the other hand, 99 percent of those seizures were cold hits. Those were as a result of hard work by front line CBP officers at the ports of entry, across the southwest border mainly, JFK and Miami, but mainly the southwest border, and Border Patrol agents between the ports of entry. We could do better if we could organize our intelligence better to get intelligence and information to our front line Border Patrol personnel, CBP, so we are interdicting more of those drugs based upon intelligence like we are doing right now in the east pack, like we are doing right now with air and marine assets of CBP in the source and transit zone because most of those seizures are intelligence QTs. So we have to do this at the border. It means getting DEA and ICE. It means the right people at the table that is providing this feedback information to our front line border agency. Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Cummings. Mr. Cummings. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this important hearing on border security. The tragic events of September 11 forced our country to acknowledge that border security must address more than just the significant challenges of drug trafficking and illegal immigration, but also the savagery of terrorism. This hard-learned lesson demands that we effectively secure our borders. At the same time, we must hold fast to the values of hope, diversity and openness that make America great by welcoming legal immigrants and visitors who enrich our culture while upholding the integrity of our laws. In the post September 11 world, maintaining a robust, multifaceted and responsive border security strategy is essential to our national security. If there be any doubt of its necessity, bear in mind that the Department of Homeland Security's recent testimony that al Qaeda is considering exploiting our southwest border vulnerabilities as means of entry into the United States. Unfortunately, I have serious questions about the government's ability to secure our borders. I am deeply troubled by a report issued during the 108th Congress of the minority staff of the select committee on homeland security that included the following: The southern border is porous and more staffing is needed at the southern border. Modern technology must be deployed on the entire southern border. Border officials are not getting the intelligence they need to perform their counterterrorism mission. It went on to say the Department of Homeland Security detention and removal operation is failing. The administration has failed, it said, to develop a comprehensive, long-term border strategy. The substantive weakness in our border system also impacts our ability to interdict drugs from foreign nations. With that said, nearly all of the cocaine consumed in the United States and most of the heroin consumed on the East Coast originates in Colombia. As ranking minority member of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, and as a Congressman who represents Baltimore and Maryland, I have seen firsthand communities from urban centers to the heartland in the grips of death and devastation due to drugs. Terrorism fueled by drugs can be just as destructive as the terrorism driven by religious extremism. President Bush stated during his 2005 State of the Union address, ``It is time for an immigration policy that tells us who is entering and leaving our country and that closes the border to drug dealers and terrorists.'' While these words are comforting, we must recognize that words alone are not enough to stop drug dealers and terrorists from harming the communities we have sworn to protect. I am deeply troubled that the President's rhetoric on border security does not correspond with the priorities in his fiscal year 2006 budget. To begin, the President proposed to cut funding for important homeland security grants to States at a time of unprecedented threats to the homeland. Moreover, the President proposed funding for only 210 additional Border Patrol agents even though 2,000 additional agents were authorized. I am no less troubled that the President's budget proposes to withdraw significant levels of Federal support for State and local drug enforcement. The President proposes to decimate the high intensity drug trafficking areas programs by eliminating more than half its budget and moving it to the Department of Justice. At the same time, he proposes to eviscerate funding for the COPS program and to entirely eliminate funding for the burn grants. These programs provide a critical line of defense in stopping drugs from flooding our streets once they have entered our Nation. In the end, the American people expect more than inspirational speeches. They expect us to effectively secure our border. Sadly, the administration's commitment in their budget leaves much to be desired if we are to achieve this worthwhile end. I look forward to this testimony today. [The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.021 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.022 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.023 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.024 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.025 Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Gutknecht. Mr. Gutknecht. Mr. Chairman, I didn't really have a question, but I want to attach myself to the comments just made. I think there is a growing feeling that we do not take this issue very seriously. I am hopeful in the coming months that we can all be proved wrong on that, but there is growing suspicion. Let me give one example. We have a serious problem with methamphetamines throughout much of rural America, although I must say that one of my sheriffs told me she was convinced that at least a majority and perhaps as much as 70 to 80 percent of the meth was coming in via illegal aliens through Mexico. And to confirm her point, I think a few weeks later there were five illegal aliens driving on Interstate 35 north of Albert Lea, Minnesota, and they had a trunk load of meth. So this nagging suspicion sort of gets reconfirmed that we do not take this whole issue as seriously as we should. I think that is a bipartisan concern. I think it is a concern of those who live in the big cities, and it is a concern of those of us who represent what some might describe as more rural districts. I don't know if you want to respond to that. Mr. Robert Bonner. I would like to respond. I can tell Members that we, Customs and Border Protection, part of the Department of Homeland Security, do take the issue seriously in terms of the ability of people or drugs to get into the United States. It is a difficult issue. I served in the first Bush administration as head of the DEA. I have seen the ravages of meth and meth labs and the ability to move meth around. The Mexican trafficking organizations get involved in essentially meth production and the like. I work very closely with Karen Tandy, who is now the administrator of DEA on these issues. We do take it seriously, and we take seriously the control and security of our border. As we were saying earlier, I think as a country, we always had a duty and obligation as the Federal Government to control and secure our borders. But in the post September 11 era, it is absolutely essential that we do so because there is the potential for terrorist penetration. We have to do this. We are doing everything we can with our resources to be as effective as possible in interdicting the flow of illegal drugs and people moving into the United States. Mr. Gutknecht. Thank you. Chairman Tom Davis. Ms. Sanchez. Ms. Sanchez. Commissioner Bonner, both President Bush and representatives from the U.S. Border Patrol have been critical of the Minutemen as interfering with law enforcement efforts, posing a danger to citizens, to legal immigrants and themselves. In fact, President Bush has described the Minutemen as vigilantes. Would you describe for the committee some of the specific instances of Minutemen or similar type citizen patrols interfering with Federal Border Patrol efforts? Mr. Robert Bonner. Let me say the President's comment I think you are referring to was made before the Minutemen even arrived in Arizona. Ms. Sanchez. So your opinion is they are not vigilantes? Are they armed? Mr. Robert Bonner. It was in March. I will say this, I was concerned about the potential for vigilantism that might take place with people coming to Arizona. The reality, and I think it is a tribute to the people who organized the Minutemen Project, there were no acts of vigilantism. Ms. Sanchez. Was there any interference with Federal Border Patrol efforts? Mr. Robert Bonner. I don't know I would call it interference. During the project there were--first of all, there were times, I am told that sensors were tripped. Ms. Sanchez. What does that do to our limited Federal resources when we have citizen patrol groups that are tripping sensors? Mr. Robert Bonner. Anything that walks or moves can trip a sensor. Ms. Sanchez. But when they are falsely positively tripping sensors, what does that do? Do you not respond when the sensors go off? Mr. Robert Bonner. I don't think it is a big issue. Ms. Sanchez. It is not a big issue that Federal resources can be wasted on nonthreats to our national security? Mr. Robert Bonner. If a sensor is tripped, we respond to it. It may turn out to be something other than a group of illegal aliens. That happens. You probably want to take a look at the totality of the circumstances here. There was some I would say diversion of Border Patrol resources to responding to sensors that were tripped. But on the other hand, if you look at the totality, first of all, I am grateful there were no acts of improper and inappropriate incidents during the month that the Minutemen Project held forth in that 23 mile area of the border. Ms. Sanchez. So you would not discourage these patrols from continuing to patrol? Mr. Robert Bonner. There is an interesting question about how do you do this. I am very concerned about people unnecessarily getting hurt or killed. And I do know and I visited down in many areas of our border, but certainly it's particularly true in various parts of the Arizona border, it is very treacherous and it is a very dangerous place. Border Patrol agents have and are from time to time shot at. Their lives are in danger. So I think this is fundamentally the control of the border, patrolling the border. Making apprehensions is a law enforcement responsibility, and Border Patrol agents should do this job. Ms. Sanchez. How would you propose to deter citizens from acting as Border Patrol agents and acting perhaps in an appropriate manner? Mr. Robert Bonner. For one thing as I have indicated before, I do depend upon the eyes and ears of citizens. We will continue to do that and certainly will encourage that and have hotline and tip lines to do that. I'm not quite sure, Ms. Sanchez, I'm totally capturing the thrust of your question. Ms. Sanchez. I have two last questions and will try to get them on the record and have you respond if you will. Are any of these folks armed that are out doing these citizen patrols? And my last question is are they patrolling the northern border where there has been actually specific terrorists that have been apprehended at the border? Those would be my last two questions. If you could respond to them, I would appreciate it. Mr. Robert Bonner. I believe, of course, it is legal in Arizona to carry a weapon in the open. Ms. Sanchez. California, it is not. Mr. Robert Bonner. And I believe---- Chairman Tom Davis. Go ahead and answer the question. Mr. Robert Bonner. I believe that some of them had arms. And as far as the northern border, look, we have had specific intelligence, it's not new, but that al Qaeda has considered, has actually contemplated using the southern border and the ability to illegally cross our southern border to get terrorist operatives into the United States. Both borders are a potential threat when it comes to the terrorist issue. Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Marchant. Mr. Marchant. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Commissioner, I have a couple of questions and maybe a comment to start. Being from Texas and having the longest stretch of border between Mexico and Texas, maybe 1,000 miles, is it that long? Mr. Robert Bonner. Longer. Mr. Marchant. I would say at least 20 percent of my constituent mail that I get in Washington is about this subject and it is from the time I served in the State legislature till now, it just is a straight line. And when we go home and do our town hall meetings, really the people don't want to talk about Social Security much. They don't want to talk about tax reform much. They want to talk about illegal aliens and what is happening in our hospitals and our schools, and so it is beginning to really hit us as Congressmen back home in a way that I know you appreciate, but there is beginning to be a pressure on us so that when we hear buzzwords like operational control of our borders, we understand that. We respect that here in Washington. I can't go back and use a buzzword like ``control,'' you know, operational control of our borders, because the definition of my constituency of operational control of our borders is they are not building the new shelter in town for the illegal aliens to show up in the morning and not get wet because they are building shelters for them. And that is the--so what does operational control--what would it mean to me living in the suburbs of Dallas if you achieve--if the Border Patrol--not you, but if the Border Patrol achieves its goal of having operational control? What will it look like? Mr. Robert Bonner. Doesn't mean it would be absolutely impossible for anybody to cross our border because if we set that as a goal it's a goal for a certain failure, but what it does mean is a substantially high level of probability that you are going to be apprehended if you are illegally entering our country. Do you know it when you see it? There are areas of the border in the El Paso area, in the San Diego County area, not all of it by the way, but there are areas of the border where I can say and you can say if you go down and look at them that we have achieved something, that there is a high level of apprehension and it has staunched the flow of illegal aliens and potentially anybody else who might be trying to illegally enter our country. I am not saying we've got the border under control. We don't. We have a long way to go here. But I will tell you, I'm from Los Angeles, Ms. Sanchez. And I went down to the border many times when I was U.S. attorney in L.A. and I saw at sundown the illegal aliens gathered on the hillsides waiting for the sun to do down and they just rushed across the border. I mean it was totally, flat out of control. As a result of efforts of the Border Patrol, some tactical infrastructure, increased numbers of Border Patrol agents, better technology, lighting and other things, most of that border area is under a reasonable degree of control. Not all of it. Frankly, we haven't been able to complete a middle section of the fence from--about 3\1/2\ miles to the ocean. You will know it when you see it. And how else will you know it? Crime goes down. The environmental damage goes down in terms of people illegally crossing and leaving their junk and debris behind. You know it when you see it. And we will know as we get greater control of our border. Again, we're doing everything we can within our current resources to achieve greater control of our border and we are addressing and we are doing it with greater mobility. Part of the strategy, national border patrol strategy, greater mobility than we had before to move more quickly to where and when the Border Patrol needs to be to show up in the weakest areas. So we've got to--and we are doing our best with people and technology and that's what it means. Mr. Marchant. The House is trying to assist in that in some of the legislation we have been passing lately, and we have been trying to get that word back. Can I ask just one more operational question? Chairman Tom Davis. The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Ruppersberger. Commissioner Bonner, two areas I would like to get into, I think Congressman Souder got into this, he asked about was there a program for the different agencies to work together and you mentioned it and didn't get into detail. Also the issue of information sharing. From a perspective-- we have serious problems on our border. You used Mexico as an example. We have the majority of drugs that come to the United States that come through Mexico. I'm sure that the same bad guys that are helping to get illegal immigrants through the border are the same bad guys that are connected to drugs and the same bad guys that are probably going to be working with al Qaeda to get people into our country to deal with the things that we don't want to deal with, and that's terrorism. In order for us to take this issue seriously--and I'm talking more from a security point of view and not the issue of immigration, there are a lot of issues there, we need to have a joint group of agencies working together the same way we do in Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to have not only your organization but FBI, DEA, NSA, CIA all working and focusing on that border, because if you look at the problems we have with drugs, drugs is probably--not probably, it is a more serious problem than terrorism because drugs affects everyone in the world; 85 percent of all our violent crime is drug related. My question to you, I want you to get into the specifics-- do you have a comprehensive program working with the different Federal agencies to help you to get you intelligence to make sure we are focusing on the bad guys that have been so effective in getting people through our borders? Mr. Robert Bonner. We have actually a very good method, and it has certainly vastly improved, of getting intelligence with respect to the potential terrorist threat, and that is through the Department of Homeland Security working with the Intelligence Community and all aspects of the Intelligence Community and the FBI. So we have that, and that would apply not just to our border with Mexico or our border with Canada, all of our ports of entry, people coming into the United States from abroad and through our airports and so forth. I think that's working reasonably well and we have made tremendous progress. Mr. Ruppersberger. I would like to get into detail. You can say you are working together, but are you sharing office space? Are you getting information? Are the people collocated in the same area, because it's about results and accountability of the performance. And I'm not sure whether or not that performance is there and I'm not throwing fault, I'm talking more about giving the resources to you. Mr. Robert Bonner. I understand what you're saying. This is a very important point and that is when you are talking about the operational effort at the border. You have front-line people, and that's the Border Patrol, and at the ports of entry. That is CBP officers. FBI agents don't do interdiction at the border. DEA agents don't do interdiction at the border. What you have is a relationship between the investigative agencies, which are DEA and FBI and ICE now, and the front line border personnel, so that you have a feedback loop of information. So that if there is a drug trafficker--and by the way, this happens everyday, and it is happening right now as we speak. We interdict and intercept illegal drugs at El Paso. We call in one of these investigative agencies. Usually would be ICE. And it needs to--if there is an investigative potential, it runs with it or it's DEA, it runs with that. And when it brings down that organization, how do the drugs get across? What is the modus operandi for getting across? It's that feedback loop of information that I was referring to in Mr. Souder's question. It isn't putting FBI agents or DEA agents or even ICE agents at the border. We have interdicters at the border and you need the sharing and flow of information. Mr. Ruppersberger. My light came on and I want to ask you this question. Asa Hutchinson, when he was the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, made a comment that we did not have the resources on the border and he never thought we would solve the problem unless Congress and the public of the United States is willing to give the money and the resources. He made that comment. Do you agree with that comment? And if you do, what are the resources that you think you need to do the job? I told you before I put a bill in to try to get 2,000 more agents on the ground for the next 5 years, which is 10,000. That bill hasn't gone anywhere yet, but as a result of his comments, do you agree with them, No. 1? And if you do or don't, what resources do you need? Mr. Robert Bonner. We need more Border Patrol agents. Mr. Ruppersberger. How many more? Mr. Robert Bonner. I would say that we have--you know the President has added about 1,500 Border Patrol agents in the last several years. Just very quickly, it's not all agents, it is technology. If you are just talking about agents at the border, well, I probably agree with Mr. Ziglar's number and that may be south of what we need. This is the American Shield Initiative as part of the new border patrol strategy with the right number of agents. But even so, we are going to need more Border Patrol agents. Chairman Tom Davis. Gentleman's time has expired. You have 5 more minutes and you have to meet the Secretary. Mr. McHenry, you are next. Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate the Commissioner being here and I only have 5 minutes. This will work out nicely for you. I had a question. There's Phase 2 of the Arizona Border Patrol Initiative that calls for 200 boots on the ground and increased 42 aircraft. Where are these resources coming from? Are they being taken from other areas? Mr. Robert Bonner. In essence, the 200 new Border Patrol agents are not new Border Patrol agents. The 200 Border Patrol agents that I directed be put into Arizona on top of a base of about 2,200 came principally from the sectors in California and Texas. Now I didn't move all of the 11,000 Border Patrol agents in Arizona, because I don't want to detract or degrade the ability to maintain the degree of control we are maintaining in California and Texas, and I'm not saying that degree of control is perfect, but we have to address the weakest spot in our border, while maintaining other sections. Mr. McHenry. California and Texas, where are the aircrafts coming from? Mr. Robert Bonner. Essentially the same locations. I'm generalizing. But the aircrafts are highly mobile assets, as you know, and so we double from about 19 to 42 aircrafts that are doing aerial surveillance in response in the area. By and large, they came mainly from California and they are temporarily there. When we get control, which I hope we do, they'll return. We haven't permanentized those assets. Mr. McHenry. If you could provide me with that information, that would be a great help where the 200 agents came from, and where the aircraft came from, because it seems like we are neglecting areas in order to focus on narrow areas. But one of the more interesting things that I would like to hear from you is about Border Safety Initiative. If you could explain to the panel in essence what you all are thinking by doing this? [The prepared statement of Hon. Patrick T. McHenry follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.026 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.027 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.028 Mr. Robert Bonner. First of all, we're not neglecting areas. What you are doing is you are operating smartly. We're considering the entirety of our southern border in this case and saying what do we need to do? Are we going to apply resources to gain, essentially, control of our areas and to do that as wisely and quickly and as rapidly as possible. So assets--it is a national border and it is a Federal issue. On the Border Safety Initiative, I am not quite sure where your question is on that. Mr. McHenry. Explain it to us. As I understand it, instead of actually using moneys appropriated to defend our border, we are actually providing water, for instance, in certain areas of the desert for these folks that are coming across the border, which I think is really just quite frankly bizarre that we are actually encouraging people to come in and intrude on our borders by giving them the resources to do it. Mr. Robert Bonner. We don't provide that. Mr. McHenry. You don't provide water? Mr. Robert Bonner. No, we don't. We put stations in so illegal aliens who are in great distress can call us and we apprehend them. When we find them and they're dehydrated and almost dead in the desert, we give them water, but we don't put water out there. Those are citizen groups who are doing that who no doubt are altruistically motivated to the issue. But on the other hand, you know, we have--we do have a Border Safety Initiative and have been working with the Mexican Government. The way to prevent deaths in the desert is to control our border, and that's what we are trying to do. The more we control our border, the fewer people are going to die in the desert. It has a safety net. And it will--to the extent we can be more successful, it will prevent people from crossing the border and fewer people are going to die crossing. Mr. McHenry. If I may followup. Mr. Robert Bonner. That is my safety initiative. Mr. McHenry. I know it's in cooperation with the Mexican Government, and I think it's been highlighted in recent news accounts, the fact that the Mexican Government is providing a booklet on the safest way to cross the border. Is that part of the Border Safety Initiative? Mr. Robert Bonner. No, it's not, and the Mexican Government is--there was a guide or a booklet that was put out, it seems to me it was 4, 5 months ago, and I believe it was inappropriate. I mean it had a lot of information in it but it tended to encourage people to illegally enter the United States. And I believe that booklet has been withdrawn by the Mexican Government. That's my information. Chairman Tom Davis. We will try to get--I know you have to go in just a minute. Ms. Brown-Waite. Ms. Brown-Waite. Thank you very much. I would like to ask the Commissioner if he has yet solved the issue that I brought to your attention last year and that is that the Customs people still have conflicting badges with their IDs. I forget whether it is the badge or the ID still says Treasury Department, which is what Customs used to be under. This may be a small issue, and I got back a letter that it's a good thing we didn't have this hearing last year or I would still be angry because of the letter I got back. It was a ``don't worry, be happy'' letter. Some smart attorney is going to get somebody off because of this conflict. And I understand it still has not yet been resolved. That's question No. 1. Question No. 2, or statement No. 2, I represent Florida and I can just tell you that at any given time, and I'm sure my colleagues here will agree, our people back in the district office handling immigration have upwards of 150 cases of people in our district trying to have family members come in legally or that they are trying to extend their visit here legally. They're trying to do it legally. And the big joke is, no, I'm sorry, you cannot become a citizen. And I have had so many of them say to me, I'll go down to the Mexican border. The frustration is the amount of time it takes to go through immigration, the legal process. People are trying very hard to do what's right and abide by the law so they're not illegal. And one of the last things is that I understand that overtime in the agency is being sucked up, and let me use that word in quotes, sucked up by administrators and that the people actually on the ground at the border, at the airports, at the seaports who do the job are not getting the overtime. It's being sucked up, and I'm putting that in quotes, by the administrators. And the last question, without any restrictions by the administration, how many more border patrol would you really have requested? I didn't hear a hard and fast number there. I know it takes training time and I know it's not going to be an overnight fix, but I can just tell you that people in my district, and I think I hear this echoed on both sides of the aisle, that the taxpayers in the United States of America do not believe that we are doing enough. So tell me what is enough, not just for Border Patrol, but certainly for technology and making their jobs easier, because in California I know that the Border Patrol people are very frustrated. I have some relatives out there who live very close to some people who work for Border Patrol out there. They're very frustrated at not just this administration's policy, but previous administrations' policy of kind of the wink and nod approach to illegal immigration. And Americans are fed up with it. They are tired of people constantly coming into this country illegally. And you know, a couple of years ago, we might have all bought that, well, they are doing jobs that average Americans won't do, but I'm not sure that still is the case. I think we filled our quota of jobs that Americans won't do. So we have to come up with another excuse why we are so lax, and I would appreciate your responses. Mr. Robert Bonner. Trying to take those quickly in sequence, the badges, we were the first law enforcement agency at the Department of Homeland Security to issue new badges. We have 30,000 uniformed law enforcement personnel, 11,000 Border Patrol agents, about 19,000 at the ports of entry, and all of the port of entry officers have the new CBP Department of Homeland Security badge. I think we're well along with all of the Border Patrol agents to get everybody with a badge. There has been a holdup in the credentials and that was getting--just a decision essentially that took more time than I would have liked, but I have authorized the credentials now and those haven't been issued, so that there will be new credentials for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Ms. Brown-Waite. When will those credentials be issued? Mr. Robert Bonner. I honestly don't know. I will be happy to get that to you. It's printed and then you have 42,000 employees. Ms. Brown-Waite. Do those 42,000 employees get paid regularly? I mean is it not something that could be put with their paychecks? Come on. It has been so long and this ID issue is a serious legal issue. Mr. Robert Bonner. I'm not saying it isn't. I feel we have done well on badges, but for reasons that I don't even know that I can fully explain to get the approval and the credentials from the Department of Homeland Security, we just got the approval recently. We certainly had been moving forward on that. In any event, it is done or is in the process of being done. As far as people not being able to get into the country or get a visa or they are in the country change of status, the Citizenship and Immigration Services, I mean that is an entity, a service and benefit immigration entity. It happens to be in the Department of Homeland Security, but it's not me. I can't really help with that particular issue. The overtime thing, I never heard that before. We use a lot of overtime obviously to be able to--I will get back to you. And I think I've taken my best stab how many Border Patrol agents we need short of divulging things. [The prepared statement of Hon. Ginny Brown-Waite follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.029 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.030 Chairman Tom Davis. We have one more Member who has not asked questions. Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will take a few minutes. First of all, I agree with what Ms. Brown-Waite has said and can tell you based on things that I've read and heard from others across the country, I think there is probably three or four times as many illegal immigrants in this country as the government estimates. I read in Newsweek and read another report, that half the people of the world have to get by on $2 or less a day. The other article said half the people of the world don't have a second pair of shoes. And it made me recall many years ago, and this is my 17th year in the Congress, one of our agencies did an estimate that said half of the people in the world want to come here. Now we can't take half of the people in the world. That would be over 3 billion people. So we have to have some sort of orderly legal system of immigration. And right now we are overrun with illegal immigrants. And I read in this one report that we have in front of us that interior enforcement has gone down by 80 percent since 1998. And always, all the committees, whenever we hear about a government agency messing up, they blame it on one of two things or both. First thing they say is that they are underfunded. And second thing, they blame it on the computer system. They say the computers can't talk to each other or something. We found out that 15 of the 19 illegal people involved in the--hijackers involved in September 11 were here illegally. The INS said they were underfunded. And our Congressman Gallegly appeared on 60 Minutes said we have given 250 percent increase in funding to the INS over the previous 8 years. Since that time we have voted several times in the House to give additional funding and increases to the Border Patrol for increased numbers of agents, and yet we keep seeing all these people flood in here. We have this Minuteman Project who some people have criticized, which I think is in the best American tradition of volunteerism in trying to help out, and we have this quote in this one report from Mr. Simcox that says the government can't afford to let this thing succeed. I know that government agencies don't like to have volunteers because they want to get more employees and more money instead of having volunteers to help them with their jobs. But I can tell you this, it's getting frustrating for many of us, and we are all being flooded with complaints and criticisms and hearing about people who have wrecks and don't have insurance. Why are these enforcements going down and why were the Minutemen able to claim that they achieved such great success? And I had some complaints and so I kept trying to get the INS to come up a few years ago, and I had to deal with an office in New Orleans instead of Memphis or Washington. And I finally got them to come up and they came up for 2 days and they did two raids, 1 day apart from each other, and found 1,200 illegal immigrants. And they could come back the next day and find just as many. I mean, why do you have so many people who aren't wanting to do their jobs in this agency, Mr. Bonner? Mr. Robert Bonner. I don't think you do. Let me start off by saying, I guess there is the third excuse now because interior enforcement--you are talking to the border agency here, and I take responsibility for the border, but interior immigration enforcement is actually in ICE, in a different agency. But I will say this. Look, I said we need more Border Patrol agents. I appreciate the fact, one, that the intelligence bill had 2,000 more new Border Patrol agents in it. That wasn't a funding or an appropriation, that was 2,000 more on paper. By the way, I'm very grateful and will state this right now that Congress has passed the supplemental and added 500 new Border Patrol agents in the supplemental that just passed and signed by the President either today or yesterday and that's a good start in the right direction. The Minuteman, by the way, I think I have said positive things about them, but that was 23 miles of border that we are talking about there. Based upon phone calls we've got from the Minuteman, Border Patrol apprehended about 200 people as a result of calls where they identified themselves as Minuteman. In the same period of time in the Arizona border, not the 23 miles but the 300-mile Arizona border, the Border Patrol apprehended 79,000. You bet, look, we are talking about numbers that are overwhelming. And if we are serious about the border, we are going to have to add some real technology and we are going to have to add some more Border Patrol agents and get a handle on it. By the way, I welcome eyes and ears, volunteer citizens if we can make it work with some smart strategy rather than with something that exposes people to danger, including people that might be involved in a citizen type Minuteman Project. If there are ways to do it, it's certainly something I want to think about and see if there isn't some way we can do that and harness what is a lot of concern by American citizens about the number of illegal people that are getting into the country. Mr. Duncan. There is a lot of concern about this around the country. Chairman Tom Davis. Commissioner, thank you very much. And you have a difficult job and I think you have done well here as a witness. We appreciate your being here. If you could have your staff contact our committee staff regarding the UAV testing, the deployment and the responses to Mr. McHenry's and Ms. Brown-Waite's questions. We will take about a 3-minute recess as we change panels. [Recess.] Chairman Tom Davis. You are welcome to sit down. I know that you were just in the next committee. We have a great panel. We have Mr. T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council; Mr. Daryl Schermerhorn, the regional vice president of the National Border Patrol Council. Thank you both for being with us. We have Mr. Chris Simcox, the co-founder of the Minuteman Project, which was talked about previously, and we have Ms. Janice Kephart, former counsel of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. And also I am happy that today is her birthday. We appreciate you giving us so generously of your time. It is the policy of this committee we swear in all witnesses. So if you would rise with me and raise your right hands. [Witnesses sworn.] Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Bonner, I understand you are going to give the testimony and Mr. Schermerhorn will be here for questions? Mr. T.J. Bonner. I will give the testimony and he will take the tough questions. Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Simcox, we will go to you and Ms. Kephart. Thank you for your patience and thanks for being with us. STATEMENTS OF T.J. BONNER, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL BORDER PATROL COUNCIL, ACCOMPANIED BY DARYL SCHERMERHORN, REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT, NATIONAL BORDER PATROL COUNCIL; CHRIS SIMCOX, CO- FOUNDER, THE MINUTEMAN PROJECT; AND JANICE KEPHART, FORMER COUNSEL, THE NATIONAL COMMISSION OF TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES STATEMENT OF T.J. BONNER Mr. T.J. Bonner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, other members of the committee. The issue of border security is one that is in the forefront of every person's mind, especially after the events of September 11, and there can be no question that our borders, the U.S. borders, are out of control. Last year, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended approximately 1.2 million people, but the front line agents estimate that for every person that we caught 2 or 3 people slipped by us. This is a matter of very great concern, because we don't know who those people are who are slipping by us. When we married the fingerprint system of the Border Patrol and the FBI together last September, in the first 3 months we discovered that 8 percent of all the people we were catching were criminals. And it's fair to assume that of the people who are slipping by us, at least the same percentage are criminals and probably for good measure there are a few terrorists in that mix. Even if a terrorist is a one in a million occurrence with several million people coming into the country every year, they reach that critical mass necessary to carry out another attack of the magnitude of September 11. This is totally unacceptable from the standpoint of homeland security and national security. We have to gain control of our borders. A number of measures have been proposed to gain control of our borders, but the National Border Patrol Council, representing the rank and file, the front line employees, believe that the only solution that is going to get us where we need to be is the implementation of legislation such as H.R. 98, which would give us a counterfeit proof employment authorization document allowing employers to know who has a right to work in this country and allowing enforcing agents to enforce that law with stiff fines. That is the only solution that will turn off the employment magnet. Unless we turn off the employment magnet, we will continue to have millions of people coming across our borders and mixed in that, at least 8 percent of them criminals and some terrorists. A lot of opinion polls have been taken of late as to how people feel about the security of our borders and how concerned they are about illegal immigration; 75 to 80 percent of all of the respondents expressed grave concern about the insecurity of our borders. The Minuteman Project is a manifestation of that frustration. The Federal Government clearly is not carrying its weight. We are not controlling the borders. Our borders are insecure. Ask any front line agent out there and they'll tell you that we are simply overwhelmed. It's not that we're sitting around doing nothing, but when millions of people are streaming in every year, there is only so much we can do. You can only be at one place at one given time. We have to gain control of the illegal immigration crisis if we are going to bring any semblance of security to our borders. So I go back to the point of the hearing that I just came from, where I was urging your colleagues to adopt a counterfeit proof form of employment verification to turn off the jobs magnet. People will stop coming to this country if they realize that unless they have that card they can't get a job. They will realize that it does them no good to trek across the desert for 3 days if at the end of the rainbow they show up at an employer's doorstep and he says I am not going to hire you because I don't want to pay a $50,000 fine. This is a matter of national security and homeland security. The current tactics we're employing are not working. Putting more manpower out there is shoveling sand against the tide unless we deal with the employment magnet. Of course, we need more manpower once a new law is in place to turn off the employment magnet, which would enable us to go after the terrorists and the criminals who are out there, because that is our No. 1 priority in the Department of Homeland Security. And I thank you for your time and I urge you to seriously consider these measures. And I'm not here obviously to argue for H.R. 98, because that is a separate hearing, but what we are saying is that is the real solution to the insecure borders that we have. While we appreciate the efforts of people like Mr. Simcox, the support that they give, we do have concerns about citizens taking the law into their own hands, and I'm not saying Mr. Simcox's group did that, but I'm saying other groups may feel that is something that should be done. We would discourage people from doing that and we do not encourage people to go down to the border where it's very dangerous to make their political statement. We think it's important that they do so in a manner that protects their safety. But if the Federal Government continues to turn a blind eye to this problem, I fear that you'll see more and more people turning to desperate measures. [The prepared statement of Mr. T.J. Bonner follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.031 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.032 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.033 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.034 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.035 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.036 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.037 Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much. Mr. Simcox, welcome. STATEMENT OF CHRIS SIMCOX Mr. Simcox. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity and thank you to the committee. I'm here to bring a very simple and direct message from we the people that too many citizens of Cochise County and other communities along the border have testified before these committees previously. We have sent letters, e-mails, faxes and have shown up at town hall meetings to no avail. This is about public safety and our national security, and we are done waiting bluntly for the Federal Government to do its job. Despite the efforts by many groups to portray our political statement as a racially motivated or anti-immigrant effort, we brought it back to what this is really about, which is national security and public safety. This great republic was founded and formed on immigration. When you come legally, you're welcome. What we have now is out of control, and the citizens basically have had enough. We hope this will encourage everyone to do something, because while you're waiting and while you are making up your minds what to do we are going to continue with Minuteman type projects. We are going to basically reinvent the civil defense movement that aided our country during World War II. We are basically under attack and there's an invasion. We have enough home grown criminals in this country, let alone the criminals that are coming in. I find it curious that there is so much worry about and speculation about vigilantism which, by the way, there have been zero incidents as of yet, but I hear little worry about the real terrorism that we deal with, such as the families of detectives Donald Young and Jack Bishop, who were murdered in Denver this week, law enforcement agents who are dying at the hands of criminals that come into this country. The citizens of Cochise County have made a statement, a clear statement, and I want to show you a half page ad that they took out in the local newspaper on Mother's Day thanking the Minuteman. From grateful residents of the Sierra Vista- Hereford area, thanks for doing what our government won't do, which is close the border to illegal aliens and criminals. It was the quietest month we have had in many years. It was nice to once again have the freedom to hike our mountains without being armed. You made us feel very safe because the border was closed. We didn't have to worry about manmade fires, which we have another fire raging out of control now in our area, created by illegals trying to get away from Border Patrol and they felt secure. I think if there has ever been a mandate, this is a mandate from the citizens. We are going to continue to abide by the law and work within the law, but honestly, we don't need, as I heard comments about that we need to be regulated, I think we have proven that citizens that participate in the Minuteman Project were of the utmost highest character and standards of American citizens. We're there to defend our property, our private property, our Nation, to defend the sovereignty of our borders, and a country is not a country without borders. So again, and I ask why are our borders dangerous? I keep hearing this from, with all due respect, the Border Patrol. If the Department of Homeland Security almost 4 years after the attacks of September 11 were doing their jobs, our borders would be safe. Why should American citizens sitting in lawn chairs with cell phones and binoculars have to fear for their safety on U.S. soil? That is intolerable and unacceptable from our point. I'm very impressed with the security at the airports and here in Washington. I have never seen so much security. I think the citizens who live along the southern border would like to see the same kind of security right on the line. And when we talk about Border Patrol what we see and what we have proven during April is that you need border guards, not a Border Patrol. We need static observation posts set up along that 2,000-mile sector. We give you our permission, the citizens of this Nation give you permission to spend whatever it takes to man Border Patrol and what we would like to see is that immediately done, and that means using military reserves and our National Guard. I don't think the families of Donald Young and other Americans who have fallen victim to the crime that have come across that border would care about the rules of posse comitatus, and we don't accept that argument. We are not asking for our military to be used against American citizens. We are asking that it be used to protect our country, our neighbors and private property. So that's the message we bring. We have another Minuteman Project working this weekend, and I would invite all of the committee members, any time you want to come down and see what the border is really like, you should do it unannounced. We will be more than happy to show you the lack of homeland security on any given day. The rank and file Border Patrol agents, I have worked with them for 3 years, they are great people and work hard. Whoever is managing them is not doing the best job, and we the citizens have proven there is a better way. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Mr. Simcox follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.038 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.039 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.040 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.041 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.042 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.043 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.044 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.045 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.046 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.047 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.048 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.049 Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much. Ms. Kephart, thank you for being with us. STATEMENT OF JANICE KEPHART Ms. Kephart. Thank you Chairman Davis. Thank you for holding this hearing and giving me the opportunity to discuss with you both terrorist travel and the national security mission of our border agencies. From my vantage point of spending 15 months devoted to figuring out how the September 11 terrorists conducted their travel operation into the United States so easily, it is clear to me that if national security is to become a reality for our border agencies, we must put old thinking aside, incorporating all we know about terrorist travel. We must put together a long-term plan that seamlessly integrates policies across our border apparatus, maximizing security and efficiency. Yet a comprehensive and cohesive long-term border plan will not be an easy goal to reach as long as the seven elements of our border system remain fragmented into three departments and six agencies, and this is just one of the many reasons why I have proposed consideration of the creation of a Department of Immigration and Border Protection. But let's step back and understand what terrorist travel is. Start with the fact that foreign terrorists carefully plan their attempts to enter and stay in the United States based on a relatively sophisticated understanding of our border system. Terrorists will use any infiltration tactic if it works, from hiding in a ship's hole or a car trunk to fraudulently seeking legitimate U.S. visas and passports as the hijackers. These terrorists do not just represent al Qaeda. Hamas and Hezbollah and lesser known terrorist organizations operatives also engage in all varieties of immigration fraud. Once in the United States, terrorists seek legal status. They resist removal through shared marriages, claims of political asylum and applications for naturalization. A terrorist managed to stay in the United States when his spouse won the visa lottery. They seek United States and State issued identifications to establish themselves in communities and travel more easily. And wherever a vulnerability exists from visa issuance to admission standards at our ports of entry to our immigration benefits adjudication system, terrorists take advantage of it. While we work on long-term solutions, we cannot wait to fix severe deficiencies that have existed for a decade prior to September 11. Solutions are required now. We are once more in crisis on our hard borders, both north and south. The Minuteman Project has made that clear. The project has also made clear that the American people get what we said on the 9/11 Commission, that border security is national security. We must now seek out ways to relieve these good people of these duties and help the government do the job it is supposed to be doing. For now, it is here that we must focus our efforts to prevent potential clandestine entry by terrorists. Clandestine entry permits terrorists the anonymity we are lucky the September 11 hijackers did not have. In addition, information I acquired on the commission along with comments in recent weeks by Admiral Loy and FBI Director Mueller all indicate that terror organizations do seek illicit entry into the United States. Remember, for example, the Lebanese Mexican human smuggler Bougadaro, who brought in over 300 Hezbollah sympathizers by way of false visas in Tijuana in the last few years. He served a short 11 months in U.S. jails and is now serving time in Mexico. Also Hezbollah operative Mahmoud Kourani, who pled guilty to terrorism charges last month in Detroit, crossed over the southwest U.S. border in a car trunk in February 2001. There was also Nabil al-Marabh, a likely member of al Qaeda, who was caught trying to cross over the northern borders at Niagara Falls in the back of a tractor-trailer in June 2001. Not only was al-Marabh a frequent border crosser and had a fake Canadian passport, but he also held five U.S. driver's licenses acquired in 13 months along with the commercial driver's license and a permit to haul hazardous materials. In light of the national security interests in securing our hard borders, the Border Patrol has needs that need to be met now and they include centralized operational intelligence, centralized command and control, streamlined business processes to enable agents to spend less time in offices and more time in patrolling, tracking communication devices to ensure greater safety and efficiency in operations, forensic support for false documents, access to US-VISIT and aggressive use of expedited removal. In conclusion, terrorists are creative and they are adaptable. Yet we have the ability to counter them by being adaptable in our thinking and providing front line officers with the tools they need to do the job they are all eager to do. My written testimony lays out many, many recommendations that I believe will infuse the rule of law and integrity into the system that can deter terrorists and illegal entry. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Ms. Kephart follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.050 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.051 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.052 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.053 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.054 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.055 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.056 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.057 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.058 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.059 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.060 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.061 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.062 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.063 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.064 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.065 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.066 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.067 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.068 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.069 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.070 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.071 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.072 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.073 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.074 Chairman Tom Davis. I want to thank all of you. Mr. Bonner, let me start with you. Even--and I pick the idea of the card that Mr. Dreier has talked about today is a good day. But even without a card, someone coming here illegally, if they have their kid in the United States, their child is a citizen, isn't that right? Mr. T.J. Bonner. Someone born in the United States is a U.S. citizen. Chairman Tom Davis. If you want to get your kids in here-- if you want your kids born here for a better life. Second, if you present yourself in an emergency room, they're not going to ask you for proof of citizenship, right? Mr. T.J. Bonner. That's correct. Chairman Tom Davis. And if you're here and you can get into the population, you can get your kids into the public school and they're not going to ask them. They are going to have to educate them, right? Mr. T.J. Bonner. Depending on where you are. If you're close to the border, they are going to require proof that you actually live in the United States. Chairman Tom Davis. But not here illegally? Mr. T.J. Bonner. Right. Chairman Tom Davis. The card doesn't solve all those problems, but goes a long way and from your perspective having that card, once people are inside the border that is a nice check, is that what you're saying? Mr. T.J. Bonner. The real magnets here are the jobs. People aren't coming here to take advantage of our education or health system. They are coming because in most of these countries, Mexico is a good example, the average unskilled worker makes $4 a day and they can go a few yards north of the border and increase that 20, 30 times easily. So they're coming to improve their economic lot in life. And I'm not saying I blame them, but it creates a huge problem, because it's very labor intensive to deal with millions of people crossing the border. It's not just a game where you say tag, you're it. What you have to do is process these people, detain them, run criminal checks and then send them back and that takes up our resources and in the meantime other people are coming in. They don't give us a time out. Chairman Tom Davis. What do you think of the Minuteman Project? Mr. T.J. Bonner. I think the Minuteman Project is, as I said earlier, a manifestation of the frustration that average Americans are feeling and it's not something new. There was a project called Light Up the Border in San Diego back in the late 1980's, early 1990's, where citizens drove down to the border and shined their headlights on the border to highlight the problem of the lawlessness on the border. The Border Patrol installed first temporary and then permanent lighting in fences and it brought an end to that lawlessness in that part of the world. Now I think that the Minuteman experienced some success down there in Arizona, in that during the time period that they sat out in their lawn chairs in that 23-mile stretch of border very few people came through. I think a large part of that success was due to the fact that the Mexican military was down south of that telling people don't cross through here. Now we can't depend on the Mexican military to blockade the entire southern border. Chairman Tom Davis. Do you think the Mexican military is complicit with some of the people crossing the border? Mr. T.J. Bonner. Absolutely. Our agents have been shot at by the Mexican military as a diversion to keep us away from some of the drugs being smuggled across. We caught--down in Santa Teresa, NM, we caught two Humvees with armed Mexican soldiers who were shooting at us on U.S. soil, chasing our agents and shooting at us. Chairman Tom Davis. They do that at North and South Korea. But I guess it occurs all the time down there? Mr. T.J. Bonner. I wouldn't say all the time but it occurs often enough and it is a matter of great concern to our agents. Chairman Tom Davis. What is the level of drug smuggling across the border, do you think, of the people coming over? Mr. T.J. Bonner. It is tremendous and let me turn over the microphone over to Daryl Schermerhorn, who just apprehended the largest narcotics seizure on the Canadian border last week. Chairman Tom Davis. Congratulations and thank you. Mr. Schermerhorn. Along the northern border the BC buds are going for such a high price that the Canadians are growing it and bringing it across daily. We are apprehending some of the loads. Many are getting by. Three nights ago, Border Patrol apprehended 45 pounds of Ecstasy valued at over $1 million. It's a daily occurrence that drug loads are coming through. Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Simcox, on the one hand we have a lot of frustrated citizens and all of us go out into our districts and hear there needs to be a greater presence on the border. On the other hand, we have critics who think that the southern border is no place for private citizens or vigilante enforcement and Members' opinions are varied as well. From your judgment, what is the reality of the situation on the southern border, particularly in Arizona where you were? Mr. Simcox. The reality is we do not have enough Border Patrol agents. Chairman Tom Davis. Or listening devices? Mr. Simcox. A lot of the equipment and a lot of the supposed sensors that we were setting off were found to be inoperable and we worked with the Border Patrol previous to our mission to ensure that we were not in those areas. But it's manpower. The equipment works. In fact we have been pleased with cameras, camera poles that have been erected right in areas we have led them to. Remember, the Minuteman patrols have been going on for almost 3 years and we started in Cochise County and we assisted Border Patrol with over 4,600 apprehensions, and that represents people from 26 different countries. And we have made 150 lifesaving rescues. It is every night day after day. And if Border Patrol had the resources, they should be on the border. We should not have to be citizens calling in groups of 20, 30, 40 people, 10, 15, 20 miles north of the border. And that was our goal during the Minuteman Project. Bodies on the line are a deterrent to prevent people coming into the country in the first place. Chairman Tom Davis. My time is up. Mr. Cummings. Mr. Cummings. I want to yield to Mr. Van Hollen. Chairman Tom Davis. I recognize Mr. Van Hollen. Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank my colleague Mr. Cummings and I have another meeting, so I would like to submit a statement. One additional point, and this goes to some of the comments our witnesses are making. In this body, just a very short time ago, we had the emergency supplemental appropriations before us and there was a motion made by Mr. Obey, Congressman from Wisconsin, to increase the funds for border security and border patrol so we could put more people on that border. I supported that motion, and a lot of our colleagues supported that motion. Unfortunately, it did not carry. But I hope all of our colleagues will agree with you that we should put more resources into that effort and increase our border security. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Cummings. [The prepared statement of Hon. Chris Van Hollen follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.081 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.082 Mr. Cummings. I yield now to Ms. Sanchez. Ms. Sanchez. Thank you for yielding, Mr. Cummings. I have another engagement but this is a question I feel is important enough to ask and I would ask it of Mr. Simcox. You just stated in a response to one of the questions that supposedly whatever sensors you are tripping at the border or that your members or the Minuteman are tripping are found to be inoperable. But to the extent that you guys are tripping sensors that are operable and you are diverting scarce Federal resources at the border, which everybody agrees there aren't enough agents or resources, to the extent that you are diverting those because you are tripping these sensors, aren't you in fact making the border less secure because you are causing them to respond to you who are not a real threat? I don't see the wisdom in getting together people to try to do a job that you are specifically not trained to do and getting in the way of the scarce number of Federal agents and resources that are available at the border, and I would love for you to answer that question. Mr. Simcox. Our operation was highly publicized and we worked with Border Patrol months in advance to alert them to the locations we would be working in. That was Border Patrol's choice to continue to monitor our activities in that area. We worked with Border Patrol. We identified each of the observation posts. There was no one coming through that area. Border Patrol knew that. One of the most heavily traveled routes was completely shut down. Why was border patrol there? Ms. Sanchez. So your response is if you guys are there, Border Patrol need not be there, even though you are not trained? You guys go through no training in terms of border security. So if citizens, nontrained citizens, are there, you maintain Border Patrol need not be there? Mr. Simcox. They would be there to respond to our calls if we witnessed someone coming. The border road is a public right of way. All citizens have access to the road. They drive on that road every day. Ms. Sanchez. With respect to tripping sensors and diverting attention away from the regular Border Patrol duties because citizens are there and are causing that to happen, you don't think that is a problem? Mr. Simcox. Our presence shut down those sectors. There was no need for Border Patrol to be there because the Mexican military, working with the advertisement of the Minutemen Project, worked to deter people from coming through that area. How about if we were to advertise that across the entire 2,000- mile border and worked with the Mexican Government? People will not be coming in in the first place. Ms. Sanchez. So your testimony is wherever the Minutemen are, there is no need to send Border Patrol to those areas? Mr. Simcox. We would be force multipliers that would create a deterrence to allow Border Patrol to be used in other areas. Ms. Sanchez. I don't happen to agree with you. I yield back to the distinguished ranking member. [The prepared statement of Hon. Linda T. Sanchez follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.083 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.084 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.085 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.086 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.087 Mr. Cummings. Just one question. You are saying if Border Patrol is present, if your group is present, then Border Patrol is not needed. Is that what you are saying? Mr. Simcox. In this instance, the areas which we were occupying, the illegal immigration flow dropped to almost zero. What we wanted to do was prove that an obvious presence--we would like to be relieved from duty. We would like to see the U.S. military or Border Patrol set up the same strategy which would create the same deterrence to anyone to cross the border. Mr. Cummings. Have you gotten any complaint from DHS or Border Patrol? Mr. Simcox. Only from Sector Chief Michael Nicely. The rank and file were absolutely supportive. Mr. Cummings. What was that complaint? Mr. Simcox. We were setting off sensors and diverting resources to our area unnecessarily. Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Duncan. Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have great admiration and respect for the work the Minutemen have done. I think it is in one of the best traditions of our country. I think it was a very patriotic thing that Mr. Simcox and his associates did. The way I feel about this was summed up best-- read the first two or three sentences of that ad again, what you read. Mr. Simcox. The ad, along with hundreds of e-mails and letters of support that came to the organization, citizens were grateful. ``Thanks for doing what our government won't do, which is close the border to illegal aliens. It was the quietest month we have had in many years.'' Mr. Duncan. I spent 7\1/2\ years as a criminal court judge trying felony criminal cases before I came to Congress, and whenever a defendant took off or skipped bond, the bonding companies went after them. That is done all over the country. I don't think people realize how much law enforcement is done in this country through private agencies or citizens or businesses. In addition to that, it is clear to anybody who studied this that we get our biggest bang for our buck in law enforcement from our lowest-paid law enforcement officials, the local law enforcement officials. I think if we took half of the money we are spending now on border enforcement and turned it over to local enforcement along the border, we would probably apprehend more illegal aliens. I am not advocating that because it is a Federal responsibility, but over the last 10 years or so, we have given INS, the Border Patrol, Customs, all of the agencies involved, whopping increases in spending, probably at least at a minimum 10 times the rate of inflation over those years, yet they continually cry about being underfunded. I think they hire too many chiefs and not enough Indians. I am proud of what you have done, and I wanted to stay here and tell you that. Thank you very much. Mr. Simcox. Thank you. Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Ruppersberger. I think your concept is great. I think when we as government--and government cannot do all things. When citizens step up, I think it is very positive. My concern is the management of you working with Border Patrol, because if, in fact, we do not have the proper management and focus on what our end goal is to stop the immigration problem, there could be an incident that someone is hurt, and that could hurt your whole process. My question really, and I am not sure who to ask this to, but do you have an agreement of understanding if you are going to go to a certain area, are the Border Patrol--are they working with you? If you see a situation, do you have communication, resources to get the Border Patrol there to do what they have to do? Mr. Simcox. Yes. On all of our patrols, we have always alerted Border Patrol to our presence in that area so there is no confusion. Communications work fine through cell phones. Ms. Sanchez talked about training. There is not a lot of training involved other than being alert and vigilant. And when you recognize suspicious activity, you call Border Patrol, and they respond quickly. Mr. Ruppersberger. I talked about citizens on patrol in our community in my opening statement. We publicize it and make sure there are communications to the police. That is basically your format also? Mr. Simcox. Neighborhood watch group. Mr. Ruppersberger. And you are not doing the apprehension? Mr. Simcox. No. Mr. Ruppersberger. I think it is important that people understand that. You are not doing the apprehension. If that is the case, I think it is a very positive program. Where are you getting your resources for communication to contact the Border Patrol when they are someplace else? Mr. Simcox. Cell phones. At this point, that is the only communication. We have worked in previous years with Border Patrol by giving them our basic FRS radios that you can buy at any store, and they have worked very well with us. We monitor an area, report to them, and they do the job. They do the apprehension. Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Bonner, you made a comment about the real problem. We all think we need more resources and boots on the ground, and also technology. But the bottom line has to do with the employers. There are certain programs. There is a guest program right now that is out there where the employers have the obligation to make sure everyone who comes has identification, I assume it is a work permit or whatever needs to be done. We are never going to solve this problem just by dealing with the borders because people are willing to risk their lives because of jobs. It is about jobs. Yet the President's position is there are a lot of jobs that are unfilled. In Maryland we have a crabbing industry. There are people who came over for the temporary jobs, and the industry was going to have real problems. They could not get anybody to fill the temporary jobs. From what I understand, these people are coming over, and they are temporary. They are identified, and they go back. Do you have an opinion on that type of program, what needs to be done? Mr. T.J. Bonner. The guest worker program will only work if you have a theoretical fence, because a guest worker program is a gate, if you will, and without a fence around the property, people will just go around. That is why the Bracero program failed back in the 1960's because it was easier for someone to just walk across the border and get that job. I think a guest worker program could easily work in concert with tougher employer sanctions where you could actually identify who has a right to be here. Then you could bring people in if there are jobs. Mr. Ruppersberger. And hold the employers more accountable. People come and then they leave, and you don't know who or where they are. Ms. Kephart, the thing that concerns me greatly is the issue of narcoterrorism. What resources do you think we need as far as the border as it relates to the terrorism issue? Ms. Kephart. Let me back up and give a little background on what I testified to. What I referred to was what I came across when I was on the Commission, an unclassified Border Patrol alert that is now a year and a half old that said the Colombia FARC was meeting with al Qaeda in Madrid, Spain, to seek Mexican Islamic converts to come through the southwest border clandestine. That was of very great interest to me and my colleagues on my time on the 9/11 Commission, and we began to look at the human smuggling aspect, the international terrorist travel aspect, what we needed to do to work with other governments to make sure we have law enforcement to prevent the human smugglers from coming into the United States, stronger laws against human smuggling. For example, one of the things you will hear is former drug couriers who have been arrested would turn to human smuggling because the sentencing is so low. You heard me mention Bougadaro who only got 11 months in the United States. We need tougher sentencing. We do have a human smuggling center right now. We need to give them the resources, and we need to make sure that it becomes a priority for our DHS law enforcement. Right now at DHS, the FBI still has the counterterrorism mandate. The DHS and ICE folks do not have that mandate. They have a great role to play in counterterrorism, and that was not really fought for them, and they can have that role. So it is a combination of things. Mr. Ruppersberger. Thank you. Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you. Mr. Marchant. Mr. Marchant. Ms. Kephart, in your interviews that you conducted with the Border Patrol, what was the most common problem that they identify as shortfalls in their tools? What was the largest impediment to them doing their job? Ms. Kephart. Remember that the September 11 hijackers came in through airports of entry. The majority of my focus was there. However, part of my role was to figure out why the INS had failed in counterterrorism and why they had no policy there. So I did look at the Border Patrol and interviewed the Border Patrol Chief, but did not go out to the field just to clarify. However, what we were talking about were the same things they were talking about a decade ago, a lack of human resources, a lack of up-to-grade technological resources; for example, told me in the early 1990's they were still working from manual typewriters to type up their reporting. Right now sometimes they are dealing with five different forms to fill out once they bring, for example, other than Mexican into their station. It takes them 3 to 5 hours to process those folks. They need that streamlined so they can be out in the field. So they do not have the technology in the field for the rapid response, as Commissioner Bonner was saying. They do not have the business processes. They do not have operational intelligence that is centralized. They have none of it. They are operating, sector by sector, pretty much as people come across. They do not have centralized command and control. We talk about, and Mr. Simcox talks about, the military being on the border. The military would never put up with not having centralized command and control, but the Border Patrol does not have that. So part of my answer was my own analysis, and part of it is what the Border Patrol has told me before. Mr. Marchant. This question is for Mr. Bonner. Mr. Bonner, when someone walks across the border from Mexico or from Canada, what is their legal status? Mr. T.J. Bonner. Their legal status? They are in our country illegally when they cross that border. The first offense is a misdemeanor. Mr. Marchant. What is the degree of the criminal act? Mr. T.J. Bonner. The first offense it is a misdemeanor; and subsequently it is a felony. Mr. Marchant. What court is it adjudicated in? Mr. T.J. Bonner. It is not. Typically we offer people to voluntarily return to their country of origin unless we have identified through our fingerprinting system that they have entered, and depending which sector you are in, up to 25 times before you will initiate any action, and that is just a formal deportation hearing. Mr. Marchant. So the recidivism rate is 20, 25 before they are successful. Mr. T.J. Bonner. People keep trying until they make it. The ones that get by us, we have no record of them. I think it is a safe assumption if you catch somebody eight times and you do not see them again, they got by you. They did not just give up and say, I will go back to my $4-a-day job at home. Mr. Marchant. Obviously there have been Border Patrol officers killed. Mr. T.J. Bonner. Nearly 100. Mr. Marchant. So there is some aggressiveness on the part of the criminal, in my view. Mr. T.J. Bonner. Sure. This has escalated in recent years. Because of our court system being so lenient on people who assault Federal officers, we find people are more willing to shoot it out with Federal officers. When I came in 27 years ago, the drug smugglers would be armed to protect themselves against each other, but when they were apprehended by Federal officers, they would ditch their weapons. Now they are more inclined to shoot it out with Federal officers. Mr. Marchant. What is permissible use of force for a Border Patrol agent? Mr. T.J. Bonner. Whatever is appropriate to the situation. If someone is firing at you, you are authorized to fire back. Mr. Marchant. That is defense. What is proper procedure for one to apprehend? Mr. T.J. Bonner. Only that level of force necessary to effect apprehension. We start out with verbal commands, ask them to stop. If they run, we are allowed to grab them and bring them under control. If they resist arrest, we are allowed to use the level of force appropriate. Mr. Marchant. Stun guns, rubber bullets. Mr. T.J. Bonner. No stun guns or rubber bullets. We have pepper spray and collapsible steel batons as intermediate weapons. Mr. Marchant. So if a guy gets 25 or 30 feet away, you are either faster---- Mr. T.J. Bonner. You are going to have to outsmart that person or be faster. You are not authorized to use force just to stop someone from running. Mr. Marchant. So a normal police method in a city or a county for a sheriff cannot be employed by a Border Patrol agent? Mr. T.J. Bonner. Well, it depends on what you are talking about as a normal city or county. If a shoplifter is running away, most jurisdictions do not authorize any type of force to stop that. Mr. Marchant. So an offense is considered an offense similar to shoplifting? Mr. T.J. Bonner. I think that is one way to characterize it. Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you. We will do just a couple more questions. Let me ask Ms. Kephart, this committee has worked tirelessly on the issue of terrorist travel, something you are acquainted with. We have sought to strengthen domestic identity requirements for individuals to strengthen our intelligence function, to better identify and track individuals of interest. As we strengthen security in these areas, it appears likely that terrorists and other criminals will not seek to enter through official channels, but through holes in our border. What does our intelligence tell us about the intent of al Qaeda and other groups that seek to enter our country illegally and do us harm, and what are the weaknesses that they have identified that we have not rectified yet? Ms. Kephart. In terms of current intelligence, I cannot speak to it because I am not privy to it anymore. We had documents upon documents. Chairman Tom Davis. Just go back a year. Ms. Kephart. The thing that we need to understand about al Qaeda is they had a very sophisticated travel operation. When I started on the Commission, our congressional mandate was to look at border security. But as we started looking at detainee reports, it became clear it was actually a travel operation. As I put together the chronology in our staff report, September 11 and terrorist travel, it became clear that the travel operation started back in Afghanistan and moved--it started with the recruit, and that recruit would go to Afghanistan through a specific travel operation, false passports through Iran or Pakistan, and they would come out and be instructed where to go and what to do. They had travel facilitators all over the world helping them. We discussed the intelligence that we have about that, Riyadh, the facilitator, etc., specific biographies of those folks. So we know they were sophisticated in their travel operation. The thing that I learned, sort of my own analysis from looking at this, that Mohammed Atta--the pilots came in first. The muscle came in the 2001, but the pilots were here for about a year before that with a couple of exceptions. Mohammed Atta was sort of testing the system as he was moving through it. He came in three times before any of the muscle came in. He figured out length of stay was 6 months if you are a tourist, so ask for a tourist. If that meant bringing the hijackers, the muscle, in the spring and summer of 2001 meant they had a legitimate length of stay while they were here, it was clear he did not want his folks to go illegal in the immigration system. It was also clear that identifications were extremely important to them to embedding. He also sought immigration benefits for himself, changing of tourist status to student status. They even went so far as to go into an immigration benefit service center, he and one of the other pilots, I believe, in May 2001, asking for a longer length of stay for one of the pilots until September 8, 2001. So what we have then for our intelligence is an understanding that terrorists travel operationally very carefully. If the fraudulent passport does not work or getting the visa does not work, they will be prevented from going where they go, or else they will seek another point of entry. From that point of view, we did establish that terrorist travel exists. Weaknesses in the system, I think I would be here all afternoon. But I do lay out a series of about five pages of recommendations, some of which are very discrete, about our ports of entry, about our immigration benefits, and immigration enforcement and our Border Patrol, things that we need. But mostly I think the biggest weakness is tremendous fragmentation in the system. Before September 11 we had three departments and three agencies running immigration and border security. Now we have three different departments and six agencies running it, and we do not have holistic policymaking. Nobody has an idea of the structure at the top and what we are looking for. Chairman Tom Davis. Is it still very stovepiped? Ms. Kephart. We are more stovepiped than we were. When I hear discussions of mergers of ICE and CBP, yes, that would be helpful to some degree, but it is only part of the problem. We still have immigration benefits, consular officers at the State Department; we have the Coast Guard, which is in a different part of DHS; and we have a President who recognizes that border security is national security, but there are so many layers of bureaucracy, a wholehearted approach on how to achieve border security truly with overarching policies is just nonexistent. That, to me, is the biggest weakness right now. Mr. Tom Davis. Thank you. Mr. Cummings. Mr. Cummings. Ms. Kephart, I just listened to what you said. It sounds like we are worse off from a security standpoint than maybe we were prior to September 11. Is that accurate or inaccurate? Ms. Kephart. We have made some strides ahead. I think we have pulled back in other ways. I don't think we have a holistic approach to border security right now, and I think it is hurting us. We are approaching things to some degree myopically, looking at just the Border Patrol or just immigration benefits without looking at the whole thing and how to make it right. But we do have a recognition now of the importance of border security and national security, which is extremely important. And it has made people, for example, very encouraging, biometrics insisted upon, new rules for our passports, new rules for our identification set that is now being passed, US-VISIT which is at our ports of entry and needs to get out for exit data as well. So we have some real positives, but we need to bring it all together. That is my frustration. Mr. Cummings. When I listen to the testimony here, it reminds me of a situation where it is like a circle. We seem to be covering maybe about three-fourths, maybe even 90 percent of the circle, but there is an opening called border, and as we think that we are guarding everything, people are slipping in through that opening. That leads me to you, Mr. Bonner. When you listen to Mr. Simcox, and then I think about the testimony you just gave a few minutes ago about the fact that folks are toting guns, that is some of these folks trying to cross the border, and then I combine it with what my colleague said comparing the Minutemen to Citizens on Patrol, is that your perception? If I have people with guns, and I have everyday citizens-- and, Mr. Simcox, one of the documents says keep your guns in your holsters? Mr. Simcox. Yes. Mr. Cummings. Do you feel comfortable with that as a professional representing these people? Mr. T.J. Bonner. Border Patrol agents undergo 19 weeks of intensive training. It makes us nervous when citizens are out there armed because things go bump in the night when you are out there. Untrained people might do things that a trained person would not do. The fact that people are out there armed, and I realize in Arizona that is permissible under their State law, and other parts of the country it is not, but it certainly is something that concerns me. And I have talked with some Minutemen, some nice grandmothers, and I am concerned that they go down there, and they are really down there to make a political statement, but they get caught in the crossfires of one of these drug smugglers who thinks that they are shooting at Border Patrol, and they kill some nice grandmother who leaves behind a family, and all she was trying to do was make a statement that she wanted the U.S. Government to step up to the plate and secure our borders. There are a number of concerns that I have about this, as the movement grows, as people think they are going to make a difference, if you blockade the border, and if you have people out every few yards, that will deter people from coming in. That is not our experience. What we found in San Diego, it pushed the traffic over to Arizona. It did not make it go away, it just pushed it to a different part. We also found in San Diego when the smugglers became frustrated enough, they would modify their tactics. They would gather groups of several hundred people and run right over the top of us. Mr. Cummings. What I am concerned about is a lot of what was just said. If I have somebody who sees that their opportunity for success, for their children's success, and they are already hopeless, and they see anybody standing in their way--I see it in my district with people trying to get drugs. Sometimes they will kill their family members to get money for drugs. We have people trying to get to the United States because they think that it is going to be the great place of opportunity. I am concerned with some of the same concerns. Mr. Simcox. We are very concerned, and it certainly shows the frustration and compassion of American citizens; for instance, 80-year-old World War II veterans and what we call vigil grannies who were sitting in lawn chairs. They take it very seriously. Citizens are putting themselves in harm's way if there is a real threat at the border, but that is the passion and the frustration level, and it should send a clear message to Congress and to the Border Patrol and to the Federal Government and to the President that we want this problem solved. They are willing to take that risk. A majority of our volunteers are retired law enforcement officers and military veterans, well trained, who are willing to give service to their country again. I think if we had an opportunity to train ex-military, military police, law enforcement officers; I would hate to see an 80-year-old grandmother--I would hate to see her blood spilled on that border because we cannot control it. Chairman Tom Davis. Do you have any Minutemen grandmothers? Mr. Simcox. Almost 40 percent were women. The majority of the volunteers were 50 or older, many in their 70's or 80's. Chairman Tom Davis. I don't think that is old. Mr. Cummings. If you had to guess percentagewise, how many were carrying a gun? Mr. Simcox. Forty percent of our volunteers were carrying sidearms only for self-defense purposes. Ninety-nine percent are concealed weapons card-carrying, well-trained individuals who understand the law when it comes to self-defense. Mr. Ruppersberger. Have you had anybody in Minutemen hurt? Mr. Simcox. Not at all. Not one incident ever. Mr. Ruppersberger. Any gunfire? Mr. Simcox. None in the 3\1/2\ years that we have been coordinating. Mr. Ruppersberger. So your coordination with Border Patrol is working? Mr. Simcox. Yes. Mr. Ruppersberger. And you are there as a deterrent to communicate where there is a problem, and the vigilante argument that is out there, there are no facts to support that? Mr. Simcox. No facts to support that. We work within the law to support the law. We do not take the law into our own hands. That would defeat the purpose. Mr. Ruppersberger. This whole immigration problem is very serious, and we as a government have not made it a priority. What compounds the problem is now the issue of terrorism, where people, the same drug dealers that are getting the drugs in, are going to be able to get al Qaeda into our country. Mr. Bonner, I think you have so many illegal immigrants in the United States right now. You have people who come here on a temporary visa and then stay, and that is from all over the world. If you were a Member of Congress, what would your priority be? We need a system to somehow identify the illegal immigrants within the United States. We have a problem, and the President has taken this position, it is my understanding, that we would really shut down a lot of business if we did not have the guest worker visas. That is an issue. How do we put together a program that works with immigration, because we have not put the resources at the border, we do not have a data base on illegal immigrants, and if they stay and have children, they become citizens of the United States? It is a very complex problem. The bigger picture that I threw out to you, what do you recommend from your expertise in this field? Mr. T.J. Bonner. It has been my experience that illegal aliens are not independently wealthy. They come here because of the work. If you cutoff the access to jobs and limit it to U.S. citizens, aliens who are lawfully admitted into this country on a permanent basis or as guest workers, you solve 98 percent of the problem. I think a guest worker program can work hand in glove. Mr. Ruppersberger. Because we would have a serious problem as far as certain industries without the guest work program. But how do you enforce it? Mr. T.J. Bonner. By legitimizing it and saying you cannot get a job unless you have permission. Mr. Ruppersberger. They can have identification cards, but even though you have a card, you do not go back. There has to be some kind of mechanism. I guess the employer has to take responsibility. Mr. T.J. Bonner. I think it is a self-enforcing one. If you are here on a temporary guest worker permit, anyone who employs you beyond the expiration of that is in violation of the law, so no one will give you a job. Your choice is to sit in the street and beg or go home. Most will go home. Mr. Simcox. I take a very pragmatic approach. We need to seal the border so people cannot come in illegally. We need to deport the criminals in our prisons, and we need to enforce the laws on the books. That is the problem. I can show you boxes full of Social Security cards, fake IDs that we find in the desert at lay-up areas. Mr. Ruppersberger. If we put the same priority in all of our agencies, and we would put that resource--and it is not always when they get over to the border, it is getting to them before. Ms. Kephart, it seems to me the best defense against terrorism is intelligence. If you go get this information ahead of time, and you deal with the people, and you get the Mexican Government to stand up and help us, we would be better off. We have not made that a priority. Mr. Simcox. I would like to see a Social Security verification system for employers so employers are held accountable for hiring illegal aliens in this country, and how about an employer-sponsored guest worker program, not sponsored by the taxpayers. Ms. Kephart. May I make one comment about the guest worker program? First of all, I want to make clear, I don't think citizenship and immigration services is built to be able to handle a guest worker program. Until you get the bureaucracy in line to be able to handle a huge surge in immigration benefits, you are going to have a problem. Mr. Ruppersberger. Guest workers are temporary. Ms. Kephart. But they still have to be adjudicated through the system. Second of all, you have to ensure there is security vetting for criminals and terrorists and those who have otherwise disobeyed our laws previously. Otherwise you are going to be giving legitimacy to folks we do not want to give legitimacy to. Third, you have to have a system that authenticates identities and ensure that people are who they say they are. That is my 2 cents on that. Mr. Tom Davis. Mr. Simcox, you talked about where do you go next. Do you look at the Canadian border, too? Mr. Simcox. Yes. We have 15,000 volunteers in the queue. We are moving to the northern border. We will be packaging our success and assisting other States to develop their own neighborhood border watch groups. Mr. Tom Davis. Mr. Bonner and Mr. Schermerhorn, thank you for the job you are doing. Your members are out there every day putting their lives on the line for us, and we appreciate it. Mr. Simcox and Ms. Kephart, we appreciate all of the ideas. The hearing is adjourned. [Whereupon, at 4:55 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] [The prepared statements of Hon. Chris Cannon, Hon. Darrell E. Issa, Hon. Jon C. Porter, and Hon. Lynn A. Westmoreland, and additional information submitted for the hearing record follow:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.075 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.076 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.077 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.078 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.079 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1365.080