Hearing of House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims - Interior Immigration Enforcement Resources

HEARING OF HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION, BORDER SECURITY, AND CLAIMS - INTERIOR IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT RESOURCES

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Mr. Gohmert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you people for your testimony at this hearing. You are all so equivocal in your positions. Sarcasm. [Laughter.]

We obviously have a major problem. As a former district judge and Chief Justice, I ran into this problem constantly. We had one INS Agent for the entire East Texas area. But I do have some questions to clarify some of the testimony.

Mr. Martin, you had indicated 35 percent of the non-detained aliens who were criminals were deported, I believe, of the sample, and I think maybe those figures you were giving us were of the sample that was taken. Can you tell us what sample was taken?

Mr. Martin. Right. The aliens in the database when I used the 55 percent detained versus the 45 percent was over a 15-month period. It was approximately 141,000 aliens.

Mr. Gohmert. Oh, your sample was 141,000?

Mr. Martin. A hundred-and-forty-one-thousand----

Mr. Gohmert. Okay. That's a good sample.

Mr. Martin. It was a smaller sample, though, when we looked at these high-risk groups, the state-sponsored terrorism, the asylum seekers who were denied and not detained. That was a smaller group.

Mr. Gohmert. Okay. What would you give as the number one reason why people are not detained in the various categories that you mentioned?

Mr. Martin. I think it's a lack of resources coupled with a lack of priority.

Mr. Gohmert. Lack of resources, meaning what?

Mr. Martin. Meaning officers, meaning detention space.

Mr. Gohmert. So you're saying we need more detention space to get them out of the country?

Mr. Martin. Well, again, our reviews have shown that the INS is effective, and if they detain the alien, they are effective in removing the alien.

Mr. Gohmert. Well, I can tell you from my own experience that one anecdotal situation, for example, a guy is repeatedly arrested for DWI. He doesn't get deported until it's a felony, comes to my felony court. I send him to prison. He's immediately deported once he gets to prison. He comes back to my court because he's in an accident and hits somebody while drunk and I see that he's going to keep coming back. I send him to 10 months of treatment where I can at least lock him down where he won't hurt people, and after a few months, they get him and deport him and who knows where he is now hurting whom.

But those kind of things lead me to ask, when aliens are deported, where are they taken? What is done with them?

Mr. Martin. I will defer to the ICE Agent.

Mr. Gohmert. Is that Mr. Callahan? Is that your bailiwick?

Mr. Callahan. I can actually answer that. It depends on where they're from. If they're from Mexico, we just take them down to the border at Mexico. There is a program----

Mr. Gohmert. You take them down there and do what?

Mr. Callahan. We watch them go across the border.

Mr. Gohmert. Watch them go across the border. Okay. Do you know if people hang around long enough to watch them come back, or do they just turn around and leave?

Mr. Callahan. Where I'm from in San Diego, there's a large Border Patrol contingent there that is at the border and if they are coming back--a lot of times, what'll happen is they speak good enough English to where they can go around to come in through the port of entry, and if they can convince that inspector, since there's no requirement--right now, there's no requirement to have a U.S. passport or U.S. documentation to come in from Mexico. So if he speaks good enough English and
can convince that inspector that he's a U.S. citizen, they'll let him through.

Mr. Gohmert. Another question, Mr. Callahan. You said you could do more if you had more staffing and authority to go into the field. We heard discussion and I think a couple of you have indicated there may be more priority with Customs than with Immigration. Who makes that decision as to what is the priority?

Mr. Callahan. Well, right now Detention and Removal Operations is charged with locating fugitive aliens. So we need more staff there. There are about 2,000 to 3,000 Immigration Enforcement Agents and Detention or Deportation Officers, but not all of them are assigned that work. I'd say probably, you know, 200, 300 at best.

Mr. Gohmert. Yes, but my question was who makes the priority? Who sets the priority?

Mr. Callahan. It would be the headquarters ICE or headquarters Detention Removal.

Mr. Gohmert. Okay. Mr. Cutler, I appreciated everything you had to say. I couldn't agree more with everything you had to say except for one thing. You said, we're no safer now than we were on 9/11. It seems like in so many areas we have become safer, everywhere except in the area of immigration, that that's----

Mr. Cutler. Well, I do have to clarify that----

Mr. Gohmert. Yes?

Mr. Cutler.--and that is the area of concern for me, though. And if you read the----

Mr. Gohmert. Well, for a lot of us.

Mr. Cutler. Well, yes. And if you read this 9/11 staff report, they talk about terrorist travel. It seems as though our Government, and I don't mean you, I mean the powers that be----

Mr. Gohmert. We're all part of it.

Mr. Cutler. Well, but you understand what I'm trying to say, sir.

Mr. Gohmert. Sure.

Mr. Cutler. As a New Yorker, as an American, as a former agent, I don't think that the Government has learned the lessons that we should have learned. The fact that we haven't appreciably increased the number of agents to do interior enforcement, the fact that we're talking about 843--goodness gracious, 2,000 special agents for the entire country. Look at the manpower that we flooded into Iraq, and this isn't going to be about Iraq, but the point is, we should match the effort to secure Iraq with an effort to secure our own country up close and in person, and it really pales by comparison.

Mr. Gohmert. Yes.

Mr. Cutler. It's troubling.

Mr. Gohmert. Yes. I'm not advocating pulling from one to go to the other. We just need to----

Mr. Cutler. No, no, no. You understand what I'm saying, sir?

Mr. Gohmert. Yes. We need to make this a priority.

Mr. Cutler. And to say we're fighting it there so we don't have to fight it here is foolish. I mean----

Mr. Gohmert. I think we're on the same page. Thank you very much for your efforts.

Mr. Cutler. Okay, sir. Yes.

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