Hearing of the Homeland Security Subcom of the House Appropriations Com on the FY2005 Budget Request for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Federal News Service

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE HOMELAND SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: FISCAL YEAR 2005 BUDGET REQUEST FOR THE U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT

CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE HAROLD ROGERS (R-KY) WITNESS: MICHAEL J. GARCIA, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

LOCATION: 2358 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:

REP. HAROLD ROGERS (R-KY): The committee will be in order. Mr. Secretary, we're pleased to welcome you here. Michael Garcia, assistant secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to present his Fiscal Year '05 request for U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE.

Secretary Garcia was confirmed in his present position last December, and this marks the first time he's testified before the subcommittee. Secretary Garcia, you already have a good share of experience under your belt. You have shepherded the new ICE bureau during the first year, joined together a huge investigative mission from two differing agency cultures, begun to focus on improving the detention and removal function, focused on modernizing the air and marine integration mission, and brought the Federal Protective Service and the Federal Air Marshals Service under the umbrella of an agency with a law enforcement and security culture.

You have a great background for this task. You served with distinction as a federal prosecutor, working on cases such as the first World Trade Center bombing case, the Ramzi Yousef air bombing conspiracy and the bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. As assistant secretary of Commerce for Export Enforcement you gained experience with strategic trade investigations and as the last acting INS commissioner, you got a taste of the strenuous task you face in building a successful agency from the ashes of that organization.

Today we expect to hear about your progress in coping with Immigration and Customs Enforcement challenges. You have inherited a huge agency with close to 15,000 employees, about 8,000 of them in the investigative arena, and a budget approaching $4 billion. We want to know what your priorities are and what you are doing with those resources.

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REP. MARTIN OLAV SABO (D-MN): Well thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Garcia welcome to the committee. I just have two brief points to make. First, even though the Federal Air Marshals are in your bureau now, I won't ask you about their budget problems because you haven't overseen them for very long. Next year, we'll have more questions in that area.

However, today I'm introducing a supplemental funding bill for the Air Marshals. My bill would provide an additional $13.5 million to Air Marshals this year so they can hire up to the staffing level we all agreed to after 9/11. The funding in the bill is fully offset by a reduction to department operations. Departmental operations is nowhere near the staffing level that we funded in the FY 2004.

My bill merely makes the savings that they have accrued half way through this fiscal year due to this hiring problem and uses it to fund Air Marshals. In no ways do I prevent department operations from meeting its hiring goals for the rest of the year. I think it makes good sense and I hope other members can support it.

Secondly, it seems to me that the key ingredients for an effective Immigration and Customs enforcement operation is good information. Your officers depend on it to do their jobs. I think some of your current information and communications systems need improvement and I plan to ask you about that. And I look forward to hearing your testimony.

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REP. MARTIN OLAV SABO (D-MN): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Last year DHS announced that 2,500 ICE agents would be trained as Air Marshals to augment the Air Marshal force when necessary. I understand that 100 ICE agents have been identified and trained to date. When do you think you'll reach the total number that you're planning?

MR. GARCIA: Congressman, I could update that. It's closer to 200 have been trained. I believe the exact number is 184. We're proceeding with the next group of 100 agents now, projected 800 by the end of the year and then we'll continue from there with groups of 100 until we reach a total contingent. We --

REP. SABO: I want to interrupt here. I don't want us to reveal classified info here, I'm not sure we are? But we're getting around it pretty close here.

MR. GARCIA: It is a sensitive area, Mr. Chairman, and I apologize. We look to meet the goals of our training along the lines of the discussions we had in the closed session. The numbers that you cite are again higher now and we're continuing with the program.

REP. SABO: Are these people fully trained --

MR. GARCIA: Yes.

REP. SABO: -- to do the same thing?

MR. GARCIA: They are considered Federal Air Marshal-trained as an Air Marshal, although they are teamed with a FAM, teamed with another --

REP. SABO: Okay. Because we heard some testimony last week that as you develop a system for keeping track of other law enforcement people, that they will be somewhat helpful but not have the same role as an Air Marshal?

MR. GARCIA: That's correct, Congressman. You're referring to the Force Multiplier Program.

REP. SABO: But for these trained agents the training is the same, but they are not available on a regular basis but for times of crisis?

MR. GARCIA: Exactly right. This is training that would-they would be considered FAMs under the FAM service and used as such with existing FAMs. The other program really is a briefing, not a training program.

REP. SABO: We recently received a report from the department on the role of the office of Air and Marine Operations and securing the homeland. The report states, and I quote: "The northern border requires the law enforcement response that has been achieved along the southern border." It appears that there were nowhere near that and I don't see the budget making any significant inroads. Am I wrong?

MR. GARCIA: You're correct that we are nowhere near the presence we have on the southern border on the northern border. What we are doing on the Air Marine front in terms of the northern border, Congressman, as you're aware, are the two projected facilities in Bellingham, Washington, and in Plattsburgh, New York, which are going forward using resources, Air Marine and budgeted money for projected-and look to open a third facility in the coming year. Those operations TDY personnel right now, aircraft in Bellingham and some used in Plattsburgh, are really in the process of being built up. So it is-as your statements indicate, it's a project where prior to 9/11 there was not much of any presence on the border. It's going to be a long term project to build up a substantial presence there. Air Marine is committed to that and is working very hard to get those facilities in Bellingham and Plattsburgh up to --

REP. SABO: So any funding for the third place in the budget?

MR. GARCIA: Yes, there is, sir.

REP. SABO: How much? Could you give us personally some detail on that?

MR. GARCIA: Yes, I will, Congressman, and let me get back to you on the number that's in '04.

REP. SABO: The office of Air and Marine Operation states that current funding limits the operation of your P-3 aircraft to approximately 25 percent of what you could provide. Your budget includes $28 million to increase P-3 flights from 200 to 600 per month. Will this get you to 100 percent?

MR. GARCIA: No, it will not, Congressman. I believe that number will get us to less than 50 percent of capable hours.

REP. SABO: A question on the absconders. We've got some reports of people mistakenly on that list. There's the case of a Russian who was a permanent legal resident working for the United States, left the country, came back, was arrested. Apparently some old asylum papers were there and hadn't caught up to the fact that he was legally here. Is that an aberration or is there-are --

MR. GARCIA: (Cross talk) -- to say it was a single unique episode in the annals of the INS. As the chairman mentioned in his opening remarks, there were significant problems with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. We encounter problems with that type of record keeping. That was a particularly egregious example. I have seen examples where notice wasn't documented in the file, leading to legal problems later on in an absconder case where the absconder claimed he didn't know he had a final order of deportation. Problems of that kind much more frequently than the example that you cite. It's a case where we have to go through files. It's a paper system, as you're well aware, for the most part. Very time consuming and extensive.

REP. SABO: Not computerized at all?

MR. GARCIA: Not computerized in terms of the documentation, only in terms of where the file is located. Very, very difficult documentation. We're very careful in doing that. Unfortunate incidents-luckily that's the only one I know of of that kind, but again I have seen incidents where notice documentation-notations weren't made or documents weren't placed in the file, which have caused us problems in the absconder field.

REP. SABO: I notice that the criminal aliens that were arrested last year went up from 53 percent of all removals from 47 percent in 2002. Do you have any percentage that you have as a goal as you get additional enforcement people? You know, targeting the criminal aliens seems to make lots of sense to me.

MR. GARCIA: It makes lots of sense to me too and it, frankly, was something that was not done very well in the past.

REP. SABO: Do you have some goal that --

MR. GARCIA: I don't have a goal in terms of a number because, Congressman, we're looking at capacity in a lot of cases. I have fugitive operations teams. They exhaust leads, they're going to be working on fugitive cases.

So that's going to mean when they're not working a criminal case, they're going to work a civil absconder as well.

REP. SABO: I assume that fugitive criminals are the more difficult to find?

MR. GARCIA: Exactly so, and particularly when-they may be more savvy, but they may also have been picked up for additional crimes and be in a local prison somewhere that might make it difficult for them to look-for us to look for. Given our exit control, some of them-some of all the absconded population may have left the country, so it is a difficult process.

REP. SABO: Last year GAO issued a report on individuals who have had their visas revoked, and they found that ICE was not investigating to locate these individuals and may still be in the United States. And I am not sure even of the communication between the people who revoke visas and yourself. It just doesn't seem to make sense, particularly somebody the visa is revoked because of potential terrorism threat.

MR. GARCIA: I'm aware of that issue in terms of when it surfaced. I can get you an update on where we are in terms of anyone who's out there. I know there are issues in terms of visa revocations themselves and how we work with the State Department in removing people who have had their visas revoked. There are some legal issues in terms of removals, even after a visa has been revoked, that we're trying to work through with the Department of Justice and the State Department.

REP. SABO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.