Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the underlying bill provides $5 million for the CBP Camera Technology Initiative. My amendment would simply double the funding for this initiative by providing an additional $5 million for a total of $10 million.

In 2015, CBP released the findings of a yearlong body-worn camera feasibility study, concluding that body-worn cameras would have ``positive benefits.''

The study found numerous benefits, including enhanced training capabilities through the utilization of footage as a learning tool; strengthened officer and agent performance and accountability; reduced hostilities between officers/agents and citizens; a reduction in the number of allegations and complaints; and increased officer and agent safety by influencing public behavior.

Law enforcement agencies across the country are quickly adopting body-worn camera technology because they see similar benefits. However, body-worn cameras are expensive, so it is necessary to provide additional resources for CBP to deploy the technology more effectively and in greater numbers.

We need to ensure that we outfit as many Border Patrol agents with body cameras as we can for the current 19,000 agents, as well as the additional 5,000 Border Patrol agents this bill would provide for. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Chairman, earlier this year, DHS Secretary John Kelly told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that he did not oppose requiring agents to wear body cameras, as long as Congress provides the necessary funding. My amendment would do just that.

There are tremendous safety and accountability benefits to having video records of law enforcement interactions with the public, both for law enforcement officers and for the public. I would note that a few years ago, when we debated body cameras for law enforcement, at that time, the majority accepted my amendment to increase body camera funding for law enforcement officers by $10 million. In fact, my hometown of San Antonio, I believe, now every patrol officer is outfitted with a body camera.

I respect the chairman's concerns about the cost of storage, but I would ask the chairman and my colleagues to consider the fact that the cost of storage, this $10 million, is a small cost when we are talking about people's lives. That could be the lives of the agents themselves or the lives of people that they interact with in the public.

Law enforcement, by and large--putting aside CBP agents for now, police departments across the country have accepted this technology as not only the thing of the future, but the thing of the present, what they are using now.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Chairman, again, I understand those concerns. But just as we have cameras here, so that the public can listen to every word that is being said in this Chamber, it is important that when law enforcement officers, including CBP officers, are interacting with the public--and that includes many U.S. citizens, not just immigrants who are coming across the border or folks who are coming across checkpoints, but United States citizens and legal residents. And for the sake of the agents, who may also have false accusations made against them, that is why this is important. Because there are sometimes accusations that are made that can be rebutted by this evidence.

The American people, just as they want this process to be transparent, they want that process to also be transparent with as much accountability as possible. And for the United States Congress not to move forward with that and commit what is really a poultry sum of $10 million and show a willingness to do that, I think is ignoring what most of the American people want.

As I mentioned before, I worked with the San Antonio Police Department. They came to me and said: Will you help us get these body cameras?

We put in a request for a grant. We got $1 million to cover the officers who were on patrol. I have not heard in San Antonio a complaint from those officers about body cameras. And studies have shown that, as I mentioned, it has reduced the tension between law enforcement officers and the public.

I respect the gentleman, and I understand the arguments, but I think that, on a whole, this is a matter of transparency, accountability, and people's lives, and we ought to do this. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chair, in its report accompanying this bill, the Appropriations Committee states that: ``ICE is currently evaluating the use of body- worn cameras for potential use in its field enforcement activities, and notes that such cameras can be important tools for both holding law enforcement personnel accountable and for exonerating officers accused of wrongdoing.''

My amendment would support ICE's use of body-worn cameras by providing $10 million exclusively for ICE to deploy this technology. The citizens of this country have come to expect law enforcement officers to wear body cameras even when enforcing immigration laws, and law enforcement agencies throughout the country are quickly adopting this technology.

Body-worn cameras are widely supported, because they are important tools that improve officer interactions with the public, deescalate conflicts, and improve public trust in law enforcement, but this tool is expensive, so we need to provide the resources ICE needs to get its program up and running.

The $10 million in this amendment mirrors the amount of money I am requesting for border patrol agent cameras. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Again, Mr. Chairman, this is an issue, fundamentally, of transparency and accountability; and the argument that I hear coming from the other side is that this is an evidentiary issue and that it is going to be too much of a hassle, so we don't want to hear or see what is in these cameras or on this video. That cannot be a responsible approach to law enforcement or to our judicial system.

I am asking in this amendment for $10 million. We spend more in furniture in this Chamber, in this House of Representatives, than the amount of money that I am requesting in this amendment. We spend more on Member travel every year than the amount of money that I am requesting in this amendment to make sure that both agents and the public are safer.

Let me give you an example, one example of what body cameras recently found in Baltimore, Maryland.
An officer was seen on camera, a body camera recorded an officer planting drugs that he then pretended to find on a suspect. A week later, another officer was also found to be planting evidence. Are we saying tonight that the American people and our judicial system don't want to see that evidence because of some storage problem? And, by the way, technology and the cloud have made storage a lot cheaper, so I think that information is outdated. The argument on that side is outdated.

To vote ``no,'' to recommend against this amendment, is to say that we are going to see no evil, hear no evil, and we are, instead, going to let both agents who may face false accusations, as they did, I'm sure, in the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s and 1990s, and others who were victims of the use of force in the 1970s, we are just going to turn a blind eye and continue that practice.

That cannot be the policy of this Congress. That is not the future of the American judicial system and our policing system. I reserve the balance of my time.

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People's lives are at stake. When we talk about policing practices and transparency, accountability, the use of body cameras, these things have made people safer in their communities. They have made law enforcement safer.

The concern about what could happen or what might happen, this technology is already being widely used among police officers and police departments across the country. The chairman gave the example of the Department of Public Safety using dash cams.

Dash cams have been used on law enforcement vehicles for a long time, and that did not break the bank of the State of Texas. The State of Texas has a $10 billion rainy day fund right now, a surplus.
$10 million, which is what this amendment requests, is a small amount of money compared to the amount of money that we spend on furniture in this place. Are we saying that we don't want to discover whether somebody is planting evidence or whether somebody is making a false accusation against an ICE agent who is just trying to do his or her job, that, instead, we are going to turn a blind eye to that because we would rather spend it on leather seats or Member travel or something else?

This is the future. These cameras are going to be used at some point by Border Patrol, by ICE, by law enforcement. As I said, law enforcement stepped forward and requested my assistance in getting money for body cameras in San Antonio, and so I hope that my colleagues will find it in themselves to support this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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