Hearing of the Homeland Security Subcommittee - Fiscal Year 2005 Budget Request for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (cont.)

REP. ROGERS: Thank you.

Ms. Granger.

REP. KAY GRANGER (R-TX): I want to return just a minute to what we've been talking about and make sure that I understand. I understand that over the past several years that the apprehension of aliens entered illegally across the southern border, if they're apprehended and they're Mexican Nationals then they're repatriated across the nearest land border. But if they're other than Mexican descent, then they have to have an arrangement with the State Department with those countries. And while they're awaiting the deportation hearings they're-my understanding is they're supposed to be detained by ICE, but obviously for I guess just budgetary primarily is what you're saying, they aren't.

And so I'm trying to get an idea of how many of those are out there that just disappear while they're waiting for a return for their deportation hearings? And then if we're doing that, that's happening because of cost, what is the cost to detain them? We don't have beds, you say, but what's it going to cost to change that?

MR. GARCIA: Congresswoman, you're correct in terms of the procedures at the border; primarily now a CBP function of returning Mexicans to that country. Other than Mexicans, other nationalities, are either detained or given some form of bond or conditions of release. It's done on a case by case basis. For example, in Arizona where we were seeing an organized Brazilian smuggling ring that showed a pattern of absconding and we are detaining 100 percent. In other cases it would be based on obviously any criminal record, any intelligence information, flight risk.

But we are constrained by economics. As the chairman mentioned I believe, we're operating at a slightly under 23,000 detention beds on a 19,000 or so budgeted detention bed space because we do consider the importance of that as a tool for ensuring compliance with the immigration proceedings. I'll give you a number. I think that it's close to what you're asking for in terms of what's the effect.

On a non-detained docket the appearance rate for final orders of removal is approximately 15 percent, which obviously abysmally low. We're working-bed space is expensive, again to get back to your point. The estimate is about $90 a day to house an alien nationwide. Obviously that will vary place to place, but the average is about $90 a day, compared to $3 a day for electronic monitoring, an avenue we're trying to explore to see how effective it is.

One thing I mentioned to the chairman as well, taking people into custody when they're issued final orders of detention, cutting down on the detention time but again ensuring compliance with that final order. We're also guided by the courts and their decisions on bail. We have some recourse there in terms of appeals, et cetera, but we also have to comply with whatever the court establishes as the appropriate bail or conditions of release in each case. So it is a complicated, complex issue. It has very real impact, as I know you appreciate in your district, and we're working on a number of different fronts to try to address it.

REP. GRANGER: Give me some examples of what-if you can't detain them at $90 a day, $3 a day electronic monitoring, how successful is that? How large a program is that?

MR. GARCIA: We right now have pilot programs going on in the United States in five cities using the electronic monitoring. The reporting has been that it has been successful. We're looking to expand that to a number of additional sites, eight cities to use the electronic monitoring, and also to see how we can use community based groups to do some of the oversight work in terms of housing and ensuring appearance that we need to have done and through the process. We've had success so far and I think it's an avenue obviously, given our '05 submission, we believe we're going to pursue as one way to get at the problems that you've discussed.

We're also looking at, as was mentioned earlier, agreements with foreign governments. Why are we holding people so long waiting for travel documents? My director of detention and removal has been overseas recently to try to facilitate movement through the system to open those beds up. The quicker we move people the more effective our bed space is. We work with the Department of Justice to look at where are immigration judges, where are the concentrations, is their docket full? Let's make sure we've got those dockets full across the country. That's obviously a very important part of what we do.

Institutional removal, Congresswoman, can we get at these people inside the institutions, process them while they're being held state, local, federal so they minimize the time in our facilities and we can remove them almost immediately once they come into our custody. All of those things are going to factor into a solution for the detention problem which really is ensuring the integrity of our system.

REP. GRANGER: What sort of community based programs are you --

MR. GARCIA: These are groups that will house some of the aliens as they go through the proceedings, will make assurances to us that they will do that or will ensure their appearances at the necessary court appearances and, you know, support groups and we've been fairly successful. There was a pilot project called VIRA (ph) a while back that looked at this and found that those community type based projects were very successful up to the point that the final order of removal was issued, and then again we had the same abysmally low rate of compliance that we've seen across the board. So we are now taking that model to say at what point does it become ineffective, and trying to bridge that gap.

REP. GRANGER: Thank you.

REP. ROGERS: Thank you.

Mr. Berry. No questions?

Mr. Price?

REP. DAVID E. PRICE (D-NC): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Garcia, let me add my welcome to the subcommittee and thank you for your testimony.

MR. GARCIA: Thank you, sir.

REP. PRICE: I want to ask you a question that requires us to back off just a minute from the immediate appropriations situation and look at the bigger picture. So if you'll bear with me for just a couple of premises that I'd like to lay down and then ask for your response. First, I do want to commend you on your efforts this past year in the difficult task of merging all these agencies together. You know, between Operation Predator and ICE Storm, thousands of child predators and sex offenders and violent gang members and criminal aliens have been captured and arrested and in cases deported.

I commend you for that.

And besides accomplishing the difficult task of merging all these agencies, I want to commend you on your work with local law enforcement and protecting the homeland. The ICE Law Enforcement Support Center, of course, is a good example of that partnership. On multiple occasions you've called for greater involvement by local law enforcement in immigration investigations and arrests, even going so far as to say at one point that immigration enforcement should be a dual responsibility between DHS and local law enforcement. And Secretary Hutchinson, I think in a joint press briefing with you, said, and I'm quoting, "Homeland security is not and cannot be a federal issue only. Law enforcement in Washington must be able to coordinate with law enforcement in every state and vice versa."

Now, when Secretary Ridge came before us a couple of weeks ago he seemed to be playing down the responsibility of DHS and of the federal government generally for funding support for local law enforcement, concentrating instead, he suggested, on funding for pure counter terrorism. That's how he justified the overall budget cuts on funding for our local first responders; cuts by a total of something like two- thirds as I calculated: cuts in fire grants, cuts in COPS, the burn grants, the law enforcement abroad grants, all those things. Either cut substantially or zeroed out.

So although your track record on law enforcement is quite remarkable, as of a week ago you had arrested or deported only 11 people with suspected links to terrorism or distinct or specific links to terrorism. Now, the president's proposing an 8 percent increase in your budget at a time when he is proposing these major cuts elsewhere in law enforcement. You've defended the increase by saying, and I'm quoting again, "If organized crime rings can lead illegal aliens into the country, terrorists can use the same methods to infiltrate our borders. If narco-traffickers can smuggle cocaine into the country, terrorists can surreptitiously bring in components for weapons of mass destruction."

I agree completely. But there does, I must say, seem to be a disconnect between the approach ICE is taking and the approach that ODP is taking to homeland security. DHS is increasing funding for your agency, which still focuses heavily on regular law enforcement. At the same time it tells the states that their funding for regular law enforcement is going to be cut because the U.S. needs to focus on pure counter terrorism.

Now, can you explain this or help me add this up? Especially since the recent theories we're hearing following the attacks in Spain are that al Qaeda may be refocusing on violence against soft targets. Don't you think we need to do more to protect our homeland than just try to beef up security in a few cities?

MR. GARCIA: Congressman, one, I'm not familiar with the budget on-that you speak of in terms of assistance to the states. I will say I agree with you completely and Homeland Security does DHS and the partnership with the state and local law enforcement particularly is critical to our mission on a number of fronts. You mentioned a few of the things we do from law enforcement service center, providing service to the local trooper who's pulling a car over on the side of the road at night, getting a read through our databases. Our ICE Storm commitment to put 50 agents, bed space and air-marine assets into the Phoenix area to help the local police reduce violent crime, and the local police chief saying we've done that.

Our gang work where we go in with the local authorities and look for ways we can take violent gang members off the street using immigration authorities when gang cases can't be made at the state level. To the more formal 287G training, Florida, Alabama has taken advantage of to train local law enforcement in immigration enforcement. Across the board we have shown that commitment to working with our state and local partners on a variety of issues.

You mentioned we look at vulnerabilities. My statement that you read on that front, that's a critical part of doing that. In Phoenix alone organized criminal enterprise is moving people across the border, that's a homeland security vulnerability. While your ability-and I know as a prosecutor, very it's very difficult to make terrorism cases, terrorist financing cases. But our ability to close down those types of vulnerabilities to tighten the systems that we have in place is a key element of that homeland security project. Terrorist prosecutions, terrorist financing, very important. Our mission broader, and the key to that broader mission is our partnership with our state and local law enforcement folks and we have moved forward tremendously on that front, in fact, happy to brief you on our plans to expand our law enforcement service center in Burlington, Vermont.

REP. PRICE: Well, I think any information you can furnish for the record on that would be very helpful and we do commend you for that. But I must say from the standpoint of the local law enforcement agencies, what I hear again and again and again is that this is beginning to look like a bit of a shell game. Yes, in some areas there are new resources available, there is cooperation offered, there are new capacities that are being developed. But what's being given with one hand is being taken away with the other from their standpoint.

You're not gaining much if you're losing your COPS funding, if you're losing your burn funding, if you're losing your law enforcement abroad grant funding, if your fire grants are being cut. If the kind of assistance that they've counted on for years for regular law enforcement is being taken away, even as this new assistance is being offered. And so I understand-that's why I said what I did at the beginning. I understand this is not your budgetary responsibility, but it surely needs to be somebody's because what's going on elsewhere in the federal budget I believe is quite relevant to the kinds of functions you're describing.

MR. GARCIA: I understand your concern, Congressman, and I fully support, obviously, the local officers, firemen out on the line doing the job. We've discussed the programs we have at ICE. I obviously don't have any input into the budget in terms of what grants or where they go. I would be happy to work with you to address concerns you have in specific jurisdictions, or complaints that you've heard, to try to work out support for those local officers. We do have a number of services and authorities we can provide to help them, I believe.

REP. ROGERS: The time of the gentleman has expired.

REP. PRICE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. ROGERS: Mr. Sherwood?

REP. DON SHERWOOD (R-PA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have to say that it looks like it would be a wonderful partnership if you can move in and help local law enforcement get some of these people off the street because they have immigration violations. That would be great cooperation. Any time you reduce crime in one area it has a multiplier effect. Just like if you don't address it in one area, it has a multiplier effect against you. But I'd like to get back to your deportation talk. You were saying that with certain countries the paperwork was difficult?

MR. GARCIA: Yes, sir.

REP. SHERWOOD: Well, isn't that the way it's going to be? In other words, what country wants somebody deported back to them? Nobody's going to cooperate with you on that. I mean, I think-I would think it would be very difficult to get people deported and get other countries to stand up and provide the paperwork and say, sure, we'll accept this no-good SOB and let him be our problem again.

MR. GARCIA: It is not an easy sell to tell a country that you're going to be getting a gang member back or-but there are obligations to receive their nationals. Most countries are relatively cooperative. We have specific problems with a number of countries. One recent example was Cambodia where we were having tremendous difficulties. Our issue is to get travel documents, Congressman. We can't send them back without a proper identification issued by that country.

Cambodia was being very difficult in terms of accepting their nationals back. We've done a lot of work on that front and in fact that has opened up and we're seeing movement back, repatriations, removal back to Colombia. My director of detention and removal just returned from a trip to Israel, where we're seeing similar issues, and has tried to negotiate new arrangements in terms of those travel documents that I think will help us in that area.

We still see problems with other countries in terms of delays in getting those travel documents.

Delays mean costs for us, they mean lodging people. In certain cases they mean releasing people, Congressman, because we've got up against certain Supreme Court rulings, constitutional law in terms of how long we can hold folks. In some cases that means releasing people with criminal records so it's a very serious issue, as you pointed out, on a public safety front.

We work country by country. I work with the State Department. I work with ambassadors who are here in Washington from those other countries to try and resolve some of these document issues. It's an area we understand is incredibly important and keep pushing on on all fronts, identifying particular problem areas, as we've just done, resolving some, in the case of Colombia, and continuing to work with other countries.

But, for example, I met with El Salvador. We have a tremendous gang problem in this country, MS13. What they asked for was information on their returns: if you're sending gang members back let us know information about it, because they pose obviously some concern for the host government. And we work with the host government in terms of letting them know the histories of the folks we're sending back. So it is a partnership in many ways as well.

REP. SHERWOOD: Your S5 and S6 visas I would think would be a critical resource on your war on terror. Do you know how successful this is being? I don't want to ask you specific numbers, but-and how accessible are these individuals to your intelligence and investigative personnel, and have you experienced any coordination problems with the DOJ?

MR. GARCIA: Congressman, if I might ask, can I give you-get back to you on that specific issue?

REP. SHERWOOD: Sure.

MR. GARCIA: I'd be happy to provide the information to you.

REP. SHERWOOD: Okay, you get it to my office.

MR. GARCIA: I will, sir.

REP. SHERWOOD: Currently, as we've talked before, we don't have a consolidated terrorist watch list. And, you know, we've discussed here and other places that the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center is pulling together several lists as we speak, but I would like to know about ICE's role in this process. And in view of the fact that we don't have this consolidated list, how effective do you think the new visa security unit in Saudi will be?

MR. GARCIA: Two parts to your question. First, ICE is involved in putting together a list. Obviously we have access to unique information as a law enforcement agency, and particularly in Immigration Customs Enforcement Agency, that could be very critical. We work with our law enforcement partners. We're not primarily responsible for that project but certainly support it for the obvious benefit that you cited. We need to do that.

In terms of visa security unit in how it plays out particularly in Saudi right now, we have to balance off-we have to run names against a number of different databases. We have to ensure that what is the State Department doing, what is Homeland Security doing? Are we reaching not only the proper databases, but the proper levels within those databases? There are different-which has been explained to me on a few occasions-levels, sub files of databases that we need to reach into to really get the full picture of the information that's out there. We have a program in Saudi trying to use it as a model to ensure that we're running names, potential visa-the visa applicants against all the different databases to ensure that we have the full spectrum. Obviously it would be much better to have consolidated databases much more efficient to be able to do that.

We saw a similar issue with the recent increase to threat level orange where we were running-looking at people, running names through databases and we're running them through various agencies and various databases to ensure we were getting the full picture. Everybody agrees working towards that goal of combining databases, one-stop shopping in effect, is the most efficient and effective way to go.

REP. SHERWOOD: Thank you. We very much appreciate the difficulty of your job and the hard work that everybody is putting into it. But on the hearing we had the other day, I still feel that the force multiplier issue was thrown up as a red herring, and I don't think there were the purest of motives there. I think we were a little deceived by the effectiveness of that issue, or tried to be.

MR. GARCIA: Congressman, you made that very clear at the session we had the other day and I do understand your concerns about it. However, it is potentially a very effective, cost efficient program that will get us something extra. Never meant to be sold as a replacement for the Federal Air Marshals or as a red herring, but it is a simple concept I think of good government where we should know what armed law enforcement agents are flying in case there's an incident at minimum. FAM should have that information and the FAM should have the option to redeploy where there are agents flying that they believe could provide minimum coverage on a flight to maximize their resources. That's where we're headed with that: not as a replacement for Federal Air Marshals, but as a tool.

REP. SHERWOOD: We agree it could work. We agree it's a good idea, but it was presented to us as something that was in effect and being effective and it isn't in effect and it isn't effective.

MR. GARCIA: It certainly isn't in effect. It's in the early stages. In fact we signed the MOU with the Secret Service within the last six weeks or so, I believe.

REP. ROGERS: Thank you, Mr. Sherwood.

Question: the commandant of the Coast Guard told me yesterday that they had seized three Peruvian ships on the Pacific side with 16 tons of cocaine. Were your people involved in investigating that case and those types of cases?

MR. GARCIA: Yes, we are. In that particular case we were involved and historically we work hand to hand with the Coast Guard, either through our investigations providing source information, or through our Air and Marine Division spotting suspect vessels on the high seas, relaying that information to the Coast Guard, the Coast Guard then boarding the vessel. So we are heavily involved in those efforts.

REP. ROGERS: Congratulations.

MR. GARCIA: Thank you.

REP. ROGERS: That's a big one. So the Air and Marine were involved?

MR. GARCIA: On that case it was ICE, Air Marine, Investigations, DEA, FBI out of Tampa.

REP. ROGERS: Did that come through the JIATF operation?

MR. GARCIA: Yes, it did. I being told--

REP. ROGERS: In Key West?

MR. GARCIA: Yes, sir.

REP. ROGERS: Congratulations. That's a good operation.

MR. GARCIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. ROGERS: Mr. Wamp?

REP. ZACH WAMP (R-TN): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, thanks for coming back this week in an open setting. Having served on the Commerce, Justice, State Subcommittee with Chairman Rogers, I give him a lot of credit for the reforms that have taken place. Even prior to September 11 he was working in the directions that we're now in on bringing about more accountability and more efficiency. And one of the creations in the late '90s that came out of our subcommittee over there was the establishment of these QRT facilities, Quick Response Team facilities.

You may know a lot about them, but one thing I want to share with you in this open meeting and ask you if you would support a change that I've proposed is the way these facilities are sited.

And we had one come to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where I live and always have lived. It is not a good system. You turn responsibility over to GSA; I guess that's by statute. But GSA then deals with developers on site selection and what we found out the hard way is that the developers actually choose the site instead of the community that they're sited in.

And they chose the site that would have been probably good from the financial standpoint in terms of future value. But the site was not a good site in terms of the community, churches, schools, neighborhoods because this is a facility where obviously illegal aliens are processed and there are weapons there and people come in through that facility, and there is a potential for it to be more of a-you know, it's a processing facility not a correction facility but, you know, you could have violent individuals come through there. Long story short: they chose the site, the public just was outraged. I got involved and we've now had to go through a process of going to another site.

But the bill that I've offered is H.R. 3013. It's pending before the Judiciary Committee and it would just require the secretary of Homeland Security conduct a public hearing in the community before a QRT facility is either established or relocated into that community. It seems like an obvious thing, but I'll guarantee you a public process would have not allowed the changes that were forced on the location of the site in Chattanooga. It's very complicated to work your way back through after a developer had already selected the site and they have all the-we had a public meeting but there's nothing in the statute to require public notice, public meetings. The local government officials were caught off guard. I do know that a person in the permitting office knew about it, but that didn't mean the public knew about it, and that was a problem.

So I would just ask you if you would support-it's almost a technical corrections amendment, but it's actually a bill going through Judiciary that would require public meetings before these QRT facilities are sited. I think they're very important, more and more so. We've got illegal aliens, you know, moving into our region for jobs. There's no doubt, you know, they're going to follow wherever the economic opportunity is. But when they have to be processed and all of a sudden you find a vanload of people that aren't supposed to be here, you've got to have a facility particularly in these metro areas. But where it's sited is critical. Would you support that approach?

MR. GARCIA: Congressman, I actually believe I may have been there when that issue in Chattanooga came up, or I've heard about it, and we did send people down to come to the meeting and talk to the local community about it. It's an issue. I haven't-I'm not familiar with your legislation; I'd be happy to look at it and see. It's a difficult issue where we're going to put those types of facilities. We have not only QRTs but obviously other facilities as well, so I'd be happy to look at it.

REP. WAMP: But just to close the loop, with the public involvement and the city's officials being involved we did secure a site and had a public meeting and there was relatively no opposition because you went through a more sophisticated and professional approach as opposed to the developer saying, hey, in 10 years this piece of property is really going to be valuable, if I can own this building in 10 years after leasing it to the Department of Homeland Security or ICE. Obviously those are the kinds of areas where there's a lot of commercial activity and all that might-maybe are not the best place to put a QRT facility. Maybe it needs to be in a place where there's not that kind of growth potential. And so as the motive-I came out of that business. I was a developer and I know exactly what they're looking for, but that's the wrong incentive for locating a site like this, so I think a public process is in order.

And with that I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. GARCIA: Thank you.

REP. ROGERS: Thank you, Mr. Wamp.

Mr. Latham?

REP. TOM LATHAM (R-IA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And welcome. I've got Iowa State University in my district and one of the big concerns they have is the tracking of the foreign student population and how it has greatly reduced the number of students that have come to Iowa State now and it is not to the benefit, obviously, of the university. We're all concerned about what potential for abuse in the system. Could you tell us where we're going with that and what kind of cooperation you're getting, or are you concerned about the way the program is being implemented?

MR. GARCIA: Thank you, Congressman. I think it's a good system, it works. For too many years there was no system for tracking students who came into this country on entry documents that provided that they would attend school. I saw firsthand in New York in some of my cases some very bad results from that. This system is web-based. It enters a student, there's a reporting requirement by the school and there's a requirement that they continue to comply with the terms of the document. It's non-intrusive. I have heard the statistics or the schools talking about decreases in numbers. I would imagine there's also economic factors involved in those decreases where they exist as well.

We work very hard-we understand there's apprehension, legitimate apprehension, about the system. We work very hard to do outreach to the schools, for the groups involved in this. In fact, they were having weekly meetings; I think they still may be. We're putting teams into the airports in the high volume times, the end of the summer when students were coming back into the-in large numbers, to make sure people weren't getting held up at the airport unnecessarily or turned back at great expense and aggravation.

I'll give you two examples, Congressman, of how that worked. One, an exchange student came in for high school. High school didn't know they had to be registered, but they did. We got a family member to come to take this student out of the airport overnight, we worked with the school overnight to get them into the system. It was a high school.

The student went on their way to high school the next day. In California we had a student come in, stopped at the border, checked the documents, went back to the school and checked, turned out that student wasn't coming in, in fact I believe had tried to fraudulently enter before, was confronted, admitted they were trying to get into the country through fraud and they were turned around and sent back. That's the system working.

Now, there's a range between that. We work very hard to make sure that each student, one, is treated with respect but, two, that there's compliance with the system. And it has worked and we have made a very great effort to work with the schools in a partnership to have that happen. But, again, it has put integrity into that system of having people come here for a reason and ensuring that they're complying with that.

REP. LATHAM: How about, you know, the timeframe to submitting the application for a student visa and all that? There's some concern about that system working well.

MR. GARCIA: There has been, Congressman, you're right. And also because part of that is controlled by the State Department in terms of visa issuance overseas through the consulates and then the rest of the system is controlled through the Department of Homeland Security through ICE. We're working with the State Department. We have heard of those issues and we take them very seriously.

REP. LATHAM: I know the chairman, being on that subcommittee, will take care of that problem for me. I guess the only other question I would have about the state and local entities are concerned about illegals who have committed a crime, they're serving time and then they release them and coordination as far as deportation prior to release, and if you could maybe speak to that briefly. Apparently we just got a vote?

MR. GARCIA: One of our top priorities, Congressman, and in fact we've asked for an enhancement for that in the '05 budget of $30 million. Public safety benefit is incredible because you have in many cases violent criminals who are released into the community. Financial benefit for us is great because we're not housing people or looking for people after they've been released. We're doing a number of things. We need to do better on the local level. That's where we have our biggest challenge, the local facilities around the country. Do a good job in the federal, okay job at state and we need-a long way to go on the local level.

REP. LATHAM: Is it a communication problem?

MR. GARCIA: It's mainly a volume problem in many cases. If you think of the number in your state of facilities, of penitentiaries, and look at the local penitentiaries where you might have people with a history of significant violence who are held for a short period of time. So we may not have a field office or an agent for a long ways from that facility and a short window in which we can process. So we have to do better with technology and we're looking at that under this enhancement. We do-we've also got some pilot projects going. They haven't been rolled out yet, but I think will be a great new approach. And rather than discuss them openly, I'd be happy to get that information to you. But I think that those can be very effective as well.

REP. LATHAM: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. ROGERS: Thank you.

Mr. Sweeney?

REP. JOHN E. SWEENEY (R-NY): Thank you, Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, welcome and we are proud of you for many reasons, especially your New York connection, CUNY, Binghamton and Albany Law School, which are part of the district, so-or at least abut mine.

MR. GARCIA: Thank you.

REP. SWEENEY: And in that vein I have two very quick questions, because we do have a vote. I noticed the Student Exchange Visitor account request has doubled to $65 million. I think it's an important program area especially in our state in particular and the nation, and I think as well in terms of developing some capacities to understand other people and other cultures and they understand us. What's the reason for the increase?

MR. GARCIA: Congressman, we established that program basically without funding originally. And including what I was discussing with Congressman Latham, the way to get schools and students into the process and then the compliance, enforcement side of that, we stood up a program basically out of existing resources where we were seeing thousands of leads. Part of that money goes to do what you are getting at, which is to make sure we screen those leads, vet them properly so we're not going out to a school and causing someone anxiety and grief when --

REP. SWEENEY: Is there a system in place? How are you doing it without money, I guess is my real question?

MR. GARCIA: We're doing it mainly through a headquarters process where we take really the top portion of those leads and get violator information from the thousands-numbers of thousands and thousands, we'll look at that, we'll try to clear it through our systems to see what did they change their status, did they go to another school so we're not wasting time or causing someone anxiety.

REP. SWEENEY: Are the schools at all helpful, cooperative? I know they've been resistant in the past and --

MR. GARCIA: They are, they are. You know, this was a difficult process to get started and we frankly had some problems in the beginning with the I.T., with the system for getting the information into the computers that caused legitimate concern on the parts of the school: bleeding issues and other technology issues way beyond my expertise. We made a concerted effort to address those and to bring the schools in. As I said, weekly teleconferences with schools and groups representing schools I think went a long way to getting --

REP. SWEENEY: I want to be helpful and so I'd like to talk to your people and see where we can be --

MR. GARCIA: I appreciate that.

REP. SWEENEY: I understand doubling your budget probably is about as much help as you need from us, but I appreciate it. You see the tie. Mr. Latham was commenting on what a beautiful tie I have on today, and it is the day and my name is Sweeney. I have a last question. I recently sent a letter to the secretary on behalf of the McAllister and the Ciaran Ferry families, and I was pleased to hear that you granted a 30 day extension to them and I just-I'm wondering if there's an update and where you think you're going?

MR. GARCIA: I know your interest in this case, Congressman. The most recent information I have I was given today is that both have-the father and the son McAllisters have a pending petition for a rehearing. Neither is in custody presently and both have a temporary stay, as you said.

REP. SWEENEY: If you could keep me appraised and I just will tell you that Judge Kay is coming to see me next week and I'll tell her what a great job you did here.

MR. GARCIA: Thank you.

REP. SWEENEY: Thank you.

REP. ROGERS: Thank you, Mr. Sweeney.

Ms. Roybal-Allard?

REP. LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD (D-CA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I understand that while I was in the HHS hearing that there was some discussion about local law enforcement enforcing federal immigration and I'd just like to comment on that and ask a question. As you know, community based policing is one of the most powerful law enforcement tools available because by developing strong ties with local communities, police departments are able to obtain valuable information that helps them to fight crime. And the development of community based policing has been widely recognized as an effective tool for keeping kids off drugs, combating drug violence and reducing crime rates in neighborhoods nationwide. And in fact my district is an excellent example of how that is accomplished.

I'd like to quote the California police chief Arturo Venegas, who says about law enforcement enforcing federal immigration, quote, "I don't think it's a good idea. We've made tremendous inroads into a lot of our immigrant communities. To get into the enforcement of immigration laws would build wedges and walls that have taken a long time to break down." The end of quote. Now, while I agree that local police should go after criminal aliens, I don't think there's any disagreement there, my concern is that if we mandate our local police to enforce civil immigration law that we will undermine important community relations that help our police to fight crime. Is this a concern of yours as well?

MR. GARCIA: Obviously our relationship with the local police and the relationship with the immigrant community is a concern, a big concern for our agency. Local police are our partners. Congresswoman, there's a large spectrum of how we interact with local police in terms of enforcing immigration law. On the one end is 287G, which I'm sure you're aware of, which provides the local authorities with an option to come to us to get trained, rigorous training not only in immigration law but civil rights issues, constitutional issues, and then enforce the law under our supervision. We've done that in Florida at Florida's request and we've done it in Alabama at Alabama's request. That's one end of the spectrum.

Across there is a number of degrees where we work with state and local officials. It can be providing a service. We talk about criminal aliens. LESC, our law enforcement center in Burlington, is a record center and if a local officer who's on the side of the road pulls someone over and wants to do a name check 24 hours a day, seven days a week they can call into Burlington, they can access through NCIC through their computer in the car and find out if that person's a deported felon that they're dealing with on that road. Very important.

California-I have talked to some folks up there about working gang issues which you, I know, appreciate. Where we can go in, as I mentioned earlier, and take gang members off the street and provide the incredible service to the community by doing that. And we do that very aggressively.

We did it in Charlotte, we did it in Chicago, a number of-Washington D.C. in fact. And we work to do that.

Enforcing the immigration law on the local level I think is, unfortunately, often portrayed as we want to go in and if someone reports a violent crime or-the first question that should be asked is, "Well, before you can tell me that I need to know if you're"-you know, "what your status is here." I've never heard that suggested on any level. Those are the types of programs we're looking at in terms of our partnership with local officials. I think that's a very important partnership. And, again, you have to prioritize. We prioritize our resources to look at criminals. Certainly we want to prioritize our relationship with state and local officials to get at the criminal alien population, and we're doing that.

REP. ROYBAL-ALLARD: This year, Mr. Garcia, fees paid into the immigration examinations fee account by immigration service applicants who pay these fees so that their applications can be processed is being diverted to ICE for investigatory activities. Given that there is a six million case backlog in applications for immigration services, it is somewhat troubling that these funds would be diverted from providing timely service to applicants. Therefore, I was glad to see that you have requested an appropriation of $25 million in Fiscal Year 2005 to deter immigration fraud. I think we all can agree that rule abiding immigrants should not have to pay for the investigation of criminal activity. My question is whether or not your $25 million request would be sufficient to allow ICE to fully perform its investigative duties without using funds from immigration fees?

MR. GARCIA: The $25 million you reference is aimed at benefit fraud. There was money, as you mentioned, Congresswoman, from fee generated money that was used to perform that investigative function. I believe there is a good case to be made that that function is in support of efficient benefit providing service. Be that as it may, we've agreed to seek independent funding, so to speak, for that program so that we continue to have a robust benefits fraud program that ensures the integrity, and in fact ensures that the people who are entitled to the benefits get them and the system isn't clogged with these mills that are producing obviously fraudulent applications and documents that consume a lot of time on the part of benefits analysis and adjudicators.

And I agree, this hopefully will-if passed, will get us the ability to continue on with that program. But I think, I don't know numbers, but there certainly are other areas where on almost a contractual or reimbursable basis enforcement supports maintenance of an efficient and effective services provider. And I think that can't be bright line separated. I think you can't say, "Well we'll take all fees and we'll use them solely to support an adjudicator who's granting a benefit," while that adjudicator who's looking for fraud as part of their job too-that eventually will come to us and we will support it and we will support it in our enforcement mission. It's a very difficult issue and, as you mentioned, I know CIS and Eduardo Aguirre have very significant issues with funding and we are trying to work through those issues. This is one example of how we're doing it so that --

REP. ROGERS: The time of the gentlelady --

MR. GARCIA: I'm sorry, each agency can continue.

REP. ROGERS: The time of the gentlelady has expired. We have votes on the floor we have to attend to. We will have other questions we can submit for the record that you can respond to for the record.

MR. GARCIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. ROGERS: And, Mr. Secretary, thank you for your time this morning and your staff. We appreciate your testimony and we want you to know that we want you to be successful because when you're successful it makes Americans successful.

MR. GARCIA: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.