House hearing live: Markwayne Mullin testifies on DHS budget before House Appropriations Committee

[0:42] Okay, we're all shamed, and please exit the building. Thank you. Is it time? Well, we're actually two minutes late, Mr. Secretary. Well, you know, Mr. Secretary, you're a young guy. I'm an old guy. Homeland Security is now called to order. [1:17] Welcome back to the House, Mr. Secretary. It's been our tradition to have the Secretary of Homeland Security appear before the committee about once a year on average. [1:35] And so since it's been, I think, a year ago last May, since your predecessor was in front of the committee, and we're right in the middle of the fiscal year process for 2026, [1:51] we are going to have a little visit with you, as is the tradition. [1:59] And so I would like to start out by recognizing members for opening statements. [2:05] I'm going to waive my opening statement. I reserve the right to do a closing statement if I see fit. [2:13] But with that and moving right along to the gentleman from Laredo, the floor is yours for your opening statement. [2:18] Mr. Chairman, thank you so much. And again, we want to thank you for your leadership. [2:23] As you know, you'll be leaving Congress at the end of the year. [2:26] And I just have to say it's been a pleasure working with you and your staff, along with our staff. [2:31] So thank you again for the many years of experience. [2:35] I'd like to welcome the Secretary again. It was a pleasure talking to you yesterday and the Deputy Secretary, also, Mr. Edgar, also. [2:42] And we look forward for your testimony and the dialogue as we start here this morning. [2:48] You know, there's many issues that we want to talk about. [2:51] But before I get started, I'd like to take this time to acknowledge the bravery of a Border Patrol agent, Alex Medellin, [2:59] who, while he was off duty, he responded to a fatal plane crash in Laredo, Texas. [3:05] On June 16th, he joined first responders and good Samaritans to rescue people from the flames of an airplane that crashed there in Laredo. [3:17] I understand that his bravery is a reflection of the courage and the commitment of those that serve not only Laredo, but all across the nation. [3:26] But I just wanted to say thank you for that individual, that Border Patrol agent. [3:31] As I move forward, you know, we certainly want to look at hearings that we've had in the past. [3:38] And I think it's, we know the work that Homeland does. [3:41] It's critical to the national economic security, safeguarding physical and technological infrastructure and networks, [3:51] encouraging and making sure that we counter the foreign threats. [3:54] And again, I appreciate all the work and we understand the way threats have been evolving [4:00] and the way this committee has been working with their department. [4:06] Let me start off with the $260 billion from reconciliation. [4:11] Despite the efforts of the chairman, myself, we try to finalize the funding for all of DHS in fiscal year 2026. [4:20] We tried, didn't get to that, but we do know that there was a reconciliation that added $260 billion to the department. [4:32] I'm a big supporter of the department, but I'm big supporter of Article 1 of the Constitution. [4:39] And that $260 billion is four, it's more than four times that Congress usually allocates to the department in one fiscal year, [4:50] including, not including the disaster relief fund. [4:54] This fund's never, were never considered by the members of this subcommittee, [4:59] nor did the reconsideration include a single safeguard to keep the funding accountable to the taxpayer. [5:07] That should concern every member of this appropriations panel. [5:12] The power of the purse and the duty of oversight are inseparable, [5:17] not because Congress is entitled to this authority, [5:20] but because the American people deserve accountability. [5:25] We attempted during the markup to add additional oversight [5:29] to the reconciliation through various amendments, [5:33] but we were not able to do that. [5:37] We did have a few of those amendments that were put in the chairman's mark, [5:43] and I certainly want to thank the chairman for adding some of that. [5:47] A lot of the language that we were trying to add had been there for many, many, many years, [5:56] but were lost when the Border Patrol and the ICE removal, were removed from the F-526. [6:03] And I'm a big supporter of ICE, of Border Patrol, but I want to see those safeguards. [6:10] And they've been common sense measures like reporting deaths in federal custodies, [6:15] minimum standards for detention contracts, partnership agreements, [6:19] and certainly protections, as we talked yesterday about the Riverland in my district. [6:28] I do want to say that I am thankful to the chairman, [6:32] because he did reserve some of that, some of those protections in the chairman's mark, [6:39] and I certainly want to say thank you for that. [6:42] I believe in strong border security, but it's got to be more than fiscal barriers, [6:48] especially to the border communities where we've had historical lows. [6:54] I think the numbers have gone down by 96%, and I congratulate all of y'all. [6:59] I did not support open borders, and I do not support open borders. [7:04] But again, we've got to have the right measures at the border. [7:07] And keep in mind, the numbers went down without a single foot of border wall being constructed, [7:13] without a single foot of border wall constructed. [7:16] In my opinion, it's something that I've advocated for many years. [7:20] You've got to have repercussions at the border. [7:22] You can't slap people on their hands and say, you know, come into, [7:26] bienvenidos a los Estados Unidos. [7:28] You've got to have repercussions at the border. [7:31] And then at the same time, you've got to work with our neighbors, Mexico and other countries. [7:36] And again, numbers went down. [7:38] I believe that your numbers are 96% without a single foot of border wall. [7:44] But again, we've got to look at what's important in technology, intelligence, well-trained personnel. [7:52] I think we have reached 21,000, almost 21,500 border patrol agents, which I support. [7:59] And I supported funding for our border patrol. [8:02] But we've got to include our communities when we talk about border securities. [8:08] The right policies matter. [8:11] And as I mentioned, repercussions at the border for anybody that enters the border. [8:17] The United States illegally, we've got to have those repercussions. [8:22] The reality is the $260 billion that we added, it's going to run out. [8:28] It's going to run out in three years. [8:29] And when we talk about hiring, you know, the 21,500 border patrol agents. [8:37] And as you know, the reconciliation added 3,000 agents to this. [8:44] But at the end of this, we've got to annualize their salaries. [8:48] So again, we've got a lot of issues that we certainly want to look at. [8:52] And I look forward to asking some of the questions to Mr. Secretary. [8:56] It's always a pleasure seeing you again. [8:58] And the assistant secretary, look forward to working with both of y'all. [9:02] With that, I yield back the balance of my time. [9:06] Thank you. [9:07] Thank you, Mr. Cuellar. [9:09] So I'm going to go to you now for questions. [9:11] Shall I deduct a minute 44 from your questioning? [9:14] No, sir. [9:14] You should add an additional minute and a half. [9:17] Thank you for your advice. [9:20] I want to let the committee members know that we had a couple of ways to go with this. [9:25] And so I thought it would be, especially with what's going on or not going on on the floor [9:31] or that we don't know for sure what's going on on the floor, [9:34] we're not going to do two rounds of questioning. [9:36] But, Mr. Guest, would you like to come grab your seat? [9:39] Or are you sitting by the door for reasons the rest of us should know about? [9:43] If there's a problem, we'd like to go too. [9:46] But anyhow, so we're going to do one round of eight minutes per person to allow you, [9:52] since it's been over a year, to allow everybody to have a good shot at having a discussion [9:57] with the secretary. [9:58] But that's it, one of eight. [10:00] And so, and I am going to attempt to be fairly disciplined about the eight minutes. [10:08] But with that said, we're going to turn right around. [10:16] Oh, yeah, that's right. [10:17] Mr. Secretary, would you like to do an opening statement? [10:20] Well, for the sake of time, and I think you're pushing pretty quick to get in and out, [10:25] I will do what you did and waive the opening statement. [10:28] I think the ranking member is going to ask me the questions that he talked about. [10:31] So I'd be happy to address all those. [10:34] I wrote them down here and discuss them. [10:36] And I can discuss them through the opening market, or opening, or if it's part of your [10:39] questions, I'll just defer to you when you ask the questions. [10:42] Because there's several of them here I want to address. [10:43] As you can see, the secretary's training as a member of the House of Representatives is [10:48] still strong in his ethos. [10:50] Well, I think it's part of the Senate that taught me best. [10:52] But I'm kidding. [10:52] Well, okay, those eight-minute questions. [10:56] I was going to refer to it, that's right. [10:58] So with that, we're going to start with questions. [11:00] I don't see Ms. DeLauro here yet for her opening statement. [11:03] So, Mr. Cuehra, the floor is yours for eight minutes for questions of the secretary. [11:07] Thank you, sir. [11:09] Again, on the oversight provisions that we've had, detention, all that that we had, look, [11:16] right now we know, look, next year there might be a different chairman here, and we are certainly [11:23] going to put it in the chairman's mark on this. [11:26] But you voted on this, I assume, when you were in the House and the Senate, because we've [11:31] had a lot of those provisions, you know, standards and detentions, the protections that we talked [11:38] about yesterday, you know, we added under what I call the Trump-1 administration, six protections, [11:45] SpaceX, the chapel, and all of those protections that we have down there in the valley. [11:53] They've been there since Trump-1. [11:54] We negotiated with, under the Trump-1, the secretary that was there in your place, and we added those [12:01] protections. [12:02] But then when the reconciliation came in, some folks were saying, well, you know, those dollars [12:06] are outside of Congress, so we're going to go ahead and do that. [12:10] In the chairman's mark, the way I understand it, we did put language there in the chairman's [12:15] mark saying that those areas will be protected. [12:20] Texas has 1,200 miles of border, and we just want those one mile here, one mile here, one [12:28] mile here, be protected, and I'm hoping you can work with us dealing with those reconciliation [12:34] dollars. [12:35] Thank you, ranking member. [12:38] The reconciliation dollars and appropriation dollars are, by statute, two separate funding. [12:44] It has two separate regulations. [12:45] Same thing with detention centers and reporting language. [12:51] We know the difference, and honestly, it's kind of a quagmire because we have to deal with [12:55] so many different statutorities. [12:57] It would be easy if we just had one and just move forward. [13:01] I would prefer that because it'd be an easier way for us to report, but bureaucracy gets [13:05] in its way. [13:06] We understand that. [13:08] The wall, my number one job is to protect the homeland, and I'm telling you, ranking [13:12] member, I love my job. [13:14] I love that President Trump gave me this opportunity. [13:17] I wake up every single day, and I get to protect my yard just like I protect your backyard, people [13:21] in California, people in New York, people in Oklahoma. [13:24] I look at it all the same. [13:25] It's part of homeland, and we strive every single day. [13:28] My deputy, Troy Edgar, who is truly invaluable to me, we talk on a daily basis on the best [13:37] way to deliver this. [13:38] Rodney Scott, the head of CBP, we're meeting almost daily on the wall. [13:44] Our thing that we're seeing with the wall is the cartels are always changing, and they're [13:48] a threat. [13:49] There's not one inch of Mexico's northern border that isn't covered by a plaza. [13:55] Plaza is cartels, nine cartels that control it, and they have plaza centers, they call [14:02] it plazas, that they have plaza bosses, and they're always looking for vulnerabilities [14:06] to push human trafficking and drug trafficking across our border, and they're getting very [14:11] good at it. [14:11] They're even using UAS now. [14:14] We just discovered our first tunnel in years because our wall is being effective. [14:18] We are pushing them into what we consider choke points. [14:22] So the more walls we put, the more we can focus on traffic areas. [14:27] And we take a hard look at this, and there's members on this committee that has called me [14:32] about it, and there's committee and other people throughout the House and the Senate that when [14:36] you call, I answer the phone. [14:38] If we've got to go out there and take a look at the specific areas, we will do that. [14:41] I've been on helos, traveling those borders. [14:43] We've been in vehicles, traveling those borders, to see where are the most sensitive areas. [14:48] Because we want to be cognitive of the surrounding areas, but we've also got to take in, first [14:53] and foremost, the safety of the homeland. [14:55] And those are always something that we take into consideration when we're looking for any [14:58] type of corridor. [14:59] Yes, sir. [15:00] And I'm with you. [15:02] I live there. [15:02] I don't just go visit the border. [15:04] Yes, sir. [15:04] And I would love to have you go down to Laredo. [15:08] And if you would allow me, we'll find a time to go visit. [15:13] And Mexican food is pretty good down there. [15:15] I agree. [15:16] But I just found out that queso is maybe like an Oklahoma thing, white queso. [15:20] Hey, we'll take any import from that. [15:24] But I'd love to have you down there. [15:27] If you make the time, and we'll invite the chairman down there. [15:30] Sir, I'll do it. [15:31] We can do it as a committee with the chair, however we want to do it. [15:34] I'll absolutely do that. [15:34] Yeah. [15:35] And let me just talk about a couple of things on the border. [15:39] And again, I'm with you on security on the border. [15:42] Problem is the river goes this way. [15:45] This is a border wall. [15:46] What happens is imagine if you were in Oklahoma, had property here, and they would take all [15:52] this away. [15:53] The middle of the river is actually the boundary. [15:58] We're not going to put a fence in the middle of the river. [16:02] We're not going to put it at the riverbanks because they will get washed off. [16:05] The thing is, this is where they put the actual fence at. [16:13] If you look at it, and I've taken planes just following down here with Michael McCall, this [16:20] is the way the river is. [16:21] And when you put a fence over here, you're just taking things away from property that's [16:28] been there. [16:29] Laredo, for example, was built in 1755, a little older than our country. [16:37] And all we want is go down there. [16:40] Let's look at the best way to provide security down there. [16:45] And that's all we're asking when you go down there is just sit down with the folks there. [16:51] You know, we're patriots down there. [16:56] You know, we've been around for a long time. [16:58] We live there. [16:59] We just want you to come down and sit and spend a little bit of time with us there. [17:03] Ranking Member, actually, the deputy just got back from there yesterday. [17:06] He spent a day and a half down there. [17:08] The issue that we run into is the people look at the river as being the exact location of [17:15] the border. [17:15] It's not. [17:16] The river has moved. [17:17] And when we're talking about putting a barrier, we fought this in Trump 45 when we first started [17:23] looking at surveying this. [17:25] And do we and the question was, is do we follow what we consider the natural barrier is the [17:29] river or what actually the lines were when we draw them, you know, back 200 years ago? [17:37] It was because of some of the court rulings. [17:39] It came to that we we have to look at where our actual border is. [17:45] And that goes back to the Roosevelt line. [17:47] So when we start looking at the Roosevelt line is where we try to put it at. [17:52] And there's some circumstances where we can't always run the Roosevelt line. [17:55] But where we can, we do. [17:58] But that's where we try to run is our true border line. [18:02] Right. [18:03] And we have fences down there in the valley with the exceptions of those six exemptions [18:09] that I talked about. [18:10] These are numbers from Border Patrol. [18:13] Even with the fences, look at the heat maps. [18:16] You still have people addressing. [18:20] And if you ask any Border Patrol chief, I haven't asked this Border Patrol, but I've asked Border [18:24] Patrol chiefs from from Bush one all the way up to to to except for this current one. [18:34] And I've asked them, how long does a border fence slow down somebody? [18:39] And they have always said from from a few seconds or a few minutes. [18:45] So again, I'm for border security. [18:47] I got about 20 seconds left because I will make sure we follow this. [18:51] But look, we can talk about it. [18:54] I'm for border security. [18:56] You're for borders. [18:57] All I ask you is to go down there. [18:58] I understand Tom Holman was down there also in Laredo, appreciate notifications before [19:04] instead of hearing that from my mayor and other folks. [19:06] But I ask you to go down there and spend a little bit of time with our community. [19:11] We will do that. [19:12] And we are addressing the primary wall. [19:13] That's what we're putting in the wall system now, which is called the secondary wall, too, [19:17] because the cartels have been exposing it. [19:19] We're putting in smart fences, which allows us to respond when they're tampering with the [19:22] wall. [19:23] The second wall, which is a primary wall, which will still be within our footprint. [19:26] We are constructing it sometimes at the same time, partly we're going to have to come back [19:30] and do it. [19:31] But we'll all have it done before President Trump is out of office. [19:34] We'll have the complete primary and secondary wall done. [19:37] And that gives us time when they cut the fence. [19:39] We can react because they're doing it in very rural areas. [19:42] We can react before they can get past the secondary wall. [19:45] And we know how many we're dealing with. [19:46] Plus, we're using UAS now to put up with heat sensors to be able to track them and see [19:49] what we're dealing with. [19:50] So you're absolutely correct. [19:52] The cartels have got really good. [19:54] But that's what they do. [19:55] They're criminals. [19:56] And every time you do something, they try to figure out a way to get around it. [19:59] And we're going to defeat them at every turn. [20:02] My time is up. [20:04] Thank you. [20:05] By the way, according to FBI statistics, Laredo is the safest city in Texas. [20:10] Thank you. [20:11] Look forward to seeing you in Laredo. [20:15] Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member. [20:16] Next, we're going to go to the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Rutherford. [20:20] The floor is yours for eight minutes. [20:21] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [20:24] Mr. Secretary, it's great to see you, particularly in this position as a former law enforcement officer [20:30] myself. [20:32] It's great to have somebody in there that understands law and order. [20:36] We wouldn't need the wall, like you said, if every administration would enforce the current [20:43] law as it is. [20:45] But they won't. [20:46] And so we need this wall. [20:49] The first one is an impediment. [20:51] The second one gives you time to get there. [20:54] And great plan. [20:57] I want to speak a little bit about organized retail crime and cargo theft because they are [21:04] no longer isolated property crimes. [21:08] They are sophisticated, they are interstate, and they are often transnational criminal enterprises [21:16] that threaten the integrity of the U.S. supply chain. [21:18] They impose higher costs on consumers and generate illicit proceeds to support these cartels who [21:26] are running these things and other criminal enterprises. [21:29] I would also mention that these are the non-domicile CDL drivers that are killing our American public [21:37] out on our roadways because they don't know how to drive. [21:42] Last month, the House overwhelmingly passed the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, CORCA. [21:51] This committee also passed the FY27 Homeland Security Appropriations Bill, which we included [21:58] language in that bill for the $4 million to establish the organized retail and supply chain [22:05] crime center that would be created through CORCA. [22:08] So we're funding it in advance, hoping that, you know, the Senate will do the right thing. [22:15] We have to start fighting these cartels who are absolutely taking over our trucking industry. [22:21] First, I'd like to know, would you agree that combating cargo theft and this organized crime [22:31] is imperative to our national security? [22:34] And from a Homeland Security perspective, how important is it that Congress provides DHS with [22:40] the tools and statutory direction that CORCA gives to treat organized retail crime and supply [22:47] chain crime truly as a national security threat? [22:53] Thank you, Sheriff, or Congressman, for the – I called you Sheriff for the law. [22:57] Sheriff, please. [22:58] Yes, okay. [22:59] Sheriff, thank you for that question. [23:01] It is something that we're seeing organized crime expanding into. [23:05] Unfortunately, underneath the Biden administration, they had four years to build a network because [23:09] there was just no enforcement on this. [23:12] The Trump administration has had a zero policy, and we're kicking all the networks. [23:16] We're going from the cities on down to the borders. [23:19] That's part of the president's enforcement and going by city by city because they do have [23:24] networks there. [23:25] And what we're seeing is cartels and other organizations that are – because of the drugs [23:32] that we are having a strong effect on, because of the human trafficking that we have taken [23:37] away from the borders from the middle to traffic humans and across, they're moving towards – more [23:43] towards the retail theft. [23:46] There's been a kind of hands-off policy. [23:48] We're seeing this really bad in sanctuary cities. [23:51] We're seeing as CDLs, drivers, that they're not required to have the same amount of training [23:57] or hours in a truck or months or years of service. [24:01] They can just simply switch their DOT number out and move right on. [24:06] And we're seeing that they're directly tied to it. [24:08] And we're seeing CDLs come out where it just simply says no name. [24:11] Oklahoma, I would say we're one of the strongest to enforce this. [24:15] But the more cooperation we have with the 287G program, we can combat this. [24:20] Because ICE, even though people consider them just rounding up illegals, ICE is Immigration [24:25] Custom Enforcement. [24:26] HSI, who falls underneath ICE, is also part of that. [24:29] They combat human trafficking, retail theft all the time. [24:33] For Congress to convey their interest in this, we have the authorities already to do it. [24:38] But to convey it helps us get more cooperation from sanctuary states and sanctuary cities saying [24:44] that this is different. [24:45] Because when you have these sanctuary governors and sanctuary mayors that go out and say you [24:50] cannot cooperate at all with ICE. [24:53] What they're doing is at the same time saying you can't cooperate not just with immigration, [24:56] but with other investigations that ICE does which is much more than that. [25:00] And so it really handcuffs us from being able to do it. [25:03] So what we're doing is we're hitting all the red states. [25:06] We're hitting the blue states that will cooperate with us. [25:07] But we're just pushing them then into these high sanctuary cities, which is why you're seeing [25:12] retail leave on a constant basis, which is not good for the economy. [25:15] It's not good for anybody to do that. [25:17] So the more you guys can help us and convey your interest, especially this should be a [25:22] bipartisan issue. [25:23] This would be something that no one is looking at this as a blue or red issue. [25:27] This is across the state because when we lose a pharmacy or you lose a grocery store or you [25:33] lose a mom and pop shop or you lose a jewelry store because they're getting robbed to death [25:37] literally and no one's enforcing it, that's not good for anybody. [25:40] That affects all of your all's constituents. [25:42] I almost said all of ours, but I guess they're all your guys' constituents now. [25:45] And we just simply want to enforce laws. [25:48] What we don't do at DHS is pick and choose which law to enforce. [25:52] We enforce the laws that Congress passed. [25:55] Right. [25:55] And I think it's important that DHS and DOT, that we come together on this because part of [26:03] the enforcement, I can tell you if you want to end this, let's start seizing some of those [26:08] trucks instead of giving the, you know, passing the cargo on and when we stop these drivers [26:15] who are violating cabotage, let's start some seizures and forfeitures on these vehicles [26:21] and that'll stop. [26:22] We actually have that authority through the 287G program. [26:25] And when I go back to Oklahoma, Oklahoma, even though we have 4.3 million people in the [26:29] state, we have more arrests and are at the 287G program and we've revoked and confiscated [26:34] more illegal CDL drivers than any other state. [26:38] The only one that has more arrests is Florida. [26:39] Their population is quite different. [26:41] Oklahoma has stopped, revoked license and arrested and confiscated vehicles more than [26:48] any other state because we have complete cooperation with the 287G program. [26:53] You know, I'm glad you brought up 287G because that leads right into my next issue because [26:58] when I was sheriff, I started the 287G program within my jail. [27:04] I didn't know it was that old. [27:05] Oh, yeah. [27:06] I'm kidding, sir. [27:07] Thank you. [27:09] But here's the thing. [27:11] We've made significant investments in the program and I want to say thank you. [27:16] You all have done so much in expanding the 287G program across the country. [27:25] I think there's now over 2,000 state and local agencies involved in the program. [27:31] That's phenomenal. [27:32] So can you talk a little bit about that and how important that is? [27:38] I can tell you that the former ICE chief who retired told me in the hearing it's the best [27:44] thing since sliced bread and we can't get these darn sanctuary cities and states to participate [27:52] in this program. [27:54] And I like your idea, Mr. Secretary. [27:56] We need to find a way to hold them accountable. [27:58] Yeah, so the 287G has been super successful for us. [28:03] One of the things that I want to kind of tie back to because, again, that's allowing us [28:07] to have the partnerships with all the sheriff organizations. [28:09] The secretary has been very focused on recovering UACs. [28:13] Children that made it across the border with 450,000. [28:17] Through the secretary's leadership and working with the White House, we've been able to use [28:21] the 287G program. [28:22] We've been using Big Beautiful Bill money to actually work and fund that, basically helping [28:27] the sheriff's department and going out and working with us to help us locate these kids. [28:32] We've located over about, what is it, 180? [28:36] Yeah. [28:36] $147,000. [28:37] $147,000. [28:38] And, again, it really thanks to you guys funding the Big Beautiful Bill, being able to give us [28:44] the money, and really with the partnerships with the sheriffs, this also helps build your [28:47] local communities. [28:48] This money goes directly to them. [28:50] It helps them build up their facilities, their capital, their cars, all of that stuff. [28:54] So, thank you. [28:55] Thank you very much. [28:56] And, Mr. Chairman, I see my time is up, and I yield back. [29:01] Thank you to the gentleman from Florida. [29:04] You are now tied with the gentleman from Laredo for best timekeeping skills. [29:10] It is my understanding that the distinguished ranking member of the full committee wants [29:15] unanimous consent to enter her opening statement in the record. [29:19] So, if that's true, without objection, so ordered, and the floor is yours for eight minutes [29:23] for questioning. [29:24] Okay. [29:25] Well, I was just going to say, because I was late and my colleagues have been sitting here, [29:29] as I would, I do want to put my statement in the record, but let me just have my colleagues [29:34] go first, and then I'll come back. [29:36] Okay? [29:37] Thank you. [29:37] Thanks, Mr. Chairman. [29:38] Yes, ma'am. [29:39] Your statement will be entered in the record, and we now recognize the gentlelady from Illinois [29:42] for eight minutes for her questions. [29:45] Secretary Mullen, I want to discuss FEMA's denial disaster assistance for families in Illinois. [29:50] You and I both come from communities that deal with tornadoes. [29:53] Just last week, northern Illinois was under a tornado watch as severe storms swept through [29:56] the region, downing trees, disrupting flights in and out of Chicago, and leaving thousands [30:02] without power. [30:02] And between August 16th and 19th of last year, severe thunderstorms, extreme rainfall, flooding [30:09] and damaging winds impacted communities across northern Illinois. [30:12] Homes were damaged, roads were flooded, power lines were down, and families suffered significant [30:16] losses. [30:17] Illinois requested a major disaster declaration that included individual assistance, which [30:22] helps affected families pay for home repairs, property losses, child care, temporary housing, [30:27] moving assistance, moving expenses, and recovery costs. [30:31] FEMA denied Illinois' request in October. [30:34] Illinois appealed in November. [30:37] Then on February 7th, 2026, FEMA denied the appeal and reaffirmed its decision. [30:42] Unfortunately, Illinois is not alone. [30:45] Since President Trump took office, the number of disaster declarations approved has been 30% [30:49] lower than the historical average. [30:51] And there's reason to be concerned that they're being politicized. [30:54] An analysis from March of this year found that FEMA approved just 23% of disaster requests [30:59] from Democratic-led states, compared to 89% from Republican-led states. [31:04] Don't get me wrong. [31:06] Concerns about FEMA's response are coming from both sides of the aisle, including from your [31:11] former Republican colleagues in the Senate. [31:14] This should not be a partisan issue. [31:17] Americans expect timely disaster assistance decisions that follow the law and not politics. [31:22] What makes this even harder to understand is that Republicans have provided DHS with tens [31:26] of billions of dollars through reconciliation funding twice on top of annual appropriations. [31:32] Your department has repeatedly stated that this funding could support operations for years, [31:37] yet families in my district were told there was no assistance or funds available to help them recover. [31:43] On top of that, this committee does not have a comprehensive spend plan explaining how these funds are being used, [31:50] despite my repeated requests over the last several months. [31:53] Secretary Mullen, will you commit to a member-level meeting with my colleagues and I [31:57] to discuss why Illinois' disaster declaration was denied and to see how we can support my constituents? [32:03] Ma'am, we haven't denied anybody a meeting with us. [32:06] If you reach out, we'll meet with you. [32:09] Just as long as you – I mean, and we'll do it in a timely fashion. [32:12] Maybe not the next day, but we'll get to it as soon as possible. [32:14] But I do want to address, if you don't mind, what you talked about here on politicizing it because I don't – [32:20] I actually don't want to talk about politicizing it. [32:22] I want to meet with you to discuss this and that. [32:25] But I mean, you made some accusations here about President Trump that's actually not accurate because – [32:29] Mr. Chairman. [32:30] If you're going to make accusations, though, you have to let us respond back to this. [32:34] Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman. [32:36] Okay, so you're lying about it then. [32:37] Mr. Chairman. [32:39] Because you don't want to hear the truth. [32:40] Mr. Chairman. [32:40] This week, President Trump's nominee – [32:42] Mr. Secretary, the record will reflect that you have agreed to meet with the lady and her folks. [32:47] And since I'm trying to keep people in eight minutes, please proceed. [32:51] Thank you. [32:52] This week, President Trump's nominee to head FEMA, Cameron Hamilton, [32:56] appeared before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee [32:59] and pledged that FEMA would be fair and reasonable when evaluating requests for disaster aid. [33:05] Secretary Mullen, will you make the same commitment as Mr. Hamilton [33:09] to evaluate disaster requests fairly reasonably and without regard to politics? [33:14] Yes or no? [33:14] It's interesting that you won't allow me to answer those questions. [33:16] I can explain it to you because I don't look at states different between blue or red. [33:20] I look at them across the country as a whole. [33:23] Thank you. [33:23] And if you actually want to know what we're doing, I'll be happy to so you're not worried about this. [33:27] I don't look at this any different, ma'am, and I'm not here to argue with you. [33:31] I'm not here to fight with you. [33:32] I like facts. [33:33] Great. [33:34] Accusations doesn't help anybody. [33:36] I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman. [33:36] The more you're informed, the better you know because you're saying some stuff that's not true. [33:40] And I hope that Illinois receives the same fair consideration as any other state. [33:45] Now, I'd also like to address another deeply concerning matter, detainees who died while in your custody. [33:50] Secretary Mullen, since Donald Trump took office, DHS's immigration detention system has been plagued by medical neglect, [33:57] abuse, overcrowding, and a historically high death rate. [34:00] I saw these dangerous conditions with my own eyes when I visited the Miami Correctional Facility in Bunker Hill, Indiana, [34:06] where I met with individuals who told me that it takes months to receive medication refills, [34:11] including for life-threatening illnesses like diabetes. [34:14] Others reported being left unattended with infected boils and other serious conditions. [34:19] So it's no surprise that a detainee at that facility died shortly after my visit, [34:23] or that more detainees died in ICE custody in 2025 than ever before. [34:29] Secretary Mullen, does DHS have any official specific internal goals or policies to reduce deaths in custody? [34:36] Ma'am, your numbers just aren't accurate. [34:38] We've had 0.009 percent. [34:41] I didn't ask. [34:41] Mr. Secretary, I didn't ask. [34:42] You're asking about this. [34:43] It's 0.009 percent of deaths. [34:45] And we've had 54 total in the President's time. [34:50] Those are dangerous accusations you're making. [34:52] Mr. Secretary. [34:53] Those are dangerous accusations that she's making. [34:55] Because in the state of Illinois, they're twice as high to die in the state penitentiary in Illinois than they are in detention centers. [35:01] You are invited to this committee. [35:02] This is my time. [35:03] And you need to be informed by what you're saying. [35:05] I am informed. [35:05] No, you're not, ma'am. [35:06] Mr. Secretary, does DHS have any official specific internal goals or policies? [35:09] Do you realize that we have one doctor per 1,000 for detention centers and for our federal detention centers and the state of Illinois, they have one per 1,800, but yet she wants to focus on our detention centers? [35:21] I understand that. [35:21] You'll get your time. [35:22] Thank you. [35:22] You're welcome. [35:24] So I guess this is a good place to stop. [35:27] We are trying to keep members to eight minutes. [35:29] Mr. Secretary, you know that, too. [35:31] That's fine. [35:32] So we all know how the clock runs here. [35:34] The idea is to get together to forward questions. [35:38] And I'm going to have you repeat your question when we start up again. [35:41] Thank you. [35:41] But I can tell you this. [35:43] If this format won't work, then we'll reschedule the meeting for later when we can keep it to all the issues accordingly. [35:54] So this is the efficient way to do it. [35:57] But if we can't do it the efficient way, then we'll go to plan B, which will not be today. [36:03] And I don't mean that as a threat to anybody. [36:05] I'm just saying this is not Meet the Press or Fox News or whatever for anybody involved. [36:12] It's what's the question? [36:14] What's the answer? [36:15] Mr. Secretary, if you need more time to respond to that, the committee will make any of your comments part of the record. [36:21] And we will endeavor to make sure that you get to meet with whoever wants more time. [36:25] But while we've got the whole committee sitting here, we're not going to do the XYZ debate, whatever the heck. [36:33] So, ma'am, please repeat your question. [36:37] And as near as I can figure, you've got about four minutes left. [36:41] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [36:42] You're welcome. [36:43] Secretary Mullen, does DHS have any specific internal document, policies, or goals to reduce deaths in custody? [36:51] And we do a wonderful job on providing medical to – [36:55] That's a personal question, sir. [36:56] We're doing a wonderful job at it. [36:57] Is it your testimony that you do not know whether the department that you lead – [37:02] Which is a lot better than the state of Illinois. [37:03] Is it your testimony that you do not know whether or not the department that you lead has a policy to reduce deaths in custody? [37:09] No, I did not say that, ma'am. [37:11] You didn't answer my question. [37:13] Yes, I did. [37:14] You're making accusations and you're not even looking at your own state. [37:17] You have no policy or plan to reduce deaths in custody. [37:19] That's not true. [37:20] Now, two months ago, I asked – [37:22] Our medical staff does a phenomenal job. [37:24] In fact, every detainee sees a doctor or a nurse with every two weeks. [37:30] I reclaim my time. [37:31] Can I ask your next question? [37:33] Okay. [37:34] Two months ago, I asked ICE Director Todd Lyons the same question. [37:38] He said that ICE, quote, hopes that there will be no deaths in custody, [37:42] but admitted that the agency had no actual policy in place to prevent them. [37:46] Rather than implement one, he resigned just a few hours later. [37:49] Secretary, since that hearing, three more people have died in ICE's custody, [37:54] and those are the only deaths that we know about based on your agency's public reporting. [37:59] So, Mr. Chairman, I would like to request unanimous consent to enter into the record a report that came out today [38:05] from Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights titled [38:08] Dying in Detention, Rising Deaths in an Expanding U.S. Immigration Detention System. [38:15] Drawing on – I'm sorry. [38:16] Without objection, so ordered. [38:17] Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. [38:18] Drawing on government records, detention data, and expert medical reviews, [38:23] this report outlines 52 deaths in ICE custody during President Trump's second term [38:28] and highlights the concerns we've been raising to your department [38:30] regarding the lack of access to medical care, suicide prevention, transparency, [38:35] and accountability in detention facilities. [38:37] Secretary Mullen, ICE's detainee death reporting has not been updated since April 28th of 2026. [38:43] The death rate in ICE custody has doubled during President Trump's second term. [38:47] Will you commit to reporting detainee deaths as required by law? [38:51] We do report them, ma'am. [38:54] No one – I don't know. [38:55] So, is it your testimony then that there is no – [38:56] We report these. [38:57] What you're talking about is what Congress has asked us to do, which we're not required to do, [39:03] is report the deaths after they're released. [39:06] That doesn't make any sense. [39:07] They're not under our watch at that point. [39:09] If they die in our release, we report them. [39:11] Is it your testimony that there have been no deaths since April 28th? [39:14] I didn't say that. [39:16] Okay. [39:17] So, are you going to commit to complying with the required reporting requirements? [39:21] And we were shut down for 115 days in our new department. [39:25] So, I don't know what you – we just now reopened. [39:28] So, I don't know what reports you're wanting us to do when you're willing to fund us. [39:31] You want the reports, but you don't want to fund us? [39:33] That makes no sense. [39:33] He's been here and has been taking up my time. [39:36] What's your next question? [39:37] My next comment is that the ICE director – [39:40] No, there's no questions. [39:41] It's just comments. [39:41] No, I had a question. [39:42] He didn't answer my question. [39:44] And so – [39:44] So, the record will reflect that. [39:45] What's your next question? [39:47] Yes, sir. [39:47] There is a policy of reviewing and publicly reporting deaths that occur within 30 days of a detainee's release from custody. [39:54] And that policy existed to prevent ICE from avoiding accountability by releasing seriously ill people shortly before they die. [40:03] And as a nurse, I find this deeply troubling change in their reporting posture. [40:09] Families deserve answers. [40:10] And Congress should be able to conduct oversight. [40:12] And the American people should have confidence that deaths connected to federal detention are not being hidden through administrative loopholes or filibustering. [40:21] Transparency is not optional. [40:22] There are laws and reporting requirements. [40:24] And if this administration is unwilling to account for what happens to people in its custody, then it's Congress's role to question whether it deserves more authority, more detention capacity, or any additional sent from the American people. [40:39] Mr. Chairman, thank you for letting me finish my comments. [40:42] And now you'll back. [40:43] Thank you. [40:44] You have been much more timely than a couple of your predecessors on either side of the aisle, and I appreciate that. [40:53] Mr. Shreve, you were here first. [40:58] Are you having a good time so far? [40:59] The floor is yours for eight minutes for questioning. [41:03] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [41:05] Chairman, I have been interested by the chippy discussion this morning, and the subject is important. [41:13] I appreciate this opportunity to put some questions to our secretary. [41:19] Mr. Secretary, thank you for being with us. [41:21] Saw you in Indianapolis not too terribly long ago when you came in with Senator Young. [41:26] So congratulations on the new work. [41:28] I want to use my time to focus on some practical issues that matter to my home state. [41:35] The subjects are roadway safety, trade processing, and counter drone readiness. [41:42] And so if I could start with roadway safety, Sheriff Rutherford spoke in this lane to some degree, [41:49] but Indiana, like Texas and other states, specifically suffered two crashes recently involving individuals that were unlawfully present in the U.S., [42:01] operating commercial vehicles. [42:03] Five Hoosiers were killed. [42:05] These tragedies expose a weakness in our federal verification system. [42:10] In both cases, the drivers were able to obtain or to maintain CDL's commercial driving privileges [42:19] because the DHS SAVE system did not accurately reflect their immigration status. [42:26] That's why I introduced the VERIFY Act. [42:28] The purpose is pretty straightforward. [42:31] It modernizes SAVE to make sure states have accurate, timely immigration information before issuing or renewing licenses [42:40] to people that can plow an 80,000-pound rig up and down our highways. [42:45] Hoosier families, like families across our country, deserve confidence [42:49] that this federal system is working, that the information is timely, [42:53] and that ineligible drivers are not allowed to get behind the wheel of these big rigs. [42:58] Mr. Secretary, how will the VERIFY Act help ensure that states can quickly identify, [43:05] timely identify illegal aliens before licenses are issued or renewed? [43:09] And if I may append to that, what additional steps is DHS taking to ensure that CDL's meet all federal requirements [43:20] that are already in place, sir? [43:22] Well, Congressman, we work closely with Secretary Duffy with the Department of Transportation to do this. [43:29] That obviously falls underneath his committee, but we do find him on the road when we're enforcing 287G, [43:36] and when we do, we report it to him. [43:37] So when we're doing road enforcement, we work hand-in-hand with the Department of Transportation. [43:42] When it actually comes to the licensees being sent out, we can investigate them if they're being done illegally. [43:49] The standards that is set for federal, not state CDLs, but federal, [43:54] so if you're crossing state lines, they're interstate versus intrastate. [43:58] When that happens, we are constantly in communication with other agencies as well. [44:04] So some of this stuff, especially if it's negligent, we can work closely with the FBI if we feel like it's organized crime, [44:10] to which the sheriff referred to a while ago. [44:12] When we're talking about unlawful CDLs that are issued for international or for intrastate, not just interstate, [44:21] then we also work closely with the Department of Transportation. [44:24] We go after the illegals that shouldn't ever have the documentations to begin with. [44:27] So when we find the documentations, we work with that. [44:29] And, Congressman, can I ask you to do me a favor and let me respond to Ms. Underwood since she wouldn't [44:35] so I can point out some of the hypocrisy between the federal detention centers, [44:39] but yet most Democrats don't pay attention to their own correctional facilities [44:42] because we see this quite common in our state. [44:44] So just some facts here. [44:45] Illinois has failed in 29 of their facilities to have adequate medical or dental care. [44:52] That's from their own state health inspectors. [44:54] Illinois employs 16 full-time physicians for 29 facilities across the state. [45:01] We're one for one. [45:02] Every detention center has a doctor put on staff. [45:06] Illinois has a quarter of their facilities that don't even have a medical director. [45:10] 60% of their nursing positions are vacant right now. [45:15] By the way, this isn't the state of Illinois. [45:18] Illinois, they have one doctor per 1,875 detainees. [45:25] We have one per 1,000. [45:28] Plus, we have nurse anesthetists that offset much of it. [45:32] Illinois' state correctional facility doesn't. [45:35] So I would suggest that maybe our Democrats should look at their own backyard [45:39] and look at their actual constituent base. [45:42] We have people in our detention centers that enter this country illegally [45:45] and we're trying to get them off our streets because one death at the hand of an illegal [45:50] is 100% preventable. [45:52] And they shouldn't be in this country if they didn't come here legally. [45:55] All right. [45:56] Well, I was glad to offer you that time to respond to my colleague from Illinois [46:02] and then back to Indiana. [46:04] Very good. [46:05] You have three minutes on the Indiana project. [46:08] Thank you, sir. [46:09] Mr. Secretary, Indianapolis is not only my home, but it's home to the second largest FedEx air hub. [46:19] And the subject of foreign trade zones matters much to distribution-based economies [46:25] such as that which we have in Indiana, the crossroads of America. [46:30] Businesses in and around my district depend on the functioning of these foreign trade zones. [46:36] They offer not just logistical convenience for Hoosier manufacturers and employers. [46:41] They mean savings through duty restrictions, lower processing fees, reduced costs, [46:46] helping companies compete. [46:47] And we compete globally doing value-added work here in the U.S. [46:52] The foreign trade zone application process is handled by CBP, [46:57] and there have been significant delays, in some cases six months to 12 months, in those applications. [47:03] I know CBP is operating under resource constraints, and I appreciate the work our officers are doing [47:10] under difficult circumstances. [47:11] The fiscal year 27 house mark includes important investments in CBP that may enable modernization [47:25] in the automated commercial environment improvements. [47:30] What resources could CBP benefit from to ensure that companies in Indiana and beyond can take full advantage [47:38] of these foreign trade zone programs quickly and efficiently? [47:42] Consistent funding is the most important thing we can have, which is what Reconciliation 2.0 does. [47:48] It gives us three years of full funding, so we can't allow some of the radical that serves in our chambers [47:53] to play games with our custom border protection. [47:58] When we talk about having funding that's been shut down four times over the last physical year, [48:04] the last time was 115 days, it makes it very difficult for us to deploy new technology, more techniques, [48:09] and it's very hard to hire when you're shut down and no one's getting paid. [48:14] It's very, very difficult. [48:14] Having consistent funding, we have the men and women inside all DHS, but especially through CBP, [48:21] that can do their job, and they're experts at it. [48:24] We have new technology that we're constantly wanting to deploy. [48:27] I will say because of the Republicans in both chambers passing Reconciliation 2.0, [48:35] which is President Trump's initiative, we're going to be able to have new technology [48:39] to keep these trade zones operating and keep our economy moving forward, [48:42] which right now, because of President Trump, he constantly says it. [48:45] We were a dead country, now we're a thriving country. [48:48] We're the hottest country in the world because people want to do business inside the United States, [48:54] and we need to be effective and efficient on bringing products in and out of this country. [48:58] I appreciate the Secretary's commitment. [49:01] Much of this shouldn't be ideological. [49:02] We've just got to take care of the customer. [49:05] It creates jobs, that's right. [49:07] Mr. Secretary, I appreciate your testimony in the time today. [49:10] Mr. Chairman, I yield back. [49:11] To my colleague from the Hoosier State, thank you for winning the Timekeeper Award for today, [49:19] and your first place position is probably pretty strong, I'm just guessing. [49:23] To the gentleman from Hawaii whose name is not King but Case, Mr. Case, the floor is yours. [49:29] Thank you so much, Mr. Cuellar. I appreciate that. [49:34] I see that your time has expired. [49:41] Mr. Secretary, I want to return to a point that Mr. Cuellar for real made in his opening statement, [49:47] which comes down to this basic point. [49:50] We've thrown a heck of a lot of money at Homeland Security in the last few years. [49:55] We started with a base budget for Homeland Security of $62 billion in FY 2025. [50:00] Of course, for FY 2026, we had the exclusion of ICE and CBP at $48 billion, [50:11] back to $65 billion in FY27 as passed out by this committee over the objections of all Democrats. [50:19] But most directly, $191 billion in reconciliation in FY25 and another 70 in FY26 for a total of $261 billion. [50:33] Now, granted, that spread out over a number of years. [50:36] But the committee's concern, and I think this goes to all members of the committee, [50:40] is really a failure to itemize where that reconciliation money is actually going. [50:46] It's been very, very slow in all departments for us to get information on the reconciliation money. [50:52] And so I'm just wanting to understand what information the department has provided to the committee, [51:00] committees of jurisdiction, both funding and authorization, [51:04] on your actual utilization of the reconciliation monies. [51:08] And, you know, I ask that in the two tranches. [51:11] First of all, the $191 billion. [51:14] Do we have the information from you we need now to know where you're spending that money? [51:18] And then the $70 billion as well, which is more recent, granted. [51:21] But we still need that information to make budget decisions. [51:25] Congressman, thank you for the question. [51:27] And I just got to say, honestly, you guys have a beautiful state. [51:30] I hate what you guys have been through since I've been in office. [51:33] You guys have had $2 trillion gallons of water dumped on your beautiful state. [51:38] Earthquakes and volcanoes. [51:39] Governor Green and I have worked very closely together. [51:41] I seriously think I talk to him more than I do my own governor of the state of Oklahoma. [51:46] There's not a week that goes by we're not visiting. [51:48] We've done pretty good about getting you funding there. [51:51] So it's interesting because through reconciliation we're required by statute on what we report and what we don't report. [52:00] Because we had to go through reconciliation to get funded, and it shouldn't have been that way. [52:05] I would have loved to have done it through regular order because we had some substantive changes that was in the first bill that we brought up. [52:11] But because we started playing politics with it, and I'm sure that wasn't you, but there was politics that was played with it. [52:15] Because there's no issues for not funding ICE and CBP. [52:18] There's reconciliation issues on the statute side of it. [52:23] But we are trying to be as transparent with all the dollars that we spend. [52:27] There's nothing that we don't want to share. [52:30] We have nothing to hide. [52:31] I tell all of our employees, we do stuff here. [52:33] I don't do anything under the table. [52:34] I understand that we were way behind on reporting from the previous secretary. [52:41] We're trying to catch up on all the letters that was sent. [52:44] We're trying to catch up on all the requests that was sent and some of the stuff that we're behind. [52:48] We're not there yet, but I can tell you I'll let the deputy talk about this. [52:53] His office and the undersecretary's office, once it gets filled, works on this nonstop. [52:58] So the short answer is, especially for the $191 billion, we have all the detail that's required. [53:06] I did see letters coming through from this committee asking for this information. [53:10] Of the $191, it's approximately $124 billion that we've actually apportioned, worked with OMB going through. [53:18] And we've committed or obligated about $66 billion at this point. [53:21] And has that information been made available to us? [53:23] It will be made available. [53:24] There's the reporting process that we've been – and like the secretary said, with the delay, [53:30] we've had a lot of challenges with the back office with all the delays with the shutdowns. [53:33] But we'll be getting everything updated. [53:35] And within the department, we absolutely track this very carefully. [53:39] Okay. [53:39] And what about the $70 billion? [53:41] Is that not due to us yet? [53:43] The $70 billion obviously passed fairly recently. [53:47] All the department or the two areas, ICE and CBP, are putting together their spend plans, [53:51] working with OMB to get the apportionments. [53:54] And once the apportionments are in place, we'll start working through the obligations [53:57] that will follow the same path that we're going through right now with the $190 billion. [54:01] Okay. [54:03] One of the concerns with the $70 billion as we went through that debate was that $5 billion of that $70 billion [54:09] was allocated to the secretary's office unspecified. [54:15] First of all, do you agree with that? [54:16] I just want to make sure we're on the same page. [54:18] And second, what exactly are the plans for the secretary to have $5 billion to spend at his discretion? [54:26] Yeah. [54:26] The $5 billion is very similar to what you saw in the $190 billion OSM fund that we had out there for the secretary. [54:33] And it's really kind of broken up into kind of two categories between the judicial or stuff that's done, [54:38] non-immigration, and the $2.5 that would be potentially stuff that we could do to augment stuff. [54:44] And the example that I would say the secretary has been very focused on is counter-UAS. [54:48] So this type of money, outside of a program of record, allows the secretary the flexibility to whether, [54:54] you know, where we're only spending $40 to $60 million a year, he can go all in, set up a task force, [54:59] and put in, you know, up to probably $500 to $600 million at his discretion. [55:04] And we're also doing $3.5 billion is going to ice cutters. [55:07] We had one ice cutter, President Trump's initiative, is get us up to, actually get to $50, but we're doing $11. [55:12] We're buying some of that through Section 90007, which is the secretary's fund, [55:17] replenishing some of it with the $5 billion out of this reconciliation 2.0. [55:21] This is also the way we're able to keep CBP and ice operated during the 115-day shutdown. [55:27] And then the counter-UAS were vulnerable, extremely vulnerable, and it was extremely – [55:33] it was made more apparent during our preparation for FIFA. [55:38] So, for the first time in history, we have all 11 stadiums covered with counter-UAS. [55:45] That's never happened before. [55:46] In fact, none of these stadiums even had counter-UAS. [55:48] So, this funding, because there's no line item for counter-UAS in our budget, we were able to use this funding, [55:53] which is a lot because we've got to work with local partners, and we've also got to reimburse certain agencies, too. [55:59] So, this gives us the ability to flex when we need to because of the new threats that are facing the homeland every single day that isn't always line item. [56:09] Okay. Thank you. [56:09] I think we all want the information on how you're spending that money very transparently. [56:15] I appreciate your comment on transparency. [56:18] And, by the way, I don't want to let your comment on FEMA's help to Hawaii go undiscussed. [56:23] We have, in fact, had major challenges, and FEMA has been very, very good. [56:29] And in prior hearings with your predecessor, I commented in particular that what appeared to be a vendetta against FEMA was completely uncalled for, [56:39] given what FEMA has actually done for Hawaii on the ground with three straight disasters in the last couple of years. [56:44] So, I appreciate your partnership on that. [56:46] Governor Green has been very helpful in this because the way he reports to us when some governors don't, [56:52] his accountability, what he says, what he gets reports in on a timely manner, the way he communicates, is the key to getting this done. [56:59] I'm texting him as we speak to say that you're saying nice things about him. [57:02] No, don't say it. Don't publish it. I hope that isn't the honor. [57:05] This is published. [57:08] My time is about to expire, and I'm not going to incur Mr. Cuellar's wrath. [57:13] And so, I'm going to list some questions for rhetorical purposes. [57:20] Why does the Coast Guard need $2 billion more in the supplemental, which was submitted yesterday, number one? [57:26] Will you reverse course on the cuts to CISA, which I think are penny-wise and pound-foolish? [57:35] And how much do you actually – I'm going to stop right there because I'm over time. [57:40] I don't want to get in trouble. [57:41] Can I answer those real quick? I can do it real quick. [57:43] No, Mr. Secretary, I can make it easy for you. [57:46] I am going to yield Mr. King, who some know as Mr. Case, two minutes of my questioning time for you to answer those two questions. [57:53] Well, it won't take me two minutes. [57:55] So, the $2 billion supplement fund that we sent back, we've had a tremendous amount of more expense [58:00] because of the threats that are facing us with the actions in Iran, plus the narco boats that we're having in. [58:10] Those weren't there. [58:11] The president has put a tremendous amount of emphasis on putting new cutters on the water [58:17] and utilizing the Coast Guard in a way that hasn't been used before. [58:21] That comes with manning power, too. [58:24] And so, the $2 billion to stand up to meet the force needs of us moving forward [58:28] and also on some reimbursement costs that we occurred during the shutdown. [58:33] So, while we were shut down, DOW was paying our fuel bill because we still had missions. [58:38] Our international waters, they weren't patrolling themselves. [58:45] And since we didn't have the funding, we had to do it. [58:47] And so, that's reimbursing also to the DOW and for our mission sets. [58:53] And you have a budget. [58:54] Oh, and counter U.S., sorry. [58:56] Counter U.S., yes. [58:57] Or CISA, I mean. [58:58] CISA, absolutely. [58:59] Listen, CISA has very unique authorities. [59:02] And we have adversaries that are attacking not just our government, [59:06] but attacking our businesses every single day. [59:08] And the one that has that authority to do it is CISA. [59:11] It probably got a bad rap because it wasn't utilizing its authority. [59:16] It was politicized for a little bit. [59:17] We're hiring the best people. [59:19] We're bringing in a director for CISA. [59:22] We want to stand it up and be not just average. [59:25] We want to be the go person for cybersecurity in the nation. [59:30] That's our focus. [59:31] That means we're going to hire back up. [59:33] We are about half-staffed what we need to be. [59:35] Do we need to hire everybody back? [59:36] No. [59:36] Do we need to hire about 600 people back? [59:39] Yes. [59:39] But I don't want to put bodies in position. [59:41] I want to put the talented individuals that know what they're doing [59:44] and have partnerships with our state and local officials. [59:48] Thank you. [59:48] Thank you very much for your forbearance, Mr. Chair. [59:53] Mr. Quayra, thank you for helping out your colleague from Hawaii on getting those questions answered. [59:58] And we're going to go now to Mr. Guest, the gentleman from Mississippi. [1:00:01] The floor is yours for eight minutes. [1:00:03] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [1:00:04] Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here. [1:00:07] Thank you for your leadership. [1:00:10] I want to start first with an issue that is a priority not only of mine personally, but also of my delegation. [1:00:17] In May of this year, tornadoes hit south Mississippi, causing extensive damage. [1:00:26] There is an outstanding FEMA disaster declaration. [1:00:29] I will say that it has been approved by your agency. [1:00:32] Your agency has been extremely receptive. [1:00:34] We have contacted FEMA, and I can say that they have provided all the information that we've requested. [1:00:43] And you have done everything on your end and your agency's end to try to get Mississippi the needed relief. [1:00:51] At this point, we are still waiting on that to be signed off by the White House. [1:00:56] And so my request to you, Mr. Secretary, is if you would please press the White House to review the outstanding request for assistance, [1:01:07] because it is something that is extremely important to my home state of Mississippi. [1:01:13] Mr. Secretary, thank you for the work that you've done in securing the World Cup. [1:01:17] I know that we are now two weeks in, and it appears that the World Cup has been a great success for America. [1:01:28] I have enjoyed watching videos of fans from across the world come to some of the 11 host cities across the country. [1:01:38] Speaking of the reception that they've received, getting to experience American hospitality, [1:01:45] and getting to feel secure in the 11 different sites that you and local and state agencies are responsible for securing. [1:01:55] You mentioned some of the challenges, the UAS anti-drone, some of the challenges securing the stadiums themselves, [1:02:08] and then some of the outer events that are occurring. [1:02:12] And so as we are two weeks in, I just kind of want to get your thoughts. [1:02:17] I know we're not done. [1:02:18] The mission is not complete. [1:02:21] But, one, I want to congratulate you. [1:02:23] But I also want to get your thoughts as, at this point, kind of give us an update on where we are two weeks into the FIFA World Cup. [1:02:34] Thank you so much, Congressman. [1:02:35] Congressman, first, real quick on the disaster. [1:02:38] The president is well aware of Mississippi, him and I. [1:02:41] Actually, he was texting me while the governor was texting me. [1:02:45] Cindy Hyde-Smith was in the vehicle with him. [1:02:48] And we were working together. [1:02:49] I turned around and called the president. [1:02:50] The president said, make sure they get the disaster declaration over to me. [1:02:56] We'll start working on it. [1:02:56] We're waiting on preliminary numbers to come in that the governor knows about. [1:03:00] When he sends us to us, he'll go straight to the president, get to the president's desk, and we'll put in. [1:03:04] But they're still assessing the damage there, which was horrific. [1:03:10] Discussing FIFA. [1:03:11] Thank you. [1:03:12] DHS has done a phenomenal job. [1:03:14] And keep in mind, we're shut down through the majority of this, trying to stand this up. [1:03:18] We have 78 Super Bowls in 11 cities in 38 days. [1:03:23] Plus, we're assisting 13 games in Monterey, Mexico, and Mexico City. [1:03:29] So, we've been spread thin. [1:03:31] We couldn't do it without our private partnership and public partnership in our state. [1:03:36] This, hopefully, can show that DHS, with CBP, with ICE, with TSA, with the FBI, we can work together and have a good working relationship. [1:03:46] We're looking all together for enforcing laws and making sure that we're safe. [1:03:52] So, when we're working in New Jersey or we're working in New York or we're working in Seattle or we're working in L.A., we're working flawlessly together. [1:04:01] And, hopefully, we can do that to enforce other nations' laws, too, because we've had no serious major incident. [1:04:07] Now, there's a lot of fans that go around. [1:04:10] Things happen. [1:04:11] But there's been no serious issue. [1:04:14] We've had some threats come up. [1:04:15] We've been able to knock it down because of our relationship with FBI, plus ICE, which has HSI, which can investigate, go make the rest. [1:04:24] So, we've had a great fan experience. [1:04:27] We've got great rapport back from our fan base. [1:04:30] Even in the fan zones that they have set up for the fans to experience the games that can't get in, we've had a great time. [1:04:40] We do have a tremendous amount of counterfeiting. [1:04:42] We're starting to see more human trafficking come in place. [1:04:44] Just in Dallas last week, we rescued four kids and one adult female arrested over 90 people that was involved in that human trafficking ring. [1:04:53] We continue to push on that. [1:04:56] But because of our great women in uniform, not just in DHS, which we have 80,000 badge officers inside DHS, but because of the state and local police and sheriff departments, [1:05:09] we're able to say that we have a safe and secure area to which our fans can experience something. [1:05:18] And I'm not a soccer fan. [1:05:19] I've never been at a soccer game before until L.A. in our opening day on the 12th of June. [1:05:26] I loved it. [1:05:27] It's like becoming a NASCAR fan. [1:05:29] Watching it on TV isn't as fun as being there in person. [1:05:33] And being there in person was something to experience. [1:05:36] And so now I find myself watching it all the time in evenings. [1:05:38] I'm even going back through and speeding through games, and it's pretty exciting. [1:05:43] Well, thank you. [1:05:44] And, again, the men and women that serve with you and our state and local partners for the great job that you're doing. [1:05:49] Congressman, can I use your 30 seconds, 15 seconds of your time real quick? [1:05:54] I want to – there's been two things brought up about deaths inside of detention centers across the United States, right? [1:06:00] Across all of our – all the detention centers in the United States, there's been 54 deaths, 54, which is one too many. [1:06:06] I get it. [1:06:06] We don't want any deaths. [1:06:08] But it's .0009%. [1:06:10] And the state of Illinois only in the last 12 months and their 29 facilities, 170 deaths. [1:06:17] I just want to, again, point out the hypocrisy from those that are against our detention centers, which aren't even paying attention to their own backyard and the facilities. [1:06:25] And, by the way, these numbers aren't unusual to state penitentiaries across these blue states. [1:06:30] And thank you for the job that you do of providing quality health care to those people that are in detention under your watch. [1:06:38] I want to switch and talk briefly about the border. [1:06:42] I know Representative Cuellar talked a little bit about the importance. [1:06:48] Again, thank you for the incredible job that you and your agency have done. [1:06:52] The border is as secure as we've seen in our lifetime. [1:06:56] We know that on the budget reconciliation bill that there was money for technology, not only wall construction, but technology. [1:07:03] I am a huge fan of the autonomous towers that are there placed along the border. [1:07:07] I believe that they serve as a force multiplier, that they allow agents to then perform other missions until they are notified of suspected breaches there along the border. [1:07:21] I know that there was a first tranche of money that came out. [1:07:25] There is scheduled to be a second awarding or second tranche of money for border security technology. [1:07:33] Two questions. [1:07:34] One is can you tell me if you know, Mr. Secretary, an anticipated timeline as to when those awards will be announced? [1:07:43] And then the second part, and then I will let you answer and yield back, is as we look at investing in new systems, [1:07:51] I would ask that you take into account the input of your rank-and-file officers who were there. [1:07:58] Too many times it seems like that systems have been purchased, not just within DHS but across the government, [1:08:06] that don't necessarily advance the overall mission of the agency. [1:08:10] We don't seek the input of those people who are there going to be operating the systems. [1:08:15] And so I know I'm about over, but I wanted to give you a chance to answer those two questions before I yield back. [1:08:21] Absolutely. [1:08:22] The technology we put in place is technology of today. [1:08:25] We don't want technology that we bought last year and it's outdated by the time it gets put in place. [1:08:30] So the AI is a game changer. [1:08:32] It is a force multiplier. [1:08:34] These autonomous towers do allow us to have capabilities that we didn't have in the past, [1:08:40] but they've also changed since we first deployed them last year. [1:08:42] We're currently going through new testing, new requirements that we see that was holes and laps in the systems [1:08:47] and also greatly taking the input of the individuals that patrol the area and where we need to be paying attention to. [1:08:55] Some of those areas just doesn't make any sense because they have too much traffic. [1:08:58] So when you see it, you don't have time to react. [1:09:01] Sometimes it's proximity to a road that we had put it there, and we're not necessarily aware of it [1:09:05] because it's not a road that was on our maps, but it's a road that they use or a trail that they use that's well used. [1:09:11] Our officers or agents that are on the ground, they know that, [1:09:16] and so we're constantly starting to get feedback, having it deployed in better spaces, [1:09:22] but changing the technology and then be able to update in real time with the technology, [1:09:26] kind of like we do our phone. [1:09:28] Thank you. [1:09:28] Mr. Chairman, I apologize for being over time, and I yield back. [1:09:34] Apology accepted. [1:09:36] The gentlelady from El Paso, the floor is yours for eight minutes for questions. [1:09:41] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [1:09:42] Mr. Secretary, Mr. Deputy Secretary, welcome. [1:09:46] I am going to begin with the positive. [1:09:48] First and foremost, thank you so much for the time you made for me and my team recently. [1:09:54] It was a really great meeting, and I so appreciated your openness to hearing me out [1:10:02] and hearing out the concerns that I brought to you. [1:10:06] I also want to thank you because ICE acting director David Venturella came to El Paso, [1:10:13] and he exhibited the same openness. [1:10:16] This is quite a turnaround from your predecessor and his predecessor, [1:10:22] who I could not secure a meeting with, could not get an audience with, [1:10:28] and it was incredibly frustrating, so I want to thank you for that. [1:10:33] I also want to thank you, GSA just announced this week that the top three bidders for the [1:10:40] Bridge of the Americas Modernization Project have been selected, [1:10:44] and as you know, my community has gone through a multi-year process around the modernization efforts. [1:10:54] The vast majority of El Pasoans who participated in the process said, [1:11:00] let's remove commercial traffic from the center of our city, [1:11:04] and let's move it to our other ports of entry that have capacity, [1:11:11] and you've upheld that decision that had heavy input from CBP and the community. [1:11:18] So it's great to see the progress, and I want to thank you for your support of that as well. [1:11:24] There's a couple of issues I do want to raise with you here during my time of local issues. [1:11:32] The first, and I had extensive conversations with Mr. Venturella about Camp East Montana, [1:11:38] and many of the concerns that I had expressed to the private contractor have emerged in a GAO report, [1:11:50] and it has been a very frustrating several months. [1:11:54] I know we have a new contractor, for which I'm delighted, [1:11:58] but so much of what I had sounded the alarm about really fell on deaf ears. [1:12:04] And when I sound the alarm about issues that I'm seeing in my oversight visits, [1:12:10] it's not to play gotcha, it's not to one-up anyone, [1:12:15] it's to uphold the standards that I know we all agree should be upheld. [1:12:20] And so I think it's really important that especially members who are sounding the alarm, [1:12:26] when there's a private contractor, that that private contractor be held accountable by all of us. [1:12:34] I'll give you a very quick example, because I don't want to use too much of my time, [1:12:38] but the medical, as an example, and that medical contractor is still on site, by the way, [1:12:44] at Camp East Montana. [1:12:45] Just one glaring example. [1:12:48] I spoke with a detainee, and I've spoken with dozens and dozens of detainees, [1:12:53] but he expressed to me, he had been at Camp East Montana for weeks, [1:12:56] and he expressed to me the pain that he had been living with with his arm. [1:13:02] And I asked him what happened. [1:13:03] Well, his arm had been broken during an arrest in Minneapolis, [1:13:07] and he had been complaining for weeks to the medical about the arm. [1:13:11] He had a brace. [1:13:12] He took off the brace. [1:13:14] I could see, like, a letter S. [1:13:16] His bone was so broken, and medical had only given him aspirin. [1:13:21] And so these are the things that I'm sounding the alarm about [1:13:24] that I will continue to share with you, [1:13:27] because I know we want to hold these contractors to federal standards. [1:13:32] So I wanted to share that with you. [1:13:34] So when Acting ICE Director Ventrella was in El Paso, [1:13:38] we had a roundtable to talk about the three warehouses [1:13:42] that were purchased by your predecessor in Socorro, Texas, [1:13:47] which is in my district. [1:13:49] Whoever preceded you that chose those three warehouses [1:13:53] chose the worst possible location. [1:13:58] Mr. Ventrella heard from the mayor and from the water district [1:14:03] and from the emergency services district. [1:14:06] Socorro is actually a very small municipality, [1:14:09] and they struggle with water, wastewater, pump stations. [1:14:15] Their emergency services district only budgets for their population. [1:14:20] And Mr. Ventrella heard from our folks. [1:14:23] The emergency services district chief told him, [1:14:27] I'm going to have to double my staffing if you all proceed to put human beings [1:14:33] instead of pecans, because those warehouses were slated for pecan storage. [1:14:38] I'm going to have to double my personnel. [1:14:40] I'm going to struggle with that. [1:14:42] I'm going to have to buy another fire truck. [1:14:46] The water district shared with Mr. Ventrella just how challenging it has been [1:14:55] to get water and wastewater to existing residents. [1:14:58] And I'm not going to go into excruciating detail, [1:15:00] but I want to flag for you whoever made the decision to buy those warehouses, [1:15:05] which I know was before your time, [1:15:07] picked the worst possible place with the least amount of infrastructure, [1:15:13] and it truly is not feasible to convert those warehouses [1:15:18] into spaces that will hold human beings, [1:15:21] whether for training or staffing or detention. [1:15:25] So I feel very obligated to share with you to sound this alarm [1:15:29] that it would take years to prepare those facilities, [1:15:33] but it would also take probably multiple millions of dollars [1:15:38] on top of the overpayment to purchase those warehouses. [1:15:41] So, you know, I'd ask for you to please take a closer look. [1:15:46] Now that Mr. Ventrella has been there, [1:15:48] hopefully he has a more kind of on-the-ground perspective about that. [1:15:55] We are evaluating all 11 that was purchased. [1:15:59] There's some that just, quite frankly, probably won't work. [1:16:02] I believe there's at least one in that area that probably just won't work. [1:16:07] We, you know, we do have issues with detention centers, [1:16:12] just not enough bed space. [1:16:14] So there's some that we're trying to make work, [1:16:16] but there was some due diligence that maybe wasn't actually checked off. [1:16:20] And so, man, what you're saying is not wrong. [1:16:25] We're going through and re-evaluating every one of them [1:16:27] to be the best possible outcome for our mission inside of DHS. [1:16:33] Thank you, Mr. Secretary. [1:16:36] Something else I wanted to flag for you, [1:16:38] and this was in the GAO report about the use of WEXMAC, [1:16:43] the procurement tool for DOD that has been used for some of the private companies [1:16:50] that have been hired for the private detention. [1:16:54] WEXMAC was used... [1:16:54] We're not using it anymore. [1:16:56] Oh, great. [1:16:57] Okay, that's fantastic. [1:16:58] Thank you. [1:16:59] That is fantastic news. [1:17:00] Okay, let me move on to a couple of other points before I run out of time. [1:17:10] The ranking member mentioned sensitive spots along the border [1:17:16] where we previously thought the wall would not be constructed, [1:17:23] and I want to flag for you two that are of particular importance to my district. [1:17:28] One is Mount Cristo Rey, which is actually in my neighboring colleague's district, [1:17:35] Representative Gabe Vasquez, a property owned by the Catholic Church. [1:17:40] The decision to take the diocese to court to acquire some of that land [1:17:47] has really caused incredible distress in the community. [1:17:53] So I wanted to flag that for you, maybe for a future conversation. [1:17:59] The other area, and this is way outside of my district, [1:18:03] but a place near and dear to my heart and to my constituents' heart, Big Bend. [1:18:08] And Big Bend, we have seen really a coalition of law enforcement, [1:18:15] private property owners, ranchers, nature lovers, [1:18:18] come together to want to preserve and protect Big Bend. [1:18:22] Big Bend, we only have like two miles now that we're going to put a physical barrier in. [1:18:26] The rest of it will be a smart fence, so there won't be a constant barrier across there. [1:18:31] We're having to do it in the high traffic areas. [1:18:33] We do study the high traffic areas. [1:18:35] And so we've got that problem resolved. [1:18:38] As far as the site that you're discussing, we have already worked on this. [1:18:44] We have a gate that's going to be available for those that are trying to come in from Mexico's side [1:18:49] to be able to make the pillage to the site. [1:18:54] The site itself will not be disrupted where the wall is going to be at. [1:18:57] I forget how far off, but it's quite a ways off from where the wall is actually being constructed. [1:19:02] I don't have the exact footage, but it's not close. [1:19:05] I mean, you're going to be able to see it, but it's not going to be close. [1:19:08] But we're working with that sensitive area the best we can. [1:19:12] But we can't leave it open because it is a high traffic area. [1:19:15] It is a visited site. [1:19:16] So we do have to control the flow coming in and out so there's not criminal activity taking place at the same time. [1:19:22] But we have worked closely with the senators in the area. [1:19:28] We have been out there, visited the site, and it was one of the first areas that we had to work through, [1:19:32] other than Big Bend, to come up with a second solution for it. [1:19:35] Thank you. [1:19:36] It's not perfect, but it is manageable. [1:19:39] I would like to connect with your team just to get more specifics, if you don't mind. [1:19:43] Absolutely. [1:19:43] Reach out to us. [1:19:43] And I know I'm way over time. [1:19:45] I have other questions, but we will follow up. [1:19:47] Thank you, Mr. Secretary. [1:19:48] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [1:19:49] Yes, ma'am. [1:19:50] Gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Siskamani. [1:19:52] The floor is yours for eight minutes. [1:19:54] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [1:19:55] And thank you, Secretary, for being here, both you and Deputy Secretary. [1:19:59] I haven't seen you in the workout for a while. [1:20:00] You know, I was hoping you weren't going to bring that up today. [1:20:03] It shows, too, by the way. [1:20:04] It shows, okay. [1:20:06] I will take that as a compliment. [1:20:09] Mr. Siskamani, you now have 16 minutes to pick up. [1:20:12] Yes. [1:20:13] I will happily take those 16 minutes and go home and cry afterwards. [1:20:18] But thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here. [1:20:22] And thank you for the workouts that I've apparently been skipping. [1:20:26] I'm very proud to support the men and women that serve along with you in this important department. [1:20:32] And all that you do and to keep our country safe. [1:20:35] And especially during such a difficult time that the mess that we inherited, that you inherited, [1:20:42] in terms of the open border of the previous administration, [1:20:47] only to come in and shortly after that face a shutdown, the longest shutdown in U.S. history, [1:20:53] first of the entire government and then, of course, of just your department alone, [1:20:59] and then just specific areas of your department. [1:21:03] It seemed like the battle wasn't going to end. [1:21:04] So I do want to commend you for that. [1:21:06] I want to also, the members of this committee and the entire House that kept voting to fund [1:21:12] the department as we should have. [1:21:14] And unfortunately, not everybody did. [1:21:16] But I'm happy that we've gotten through that. [1:21:19] And we hope never to have to do that again. [1:21:22] You have a very important mission. [1:21:23] As a representative of a border district in southern Arizona, [1:21:26] the work of your department is deeply personal to me and a priority to my office. [1:21:31] We'll love to host you in Arizona sometime soon. [1:21:33] And there's some gyms there that I think you may enjoy there as well. [1:21:38] But I want to start off with one question. [1:21:40] It's going to be more of a broader one. [1:21:41] And I want to go then a little more into specifics of Arizona. [1:21:44] But the first one that really kept me up at night for two years and still does to a great extent [1:21:50] is the children that were lost throughout this entire four-year open border policy of the Biden administration. [1:21:59] Can you give me an update on that? [1:22:00] Where are we on the numbers? [1:22:02] What have we found? [1:22:03] Just give me some information on that. [1:22:05] This is probably one of the most disgusting and disturbing things that we've dealt with. [1:22:10] I dealt with some trafficking, you know, child trafficking when I first got into Congress in 2013. [1:22:18] And I actually stepped away from it because at some point it just starts wearing on you. [1:22:22] And it's time to just kind of pass the baton because you get really jaded over it. [1:22:26] When we stepped in here, we had 450,000 kids missing. [1:22:32] 450,000 kids that were given to sponsors that weren't vetted. [1:22:38] No home checks. [1:22:40] No one was going by to see if they were where they were supposed to be. [1:22:43] Not even knowing if they were in their same state. [1:22:45] Not even to see if the sponsor was who they were at all. [1:22:47] We've recovered 147,000, and all of them didn't have to be recovered. [1:22:51] I'm not saying all of them had recovered. [1:22:53] Some of them were where they were supposed to be. [1:22:55] They were with a family member, and they appeared to be doing okay. [1:23:00] But we've had some horrific cases. [1:23:04] There's one that's kind of been out in the media a little bit where there's a ring of several adults [1:23:10] that were keeping kids in an underground bunker in a dungeon. [1:23:14] And the most horrific things that I pray to God that you guys don't have to see [1:23:18] because it permanently changes you, the stuff that these adults put kids as young as 2 [1:23:25] to as old as 12 through, you can't make a horror story that bad. [1:23:30] We've had some young ladies that we have rescued that report, [1:23:34] and these aren't young ladies. [1:23:35] These are girls, being raped 600 to 700 times, [1:23:40] being locked in a hotel room, and having to service 15 to 20 men. [1:23:49] These are girls. [1:23:51] And I hate to use the word service, but I don't know what other you can use. [1:23:54] They were being raped 15 to 20 times a day, [1:23:59] day after day after day after day after day. [1:24:04] They didn't get holidays off. [1:24:06] They didn't get nights off. [1:24:07] They didn't work 8 to 5. [1:24:08] They didn't work Monday through Friday. [1:24:12] They were locked in the room and highly drugged and one male at a time, [1:24:18] disgusting individuals coming in and raping these individuals. [1:24:21] It is our mission. [1:24:23] We've stood up and standing up even a bigger task force within DHS [1:24:26] to go and find all 450,000 kids. [1:24:29] It is my biggest passion that I have, and it should have – let me explain this too. [1:24:38] What's – I almost used a bad word there. [1:24:44] What frustrates me the most is that this was preventable, and no one can argue that. [1:24:53] This was 100% preventable. [1:24:58] And we have perpetrators that are doing the most horrific things to kids. [1:25:10] And as a father to six and three beautiful girls, when you see this, there's evil in the world. [1:25:25] There's evil in the world. [1:25:28] And we fed it. [1:25:30] The Biden administration fed it for four years and took the innocent, [1:25:35] the innocent that's in my little girl's eyes, the innocence that's in our kids' eyes, [1:25:40] that we pray to God never has to deal with this. [1:25:42] That innocent is permanently stolen. [1:25:48] And we're trying to just restore some type of comfort to these young girls. [1:25:56] But let me explain to you. [1:25:58] Young boys too. [1:26:00] Unfortunately, we're seeing a rise of young boys being trafficked. [1:26:07] And it just – it disturbs you. [1:26:10] Well, I go back to my point. [1:26:13] Clearly, you're passionate about this, and I understand why. [1:26:16] I'm a dad of six as well, three boys, three girls. [1:26:18] So I know exactly where you're coming from on that. [1:26:21] And I can only imagine what you've actually seen. [1:26:23] You cannot see that. [1:26:24] And obviously, the biggest victims here are those kids and those little girls and even older girls being trafficked. [1:26:32] Our punishments for these individuals isn't enough. [1:26:35] I want to keep talking about that and what the punishment will be and has been for those people. [1:26:41] And there's a lot more to discuss there. [1:26:43] And you're right. [1:26:44] It was completely preventable. [1:26:45] And for four years, we screamed off the top of our lungs about this. [1:26:50] And this was the leading issue to fight against and still is. [1:26:54] So thank you for your passion on that. [1:26:56] I will – I have a follow-up question here real quick on the Deconcini Port of Entry, which is in Arizona in the Nogales area. [1:27:06] This is a highly trafficked port of entry where I want to thank you and Commissioner Frost for your response in my letter earlier this year and your commitment to working with GSA to prioritize this. [1:27:20] If you have any idea of a timeline, I would love to hear that. [1:27:24] And as I close in my last 30 seconds here, and we can talk about this timeline and if I can just get a written response from you guys and what we're looking at, let me just close with this in my last 30 seconds. [1:27:35] I'm a naturalized citizen. [1:27:37] This year actually marks my 20th anniversary as a U.S. citizen. [1:27:41] I became a citizen in 2006. [1:27:43] So I know the process well firsthand. [1:27:45] I know that because I became – I was elected to Congress 16 years after becoming a citizen of this nation. [1:27:53] No other country in the world would ever give me that opportunity. [1:27:56] No other country in the world would ever give any of us that opportunity. [1:27:59] And it's great to hear some of the perspectives of foreigners coming into the World Cup and seeing what we're all about. [1:28:04] They especially get excited about the free refills, which is – I think it excites a lot of people here. [1:28:09] But the American dream is alive. [1:28:11] It's alive because it's been kept alive, first of all, for our veterans, but also for the men and women that keep us safe. [1:28:19] In the process to immigrate, the process to become a citizen in U.S. CIS and what they go through, it's an overload of work. [1:28:27] I know it well, again, because we went through the process. [1:28:29] So while becoming a citizen is an incredible privilege and I should never be taken for granted, [1:28:35] one that I valued every time and whatever work my parents and myself had to do to become citizens, [1:28:39] we'll do it 10 times over to do it again because this is the best nation in the world. [1:28:42] And I'd rather be here than anywhere else. [1:28:44] So in terms of the efficiency, can you talk a little bit about, as you close, [1:28:49] what your agency needs from this subcommittee in order to make the improvements necessary for the process [1:28:54] of people immigrating here legally and becoming citizens? [1:28:58] We are improving the bureaucracy and the redundancy in the system, but there is, as you said, there is a way to become legal. [1:29:06] If you choose not to do that, you're making a conscious decision, and I can't help you on that situation. [1:29:13] If you don't want to become a legal citizen, there's a way to be in this country legally, [1:29:16] but you have to follow the laws that Congress passed and that we enforce. [1:29:20] I don't pick and choose. I enforce. [1:29:23] But there is a right way to stay in this country, and there's a right way to become a citizen in this country, [1:29:29] and you can't go around that. [1:29:31] There is more that we need. [1:29:33] We've been working for immigration reform in this body. [1:29:37] Really, the last time it was done, it was in 1959. [1:29:41] Why was the last time it was done in 1959? [1:29:43] Because we make politics out of it. [1:29:45] It's the right, it's the left. [1:29:47] It's the Democrats, Republicans. [1:29:48] One party is in charge, and the other party doesn't want to help, [1:29:50] and the other party is in charge, the other party doesn't want to help, [1:29:52] and there's no common ground, but yet we always talk about them. [1:29:56] I'm out of that game now. [1:29:58] I just simply enforce it. [1:29:59] But then we start playing games with which laws you want me to enforce [1:30:02] and which laws you don't want me to enforce. [1:30:03] If you don't want me to enforce the laws, then pass a law to say that that law can't be enforced. [1:30:07] That's fine. [1:30:08] Until then, I'm going to enforce the laws. [1:30:11] Thank you, sir. [1:30:12] I'm seeing Arizona soon. [1:30:13] Yes, we'll make that happen. [1:30:15] We'll put it on the list. [1:30:17] Thank you, sir. [1:30:17] Thank you. [1:30:18] Mr. Chairman, you're back. [1:30:19] Thank you. [1:30:20] We're going to have a committee remedial timekeeping class next week sometime [1:30:25] for certain members of the committee. [1:30:27] Sir, it's called a gavel. [1:30:29] Well, actually, that's interesting talk coming from a guy from the Senate [1:30:34] who hasn't done an appropriations bill since Christ was a corporal. [1:30:38] I had that one coming, sir. [1:30:39] Madam, Madam Ranking Member, the floor is yours. [1:30:42] We'll pay no attention to the remediation session, Mr. Chairman. [1:30:45] I do appreciate, Mr. Secretary, your concern about the lost children. [1:30:52] But I also want to remind people that let's not forget what was a Trump administration policy [1:30:59] initiated by Stephen Miller, which was to let us separate children from their families [1:31:07] at the border because this would be a way to curtail or to stop immigration, [1:31:16] separating children from their families, how to hurt them the most. [1:31:22] I asked and had a phone conversation with Secretary Azar at the time. [1:31:27] I know I was in my living room with my two-year-old grandson on my lap trying to have this conversation. [1:31:33] And I asked him if there was a way in which he had a list of how you could reunite children [1:31:44] with their families. [1:31:46] And he assured me that we did. [1:31:47] You know, when you take your clothes to the cleaners, they give you a tag, [1:31:51] and you then go back and you retrieve your clothes. [1:31:54] When you get luggage, you go and your luggage is returned. [1:31:59] I wish the Biden administration would have done that. [1:32:01] Let me just say this to you, sir. [1:32:02] Again, it is my time. [1:32:04] 3,900 children were separated from their families. [1:32:08] 450,000 kids were lost. [1:32:10] Mr. Secretary, Mr. Secretary, do not interrupt. [1:32:14] Don't you point your finger at me. [1:32:15] I will point my finger at you. [1:32:16] Don't you be a hypocrite then. [1:32:18] You should be as upset about the 450,000 kids that were lost. [1:32:23] He didn't say a word about it. [1:32:24] For four years, you never said a word. [1:32:25] Mr. Secretary. [1:32:26] Could you put him in his place for... [1:32:28] You should be put in your place. [1:32:30] Mr. Secretary, if you would like four minutes for a closing statement when everybody's done, [1:32:36] I'll give you that. [1:32:37] But while members are on their eight minutes, I need them to have their eight minutes. [1:32:40] I started my comments. [1:32:41] I appreciate that. [1:32:42] My issue is that they say this for sound bites, and I'm not going to let them say something like that. [1:32:46] What did you do just recently for sound bites? [1:32:49] I sympathize with the 400th now. [1:32:51] We are going to have something resembling order here. [1:32:54] The time is the ranking members. [1:32:57] If you would like to respond later on, there are methods to do that, but it's not a who can talk louder into the mic. [1:33:03] It's not. [1:33:03] So, you are recognized. [1:33:05] Thank you very much. [1:33:06] I will not let her sit there and lie and accuse something this ridiculous. [1:33:09] This is the legislative branch, and it's my hearing, and so I'm going to try to some extent to control it moderately. [1:33:15] Do not accuse me of lying. [1:33:19] Do not. [1:33:20] Then don't. [1:33:21] And I do not. [1:33:24] I appreciate, and I said to you at the outset, there is concern for children across the board. [1:33:30] We care deeply about what's happening to children, and I went to the border, and I watched children in those fenced-in places years ago [1:33:40] and what was happening to them. [1:33:42] So, I have a long history, Mr. Secretary, in this area. [1:33:46] 3,900 kids were separated. [1:33:50] Secretary Azar told me he had a way to reunite them. [1:33:53] Many of them were not reunited until today, and I don't want you to answer this now. [1:33:59] Please, get back to us and tell us what you are doing with regard to the settlement in terms of this issue, [1:34:06] which is out there, which your department needs to come close to. [1:34:15] I'll make a statement to you again, but this is fact from the bill, Mr. Chairman. [1:34:21] The bill that the Republicans have proposed for funding the Department of Homeland Security [1:34:26] cuts cybersecurity budget by more than $250 million. [1:34:29] It cuts the TSA by nearly $350 million, and the Trump administration is openly advocating [1:34:37] for privatizing TSA while trying to eliminate their collective bargaining rights. [1:34:43] We all know what happened earlier this year. [1:34:46] TSA workers endured the longest government shutdown in history. [1:34:49] There was a lot of discussion and talk invoked about the long lines [1:34:53] and the use of leverage to force through a Homeland Security bill without any reforms [1:34:59] to what were critical ICE and CBP reforms that were necessary, [1:35:04] that the American people wanted and were clamoring for. [1:35:08] They didn't want to continue to see mass marauders on their streets [1:35:12] with just harassing people. [1:35:18] Congress eventually passed my legislation that paid TSA workers [1:35:23] funded FEMA, CISA, Secret Service, and the Coast Guard. [1:35:28] And today, and it took you 79 days on the Republican side [1:35:32] to make that decision to pay these people [1:35:37] instead of just talking about paying this. [1:35:39] The administration continues to attempt to walk away [1:35:42] from the collective bargaining agreement with TSA workers, [1:35:46] something that the federal courts have now twice said is illegal. [1:35:51] Indeed, your testimony frames the attempt to force over 200 smaller airports [1:35:57] in this country into a new security structure as a setting. [1:36:03] And quote, the TSA, this is in the testimony, [1:36:07] the TSA is on the path to privatization. [1:36:10] My question on this issue is, [1:36:13] given all that the Transportation Security Office did for us [1:36:16] during a Republican shutdown, [1:36:19] how can it be that the Department's position is that TSA workers [1:36:23] should not be granted the same basic labor protections [1:36:27] as federal enforcement officers? [1:36:30] How can it be that your priority is to have them work [1:36:33] for the lowest bidder where the wages and the benefits of these workers [1:36:37] will unquestionably be lower? [1:36:41] Well, actually, it was the Democrats that voted every time to shut them down. [1:36:45] Republicans voted every time to open them up. [1:36:47] Pass, just give me an answer to my question. [1:36:48] We didn't shut them down. You shut them down. [1:36:49] Answer my question. [1:36:50] I did. [1:36:52] What are you doing? Why are you moving? [1:36:54] And I answered your question. [1:36:55] You were the one that shut them down. [1:36:56] Was the Democrats shut down? [1:36:57] How many times did you vote to shut them down? [1:36:58] You know, these people come to us to get funding for the work that they do. [1:37:05] I'm actually factually correct. [1:37:08] You voted to shut them down. [1:37:10] Republicans voted to open them over and over and over again. [1:37:13] Your vote clearly stated that you voted to shut us down. [1:37:15] But they finally did. [1:37:16] It wasn't until it became popular. [1:37:18] And then, by the way, ICE agents came there and helped bring the lines down. [1:37:21] The same people that you also kept shut down for 100 million days. [1:37:24] I'm answering the question. [1:37:25] I thought you said you answered it. [1:37:27] The floor is hers. [1:37:29] My dear. [1:37:31] Actually, I gave it to her. [1:37:32] You know, there is a chairman of a committee. [1:37:34] That's me. [1:37:34] I gave it back to her. [1:37:36] She's got it. [1:37:37] This tells you something about who these folks are. [1:37:39] You have another question, Madam Ranking Member. [1:37:41] Well, yeah, no, I do. [1:37:42] But I didn't get an answer to a question. [1:37:44] So the record will still reflect. [1:37:46] Please ask your next question. [1:37:47] Okay, and I will. [1:37:48] This has to do with FEMA. [1:37:50] Simple question. [1:37:52] And I want to start where I left off with Secretary Noem last year. [1:37:55] FEMA. [1:37:56] Simple yes or no. [1:37:57] Do you support eliminating FEMA? [1:38:02] Do you support eliminating FEMA? [1:38:04] There's portions of FEMA that needs to be back at the state. [1:38:05] Do you support eliminating FEMA? [1:38:07] There's no yes or no question on that. [1:38:08] There's portions that need to go back to the state. [1:38:10] Do you support eliminating FEMA? [1:38:15] The record will reflect the response. [1:38:17] The record will reflect the response. [1:38:20] Is there another question? [1:38:21] Yeah, because let me just say, in April of 2025, the Trump administration prematurely, [1:38:29] I'm glad we got that answer because the poor gentleman who came before, [1:38:33] may have been with you, Mr. Chairman, that came before our committee, [1:38:36] and I asked him this question, and he said, because Secretary Noem said, yes, [1:38:41] she and the president wanted to eliminate FEMA. [1:38:44] The gentleman said that he said it should be reformed, and the next day he was fired. [1:38:50] Let it show that the secretary believes that we should shut FEMA down. [1:38:54] April 2025, the administration prematurely, unlawfully ended FEMA's BRIC program. [1:39:03] He intentionally halted roughly 2,000 active infrastructure and disaster mitigation projects [1:39:10] across the country, including one in downtown New Haven, Connecticut. [1:39:15] A coalition of 22 states in D.C. sued FEMA. [1:39:19] A federal judge ruled in favor of the states in December, mandated that FEMA restore the over $3.6 billion [1:39:27] and canceled funding. [1:39:30] At the beginning of March, the judge had to order FEMA to comply with that ruling. [1:39:35] Three months ago, the day after you took over as secretary, [1:39:39] FEMA formally announced a, quote, new and improved BRIC program. [1:39:44] Yet, almost all of these communities are still waiting for their BRIC funding to be restored. [1:39:52] Tell me, Mr. Secretary, when can communities with halted projects expect to receive their BRIC funding? [1:40:02] We actually restarted that when I first came in, and we did 24 or 25 of them. [1:40:06] You've done 24 of the 25 of the 2,000. [1:40:08] Let me clarify that. [1:40:11] So, 2024 and 2025, they sent out the notice of notifications that everybody can now submit, [1:40:19] and those projects that were already submitted for those times period will be evaluated. [1:40:22] How many projects are there? [1:40:23] We can get you the details. [1:40:24] Please. [1:40:25] There were 2,000 that we started with. [1:40:26] The secretary also provided direction for 2026 to get the NOFOs out on that, [1:40:31] and that will come out sometime in September. [1:40:33] The secretary has done more to get the... [1:40:35] I do not need your... [1:40:37] You do not need to... [1:40:38] I just want to make sure you're clear. [1:40:39] Well, please, spare us, you know. [1:40:43] Just give me the facts. [1:40:44] Just give me the numbers. [1:40:45] Let me just conclude, Mr. Chairman, and thank you. [1:40:49] I would like to work in an open and transparent way, [1:40:54] because that BRIC funding for New Haven, Connecticut, [1:40:56] which I probably will not get because I'm in a blue state, [1:41:00] that the BRIC funding for New Haven, Connecticut is important, [1:41:04] which is why we support the programs, bipartisan support for the BRIC program. [1:41:09] So please, let's get the NOFOs out as quickly as possible [1:41:13] and get the money to the communities that need them. [1:41:15] My final comment to you is I'd just like to go back a second. [1:41:19] We need to go back to the issue of deaths in custody. [1:41:22] It doesn't do anyone good to deflect, [1:41:25] talk about what's happening in a criminal system in Illinois or in Oklahoma. [1:41:30] What we need, what we need, because 54 deaths are 54. [1:41:36] And what is civil detention, we need a plan to address the fact [1:41:42] that 54 people in your department has had, they were in civil detention, [1:41:48] it's not criminal detention, are dead. [1:41:51] They should not be. [1:41:52] We need to hear from you. [1:41:53] I don't need an answer. [1:41:55] Now there is no time. [1:41:56] I've taken an enormous amount of time. [1:41:58] Get us a policy, a plan, in a timely fashion that says, [1:42:02] how are we going to deal with these issues? [1:42:05] I yield back and I thank you, Mr. [1:42:07] Thank you to the ranking member, the gentle lady from Iowa. [1:42:10] The floor is yours for eight minutes. [1:42:12] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [1:42:13] Mr. Secretary, it's nice to see you. [1:42:15] Thank you so much for coming to testify today [1:42:17] and for always taking my phone call. [1:42:18] As I've had questions dealing with many of the challenges faced with your shutdown from back home [1:42:24] that I continued again to support keeping you guys open so you could operate, [1:42:28] you are always willing to take my phone call. [1:42:30] So I thank you for that and for your openness with me as we were working through that. [1:42:33] I also, as a fellow parent to teenage boys, appreciate your passion around kids. [1:42:37] Can I, just someone said appreciate you taking a phone call. [1:42:40] I take everybody's phone call. [1:42:42] There isn't a Republican or Democrat that hasn't called me that I haven't called back. [1:42:45] Not one. [1:42:46] And I'm very transparent in that, regardless of what somebody over here just whispered, [1:42:50] because she's never called me. [1:42:52] Well, I appreciate it and I appreciate your openness to working with all of us [1:42:55] to make sure that the good people at your agency are getting paid [1:42:58] and can continue their mission of keeping our country safe [1:43:01] because at the end of the day, that is what we all care about on this committee [1:43:04] and this committee works tirelessly to make sure that you do have the resources [1:43:07] that you need to rescue those kids, make sure that you're interdicting the drugs [1:43:12] that are coming in from narco-terrorists and I want to talk a little bit about that. [1:43:16] I'm going to start with that, actually, because I think that the Coast Guard [1:43:20] is a shining example of what DHS does best in making sure that these narco-terrorists are on alert. [1:43:26] They should be afraid. [1:43:28] And you have interdicted through Operation Pacific Viper. [1:43:32] I think it just was announced milestone accomplishment last week. [1:43:35] 225,000 pounds of cocaine seized. [1:43:38] I mean, that's incredible and that's drugs that did not make their way onto our streets [1:43:42] that are not killing Americans every single day. [1:43:45] So I'd be interested in your thoughts of what you've done there to really escalate that operation. [1:43:52] What do you see on the horizon there? [1:43:54] That threat is not going away. [1:43:56] And thanks to the Coast Guard families who are keeping our families safe. [1:44:00] But I'd be interested in your thoughts there. [1:44:01] Just yesterday, I was actually in a classified setting with the Coast Guard on our plans to continue that operation. [1:44:09] But it's a joint effort with DOW, with Coast Guard, with CBP, with ICE, because it's a ring. [1:44:18] The drugs doesn't just get to our shores and then dissipate. [1:44:22] There's a ring that goes into our cities, into our towns, into our states and our communities. [1:44:28] And then the cash flows back in and back out. [1:44:30] So the drugs come in on our shores different ways. [1:44:32] And a lot of the cash is going out, a lot of times over land, a lot of times in air. [1:44:37] We're seeing more and more counter-U.S. [1:44:38] So we've got to combat it all together. [1:44:42] This administration, through the direction of President Trump, [1:44:45] has done more to combat our war against drugs than any president in our lifetime. [1:44:52] And he's made it a task that he understands that we've lost more individuals in fentanyl overdoses [1:45:01] than we have in the entire Vietnam War in one year. [1:45:06] Not during one year in the Vietnam War, a year from fentanyl overdoses inside the U.S. [1:45:11] And just the other day, we took enough fentanyl off our northern border from CBP that it could kill 17 million Americans. [1:45:23] And I think people frequently forget about the northern border. [1:45:26] We focus so much on the southern border and the Caribbean and these drugs coming in. [1:45:29] But that's a direct relationship because of our Coast Guards doing their job in our waters of the U.S. [1:45:36] And it's pushing it. [1:45:38] And then we have CBP doing their job on our southern border. [1:45:41] It's starting to push cartels to operate in our northern border. [1:45:44] So last week, the minister, that is my partner in Canada, met here in Washington, D.C. [1:45:52] We talked about the challenges. [1:45:54] They haven't dealt with the cartels like we have in our southern border. [1:45:57] They're anxiously working with us and wanting to know our lessons that we've learned [1:46:02] because they don't want it to get a foothold in their country. [1:46:05] So because of President Trump, we are fighting it on air. [1:46:08] We're fighting it in water. [1:46:10] We're fighting it on land. [1:46:11] We're fighting it on the northern border and our southern border. [1:46:13] And I'm not going to say we can eradicate it, but we're making a huge difference in this war on drugs. [1:46:20] And every time we interdict these drugs, regardless of what agency underneath DHS does it, we're saving lives. [1:46:27] You talk about kind of the cross-agency work that's happening here. [1:46:30] How many of these rings on the back end, so the drugs get in, they go out through these rings. [1:46:34] Are these run by obviously the cartels, but how many of the people participating in them are illegals here in the United States? [1:46:40] Well, the biggest majority of them, the percentage of them would be hard to say, but the biggest majority of them are illegals that are here. [1:46:49] Now, there's usually, when it comes to the money laundering of it, that's more of a white-collar crime. [1:46:55] More of those individuals are citizens inside the United States. [1:47:00] But when you start talking about the trafficking, you start talking about the drug houses, the stash houses, the cash flow, the weapons flow, overwhelmingly the majority of those are illegals. [1:47:12] The criminal enterprise run by. [1:47:13] And most times they're forced to do it. [1:47:16] It's not that they're working off a debt for the cartels. [1:47:19] And you talk about the atrocities happening to those kids, too. [1:47:22] Yes. [1:47:22] So many of them are victims of that human trafficking. [1:47:24] And elderly. [1:47:25] They're by the same organizations, obviously. [1:47:27] Yes, and elderlies are being probably exported now more than we've ever seen it because naturally law enforcement is alarmed when they see an elderly gentleman or elderly woman that is driving. [1:47:38] A lot of times they're forced to try paying the debt off of their kids. [1:47:41] Okay. [1:47:42] That's, well, very concerning. [1:47:43] And obviously we need to do whatever we can to stamp that out. [1:47:46] You mentioned fentanyl, and I want to go now to one of the biggest sources of fentanyl, which is obviously the CCP in China. [1:47:53] They're funneling it in through Mexico, trying to get it in through all of these methods. [1:47:57] We know they're not going to ever try to stop undermining our domestic and our international security and spending billions of dollars on research and development, intertwined directly with their military, billions more trying to ship those products into the United States and dominate supply chains. [1:48:11] Can you talk a little bit about what the department has seen as it relates to Chinese manufactured and owned equipment, especially maybe any inventory that might already have been bought by DHS, what precautionary members you're taking to ensure that our agencies are protected on the cybersecurity front, data privacy, other threats that you may be having to. [1:48:30] Well, the data centers that we're pushing, we know China is working every single day, and they're even working harder to try getting into our systems. [1:48:40] They've made that part of their future plans. [1:48:44] They feel like that's important for them. [1:48:47] That's where the private-public partnership is vitally important. [1:48:49] That's where CISA is going to play a major role because we can't expect Meta or Google to do it on their own. [1:48:57] They're fighting an army, truly an army, from CBP or from North Korea or militias from Russia or Iran from the IRGC. [1:49:10] We have to have an all-out frontal approach and be proactive. [1:49:15] We can't be reactive in this. [1:49:16] We have to be very proactive, and that partnership is something we're strengthening, but we also got to respect privacy too. [1:49:25] There's a lot of privacy concerns when the government starts looking in to cyber because of the sensitive material that is there. [1:49:32] It's a fine line we're trying to work through. [1:49:34] It's difficult. [1:49:35] We're going to have to come to Congress for help on that because we're going to need clarification, I believe, with the new technologies coming out [1:49:43] and the new way that they're entering into our systems that we're going to need new clarity on how far CISA can go. [1:49:50] We'll certainly look forward to working with you and the relevant agencies on that. [1:49:54] I want to talk a little bit to wrap up my time on CBP. [1:49:58] Obviously, their role is not just keeping our borders safe, but it's also making sure we're interdicting bad things coming into our country, [1:50:05] including counterfeit products and things that are going around our trade laws as well. [1:50:11] I have a piece of legislation, the Protecting American Industry and Labor from International Trade Crimes Act, we call it PAIL, [1:50:17] just passed through judiciary unanimously just a few weeks ago, and this would help make sure there are additional resources to DOJ and CBP [1:50:25] to make sure that they can actually hold these bad actors accountable. [1:50:29] So I'd just be curious, like, what role CBP can continue to have in making sure we're eradicating transnational shipment and some of these other malign practices used by the CCP [1:50:39] and other actors as well to try to undermine American jobs? [1:50:42] First of all, the best thing you guys did was give us continuous funding for three years because we can really set out missions [1:50:50] and force ourselves to look at technology today, not just what we can spend in a physical year. [1:50:56] So it really does help tremendously. [1:50:59] The biggest thing that you guys can do is continue to work with us on updating the policy, [1:51:03] on what it is that you're wanting us to look at, meaning that if we're seeing a ring coming around, [1:51:10] sometimes because we have trade agreements with these individuals, and as you know, [1:51:14] they have stuff that we're sanctioning from one country, they break it down into small parts, [1:51:20] and then they assemble it in a different country, and when they assemble it and then it comes in, [1:51:24] we need to be able to go back farther in that. [1:51:26] And there's only so far CBP can do because we can only force it when it hits our shores, not when it's outside. [1:51:31] So there's some areas that Congress can really help us on saying that the percentage of it, [1:51:38] or all of it, has to be built, has to be manufactured, not just assembled in those countries. [1:51:44] That would be very helpful to us. [1:51:46] Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for coming today. [1:51:48] Mr. Chairman, I yield back. [1:51:53] Thank you for your generosity, Mr. Chairman. [1:52:00] Secretary, I'm all good to see you. [1:52:02] Let me just follow up with what Ms. Henson was saying. [1:52:07] You do return even my calls and my tests. [1:52:10] Sometimes it's late in the night, but I appreciate the response. [1:52:13] I really do. [1:52:14] I wanted to start by acknowledging some of the incredible work and, can I say, commitment by ICE [1:52:20] to crack down and deport convicted illegal criminals. [1:52:25] We had a case last month at ICE Seattle, [1:52:28] arrested a man that had a lengthy criminal history, [1:52:31] including two felony convictions of raping a child, [1:52:35] and it was awaiting deportation. [1:52:37] And I just wanted to bring that up and say thank you. [1:52:40] That's the efforts that are keeping our community safe. [1:52:44] First thing I want to talk about is the visa and H-2A petitions. [1:52:49] At the end of April, 2026, USCIS reported a net backlog of all USCIS cases at 7.23 million cases, [1:53:01] an increase of nearly 70% from the beginning of the administration before your time, [1:53:07] with the expectation that additional vetting requirements may even further strain those processing times. [1:53:12] Could you describe how DHS is allocating personnel and resources to address this backlog [1:53:19] and ensure timely adjudication of applications? [1:53:22] Unfortunately, we're having to go back through and revet a lot of people that was given asylum [1:53:27] or given visas underneath the previous administration because they didn't do any checks. [1:53:32] So we're building systems in right now to be able to do that through an automated system. [1:53:38] We're bringing up the first one in 30 days. [1:53:40] That's going to be specifically for the backlog of DACA, which DACA doesn't give you, you know, [1:53:46] status in the United States. [1:53:47] It just is a term that Congress never ratified but we put in place. [1:53:51] But it still allows you to apply for a work visa, but it doesn't give you status. [1:53:54] That we're going to deploy the first one in 30 days, [1:53:57] and then we think we'll be able to get caught up in a very fast time. [1:53:59] But we're having to build the automated systems because it's just not possible for us to go through one by one. [1:54:05] But because we're going through there and taking a deeper look at all this, [1:54:09] we've been able to arrest over 1,900 known terrorists that were given status [1:54:17] underneath the Biden administration inside the United States. [1:54:21] Over 1,900. [1:54:22] These aren't suspected terrorists. [1:54:24] These aren't terrorist watch lists. [1:54:26] These were terrorists that was just issued because there wasn't any really checks and balances put in place. [1:54:33] And so it's real work that they're doing, but we are building a system to be faster at it. [1:54:41] And the technology that we have, the private-public partnership we've been talking about a lot, [1:54:45] is helping us get there. [1:54:46] Good, good. [1:54:47] So on a related note, I appreciate the agency's follow-up to a question that I actually submitted. [1:54:53] If you remember, Mr. Chairman, when Director Edlow testified regarding the adjudication [1:54:59] and processing time specifically for H-2A petitions, the response indicated that there was no backlog [1:55:07] for H-2A petitions, which, thank you, it's a welcome update. [1:55:11] However... [1:55:12] It's a 15-day turnaround. [1:55:13] Once it gets cleared, it's 15 days. [1:55:15] Well, what I was going to ask, the response also indicated that the processing times in 2026 so far [1:55:22] are notably longer compared to previous years. [1:55:25] So just looking for your commitment that you'll continue to support the agency's efforts [1:55:31] to expedite these petitions. [1:55:33] As you know, timing is critical for agriculture. [1:55:37] And will your budget ensure that sufficient resources are dedicated in order to carry out [1:55:42] those responsibilities? [1:55:43] So I had a briefing on this two days ago. [1:55:46] Yeah. [1:55:46] And our turnaround on those visas are two days, or 15 days, especially if they're known. [1:55:54] A lot of these agriculture workers are known. [1:55:57] They come back and forth. [1:55:58] We see them every time. [1:55:59] We can repeat them. [1:56:00] And the largest percentage of those are. [1:56:02] We're also looking at the dairy issue. [1:56:04] Right. [1:56:05] Thank you for that. [1:56:05] And because it's not seasonal. [1:56:08] So we think we got a path forward to fix that issue. [1:56:11] Finally, we've asked Congress for clarification. [1:56:13] But any time you ask Congress for – I'm not beating up on you guys. [1:56:18] I sat there too. [1:56:19] So I'm just saying any time we ask Congress for anything to try to do with immigration, [1:56:23] it gets just politicized. [1:56:25] But we think underneath statute there's a way for us to move this and make it work. [1:56:30] We're still going through it. [1:56:31] We're still getting legal opinion on it. [1:56:32] We don't want to do anything. [1:56:33] But I don't think you guys would really get upset if we did it. [1:56:35] But I want to make sure we're legally able to do it. [1:56:38] But as of two days ago, we're 15 days on turnaround on those. [1:56:41] Once they're finally submitted correctly, we have a large percentage of them that are not [1:56:46] in it correctly. [1:56:48] And what we've asked – what I've asked CIS to do, USCIS, is to say, [1:56:54] why can't we move this to a system that you can't submit the paperwork until it is filled [1:57:00] out correctly? [1:57:01] You know, if you do DocuSign or you do any of this stuff online, which you've got to go [1:57:05] and accept, they won't let you move forward. [1:57:07] The technology is there, and we just have to adapt it and adapt it in a way to be able [1:57:13] to make it interface-friendly with the public, with the general public, to be able to make [1:57:20] it more efficient. [1:57:21] So we're doing a test program on this. [1:57:23] We're actually trying to build an app. [1:57:25] This is new this week. [1:57:26] I briefed the president about it this week, and the president loved the idea. [1:57:32] We're also – because some of these visas that we work with, these programs go through [1:57:36] commerce, Howard Lutnick and ourselves, our teams are working together to try – I don't [1:57:43] know how long it will take. [1:57:43] It will take a little bit to build it. [1:57:45] That way, the misinformation won't be as prevalent and we can get to it faster. [1:57:50] Because everyone we delay affects our economy. [1:57:53] Yeah, absolutely. [1:57:54] And so we want the people trying to get here to do it the right way, to work, to actually [1:57:59] be able to come to the country and work. [1:58:00] Appreciate that. [1:58:01] Thank you. [1:58:01] Let me turn the page to CISA for a second. [1:58:05] It was already referenced the longest shutdown in history. [1:58:08] When Director Anderson testified before this committee, I asked him about CISA's ability [1:58:14] to identify, to mitigate, address the cyber threats from adversaries like Iran, like China, [1:58:22] to our – talking about critical infrastructure. [1:58:25] Unsurprisingly, his answer was that CISA was limited in their capacity, and it was clear [1:58:32] that a handicapped CISA meant higher risk of leaving our critical sectors from our water [1:58:38] systems to our hospitals, energy grids, you name it, dams, agricultural sector. [1:58:44] They're all vulnerable to cyber threats. [1:58:47] So does the budget sufficiently provide personnel and resources that are going to be necessary [1:58:53] to ensure that CISA is equipped, that they can tackle the potential cyber attacks from [1:58:59] those adversaries that target those critical sectors of our economy? [1:59:03] I do believe – I mean, as the Secretary, I should say, no, we always need more money. [1:59:07] Truth is, we actually have the resources we need. [1:59:11] We need the people, and we need the expertise. [1:59:14] I think we even have the ability underneath statute to do it. [1:59:18] What's happened over the years, like any, you know, great government agency, it creates [1:59:22] its own bureaucracy. [1:59:23] You guys give us authority, then we write the rules. [1:59:26] And the rules sometimes handicap ourselves. [1:59:29] So we're looking – going back and looking at is what was the actual intent of Congress, [1:59:36] and then how many layers of rules have we put on ourselves to say no? [1:59:40] Because too often, government agencies, they want – it's easy to say no. [1:59:45] We're changing that way at DHS. [1:59:46] We go to yes. [1:59:48] We lean to yes. [1:59:49] That's our new policy. [1:59:50] We're there to figure out how to make it happen, not to find the easy way out. [1:59:55] And some of that is our own rulemaking. [1:59:56] So I feel like right now, Congressman, we have the resources financially, and we have [2:00:03] the authority, I believe. [2:00:05] If that changes, I'll come back to you. [2:00:07] But we don't have the personnel. [2:00:08] And so we've got to get my director in place that we have – that the president's already [2:00:13] met with. [2:00:15] We've got to put – we've got to get him in place, get him down the road, put him in [2:00:19] place, let him hire his people, and get it built. [2:00:21] I'm – truthfully, once he's in place, it's going to take me probably 12 months to build [2:00:28] this back. [2:00:29] It may be longer when he gets in there and lets me know, but I believe we can make significant [2:00:33] strides in the first three months. [2:00:37] But to actually be where we need to be, I feel like a full year. [2:00:40] Well, let us help you wherever we can there. [2:00:43] Yes. [2:00:43] Thank you. [2:00:43] Appreciate you being here. [2:00:44] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [2:00:45] Thank you to the gentleman from Washington. [2:00:48] I am now going to claim my eight minutes for questioning and give two minutes of it to the [2:00:55] gentleman from Indiana who was very generous with his eight minutes in letting the secretary [2:00:59] respond to some earlier questions. [2:01:01] So the floor is yours for two minutes, Mr. Shreve. [2:01:03] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [2:01:04] And you have earned your paycheck today. [2:01:06] I appreciate your managing and protecting time for all members of this committee. [2:01:11] Secretary, secretaries, I'm from Indianapolis. [2:01:19] It's part of my district. [2:01:20] We run some big events, much as we were talking about with the threat of drones, counter UAS [2:01:26] on FIFA. [2:01:27] We've got the Indy 500. [2:01:29] We have the men's final four. [2:01:31] We had the Pacers playoffs. [2:01:33] Secretary Edgar, as a mayor, you realize that these threats to public safety arising from [2:01:42] the evolution of drones, which are tools as well in the profession, are extraordinary. [2:01:49] And DHS is in the lead at managing this threat and these tools. [2:01:54] The fiscal year 27 house mark included dedicated counter UAS funding. [2:02:00] And last year's NDAA authorized trained state and local law enforcement to detect, track, [2:02:07] and mitigate, take them down, take down threatened drones. [2:02:12] We can, we can strengthen our ability to protect major events and critical infrastructure. [2:02:19] And let's not lose sight of that. [2:02:20] But only if local law enforcement has the training, the tools, and the coordination to work with [2:02:27] federal. [2:02:28] Mr. Secretary or secretaries, give us a view into what the department is doing on this [2:02:36] and to coordinate training with state and local law enforcement to manage the challenges that [2:02:45] are upon us now, that drones present. [2:02:48] So Congress is going to have to lean on this a little bit. [2:02:52] Bringing down a drone for an enthusiast is easy now. [2:02:56] We can do it. [2:02:56] We do it every day. [2:02:57] We do it, and when they, you got an enthusiast that flies a drone over FIFA, I think we brought [2:03:02] down over 60 drones to date. [2:03:05] During F1, we brought down eight. [2:03:08] During Augusta, we brought down 12. [2:03:11] Those are enthusiasts. [2:03:13] The issue that we have is the ones that have it on fiber. [2:03:16] And so when they attach it to fiber and they're running in, the only way for us to be able to [2:03:21] bring them down is to be kinetic. [2:03:23] And that is a whole nother area. [2:03:25] You got to deal with FAA at that time. [2:03:27] You got to deal with local authorities at that time because there's going to be a possible [2:03:31] collateral damage. [2:03:33] When we work, when people say, well, shoot a laser at it. [2:03:35] No, that's fine, but a laser doesn't stop within the horizon to which the FAA will give [2:03:40] us. [2:03:40] So like, for instance, around FIFA, you have 3,000 vertical and you have 3,000 or 3 miles [2:03:46] out. [2:03:47] So around FanFest, we have 1,000 feet up. [2:03:52] We have a mile out. [2:03:55] It creates challenges for us to do it. [2:03:59] And the only technology we have right now to be fully kinetic is with DOW. [2:04:04] We're exploring that, but Congress is going to have to look at this as a whole. [2:04:09] I don't know if you know this or not, which is going to be changed, but there wasn't one [2:04:13] single NFL stadium last year during all the games that had counter UAS on it. [2:04:19] That was my wife running through. [2:04:21] Everything else was silent, I promise. [2:04:24] But, and technically, I thought I'd be done by now. [2:04:29] Yeah, I did too. [2:04:31] But I do think Congress needs to take a hard look at this for us because we're going to [2:04:36] have authorities beyond just what we currently have because this is a threat that's changing [2:04:41] every single day, and I really could sit and use some help. [2:04:46] We're meeting with the FBI yesterday. [2:04:48] We had a great meeting with Kash Patel. [2:04:50] Kash Patel already has a center that is training local law enforcement, and he doesn't have enough [2:04:57] space. [2:04:58] We have more people asking to get into the school than he has a space to do it. [2:05:03] We are looking for ways to partner with him to be able to put DHS funding directly to that. [2:05:08] And is it through FEMA grants? [2:05:10] Is it through HSI? [2:05:12] Is it through ICE? [2:05:13] Is it through CVP? [2:05:15] And then also, yesterday, Troy and I started talking about sending up a joint task force [2:05:21] with inside DHS because we have 22 components, and out of those 22 components, I have eight [2:05:27] that have their own counter UAS measures. [2:05:29] And, for example, out of the 11 football stadiums we have, I have CVP covering five, FBI covering [2:05:39] three, the Coast Guard is covering one, and FBS – or Coast Guard is covering two, FBS [2:05:46] is covering one. [2:05:47] I think my math is correct on that. [2:05:48] And all of them have different measures. [2:05:51] And so, this is – Congressman, what you're bringing up is a true challenge, and that [2:05:58] threat is changing every day that, without question, Congress is going to have to help [2:06:02] us get the authority to do what we need to do on this. [2:06:05] I appreciate the extra time. [2:06:06] This is an important issue and an immediate challenge for both the department and this [2:06:11] congressman. [2:06:11] Hey, can I just add one point? [2:06:12] And this is for you, Mr. Kerr. [2:06:14] When I was down at RGV, just to give you an idea of the scale at the border, same problem. [2:06:18] Just from the beginning of this fiscal year until yesterday, they had 11,000 drones basically [2:06:25] registered at the border. [2:06:26] I mean, we – the Secretary is talking about offensive, you know, drones, being able to [2:06:30] kind of do something against them. [2:06:32] So, that is something we definitely are looking at. [2:06:34] But, I mean, even – you just take the threat to the border, and we break up the drone process [2:06:40] into the maritime, the border, special events, et cetera. [2:06:43] And each one of those operating principles, we need to have a better strategy that's funded, [2:06:47] and we have the authorities. [2:06:50] Thank you. [2:06:52] I will now recognize my colleague from Florida for one minute of my questioning time. [2:06:57] Mr. Rutherford, the floor is yours. [2:06:59] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [2:07:00] First, I want to make sure that the public understands. [2:07:04] I want to affirm what the Secretary said earlier about the shutdown. [2:07:08] It was Senate Democrats that shut down CBP, ICE, CISA, Coast Guard, and TSA. [2:07:16] It was not the Republicans. [2:07:17] The House passed it three times to fund them. [2:07:20] So – but here's what I want to bring up. [2:07:22] I want to highlight for you, Mr. Secretary, some language that is in FY27 appropriations. [2:07:29] There's language in there about NEMS and standardizing the operational and reimbursement process. [2:07:40] You know, NEMS, the National Incident Management System, and that reimbursement process was – you know, [2:07:47] it goes all the way back to 2004 with the Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5 by George W. [2:07:55] Washington – Bush. [2:07:59] And the whole idea was to unify the response, mitigation, and prevention of disasters. [2:08:08] And so there's language in there that there are ways to truly standardize the processes that right now are being done by 50 different states. [2:08:23] They all report their different ways. [2:08:24] And even agencies within states report their own – their own ways. [2:08:29] So I just want to highlight that for you because I want to work with you to make sure that we actually can bring down that $11 billion that is still outstanding in – in reimbursements. [2:08:42] Because most of these agencies, when they get their money back, they've spent most of it on interest. [2:08:50] And so we need to speed that process up. [2:08:52] And there's a way to do that. [2:08:53] And I'd love to talk to you about it. [2:08:54] I yield back. [2:08:55] Thank you to my colleague for yielding back with eight seconds left of my eight minutes. [2:09:00] I'm the only guy to yield back any positive minutes in this – in this whole operation. [2:09:04] And I'm damn proud of it, as well I should be. [2:09:08] I am going to – just very briefly, because, Mr. Secretary, your wife's calling. [2:09:16] Everybody else's got other stuff to do. [2:09:17] And I'm guessing that nobody said, oh, yeah, about 1210, 1215, ought to wrap it all up. [2:09:22] But before you got here – I'm going to say that again. [2:09:28] Before you got here, the DHS congressional relationship, as far as information sharing, to put it kindly, was terrible. [2:09:39] I'm not editorial. [2:09:41] I'm just saying, not good. [2:09:42] Very frustrated in terms of, I know there's going to be a better relationship because you've already taken steps to change that. [2:09:52] And I want to publicly say, thanks. [2:09:54] You know, we said something through the stuff before you got here, but answers to legitimate questions, now that we have new leadership, shouldn't be a big deal. [2:10:07] We said something to everybody who came before the committee while you were still in the Senate, said, we won't surprise you, don't surprise us. [2:10:14] Pretty straightforward statement. [2:10:16] I'm going to repeat it. [2:10:17] For get-back questions that members have submitted – and I understand you guys have got a mission or whatever. [2:10:24] It doesn't revolve around what happens in this room or someplace in your own neighborhood or that other sort of stuff. [2:10:29] Please be responsive. [2:10:31] You get to define what responsive is. [2:10:33] But if it's like, hey, we're not going to get a response to your letter back to whatever, have somebody call up and say, here's where we're at. [2:10:39] Here's something other than – so I don't have people calling me saying they won't talk to me. [2:10:46] Because then the ball's in my court, and I have to try to penetrate it in that. [2:10:49] All past history stuff. [2:10:51] So anyhow, just so we kind of get where everybody's coming from, there may be additional questions members provide in writing. [2:11:00] We ask you to respond to those in a timely manner. [2:11:04] I want to thank you for being here today. [2:11:07] I know it probably wasn't tops on your list of things to do on a Thursday, but in total fairness, it probably wasn't tops on anybody's list. [2:11:14] But it had to be done, so mandatory fund, check that box for everybody for today. [2:11:18] You have asked that your opening statement be included in the record. [2:11:23] It will be. [2:11:24] I will also say that if there are things that were said during this that you feel a need to respond to, please include that in what you submit for the record. [2:11:33] And we'll submit that as – we'll include that in part of the record, too. [2:11:37] And so I'm not going to commit the absolute sin of saying, does anybody have anything else? [2:11:44] I'm going to say that this subcommittee meeting of the Homeland Appropriations, the subcommittee – yeah, easy for you guys to say. [2:11:59] Subcommittee meeting is adjourned. [2:12:00] Back in 1985, when I think when we were –