Transcripts For CSPAN2 Former 20240704

Immigration and National Security experts to testify on immigration and Transnational Criminal Organizations at a recent Homeland Security hearing this runs just under three hours Homeland Security will come to order. Without objection. Open border policies and how they advanced cartel crime in america. I now recognize myself for an Opening Statement. Southwest border is wide open. The evidence is clear more than 5. 5 million encounters god away since 2021. Nearly 380,000 encounters of unaccompanied minors. A Record Number of retinal poisonings in the United States largely driven by drugs flooding across our southwest border. The crisis is a direct result of the secretaries dereliction of duties. It is being published later today and makes all this clear. Todays hearing and subsequent hearings and the consequences of these policies. Before i get to the subject of todays hearing i want to briefly talk about some of those numbers because i am sure we are in for a few days of unjustified celebration about what they mean every member that you hear the other side of the aisle talking about is still a number far above crisis levels. Even by the measure of president obamas former dhs secretary. We are still averaging more than 3000 a day. Jeh johnson once said that 1000 overwhelms us as demand is a crisis. We are also seeing a number of aliens arriving at the port of entry continuing to skyrocket jumping to more than 45,000 in june. This fiscal year already exceeds last years by more than 100,000. Last june they were around 15,010,000 a year before that. Why the change . Well, tens of thousands of inadmissible aliens are taking advantage of the new patrol parole programs and his illegitimate one policy accepting his no questions asked released into the United States. More than 170,000 people have used the app to schedule an appointment since january alone. Do a numbers are even being released by the administration. Everyone in this room knows these individuals have no basis to enter the country. Everyone else also knows he is playing a massive game by shifting through the ports of entry. Again not disclosing the numbers. The outcome, tens of thousands of inadmissible aliens entering customs and Border Patrol being released into the country. It is the same. Lets just be honest about that. Simple fact. The secretary insistence that this is legal is a lie. It is against the law passed by previous congresses. And as we are going to talk about today, humanitarian cost of the secretaries are still horrific. The most organizations in the western hemisphere. We will hear from our witnesses and lay that out in detail. As you listen these groups are turned our border over to pave the way some president is the level of control easy of organizations that would serve as both are southwest border in the interior of our country for the boldness with which they operate in open defiance of Law Enforcement and the profits they are breaking in. Both americans as well as migrants are suffering from their wrath. It is virtually impossible to cross the southwest border without first paying the cartel. People are killed simply for trying to do so. A secretary mayorkas policies to pull thousands of Border Patrol paid off the line and release them as quickly as possible this is not the work they signed up to do. The former chief of the Border Control recently told us has made many agents feel like smugglers themselves, their words not ours. Cartels purposely overwhelmed Border Patrol agents with illegal crossers in with illegal cross or someone areas the distractions they can smuggle other aliens and drugs across the air is just vacated those agents. Amazingly secretary mayorkas admitted to the senate under oath in march he was not aware of this aware of the strategy. Meanwhile his attorney general did note the tactic lose used by the cartel. Business is so good the cartel had devised a complex system for massive number of people trying to illegal cross the southwest border. For instant cartels use wristbands as im showing here to inventory those who are attempting to cross. Secretary mayorkas told the senate he was unfamiliar with these wristbands too. The violence and atrocities are not just being felt along the border. Our American Communities throughout the country are suffering as well but a lot of violence can be traced back to the cartel because they often subcontract their mayhem to function at the cartels National Distribution network. A recent New York Post headline quote hundreds of migrants working for the cartel brazenly took over San Franciscos drug market thanks to lack of policies end quote and another outlet reported cartels of started offering quote in a largescale unquote in montana hundreds of miles from the border. They are engulfing communities across the country and it can only be tracked back to the cartel. A tidal wave of human smuggling and trafficking has led to an increased number of car crashes on their streets putting Law Enforcement innocent americans and migrants themselves at risk for lunch or told us his Department Arrested 169 human smugglers and is on pace to rest more than 900 this year. Another sheriff said this county deals with three to four chases per day involving groups of 20 or more per the cartels are recruiting american teenagers to drive with them implicating her youth in these horrendous crimes. Meanwhile innocent americans like maria have been killing crashes by those smuggling illegal aliens on our streets and highways for the transnational whose motto is to kill raped control for taking advantage. The senior Border Patrol agent has said the gang members attempt to evade arrest by exploiting the mpox of migrants into our country. They were close with the cartel to support our persons on both sides of the border. According to issa 40 of them as 13 members them as their team members the rest arrived in the United States unaccompanied alien children. And as 13 forces when the girls into making money for the gang. Cartels amid a record amount of money over the last two years. The cartels made an estimated 13 billion just from Human Trafficking and then theres the fentanyl. It cost as little as 10 cents to produce a fake prescription pill laced with fentanyl that can be sold for 10 to 30 bucks and 10 kilos of fentanyl is worth about 20 million. Only cost 50,000 to produce and every dollar the cartel breaks in covers takes the cost their 109,003 dozen 2022 and 107,041 alone many of them from fentanyl the cartels are continuing to push fentanyl into our push fentanyl and tour country in record amounts stringer comanches one family at a time. Im sure we will hear today the same tired talking points quote most most fentanyls is seized at ports of entry but a couple of things are worth noting the majority of fentanyl the disease has comes to the ports of entry. By definition its apprehended per cartel knows theres a higher risk of getting caught at the borders and secure and we dont know how much the cartel is using to smuggle drugs with my friends of on the other side i want to play while cbp supports a number of drugs they have also said they believe they only catch five to 10 of whats coming through either at or between the ports. Finally the amount of fentanyl being seized is increasing. Mark seizures were up 100 from the beginning of the year according to former chief raul migrants are also victims of cartel atrocities. Once individuals are smuggle into the night states the cartel of and continue to ask extort and use them but according to mayorkas on the part departments than increasing quote alternative forms of payment including migrants who participated in controlled substances across the border or to work off those debts through criminal activity after they arrived in the United States. As many as 60 of unaccompanied minors for kidnappings flooded by the cartel and other migrants are sexually abused and assaulted her and one victim told the New York Times you have to pay with your body end quote. Some have been forced to allow their children to be abused. I cant imagine anything worse. Secretary mayorkas and present bidens policies encourage Record Numbers of people to make the journey to the southwest border that represents a Business Opportunity for the cartel to make thousands on every person they smuggle instead of enforcing the laws written by this body removing for detaining those who have no valid claim to enter mayorkas dhs is flashing the neon sign open. By releasing millions of innocent inadmissible aliens a night States Milito people are willing to bet they won the lottery if they make it to the border under the said administrations policies. The cartels are more than happy to assist. I wonder majority of americans think the cartel have more control of our border than the Biden Administration appeared 61 of america according to a poll last fall for this Border Patrol agents overwhelmed at the historic level of illegal immigration under mayorkas watch the cartel have while mayorkas is implemented his open border agenda spot that the white house has failed a meaningful pressure the impact impacting not just miss new mexico but her country so new mexico but are countries of the United States must the most powerful nation the world and yet we do control her most sovereign southwest border according to chief ortiz. If thats not evidence of mayorkas failures i dont know what is. I now recognize the Ranking Member of the gentleman from mississippi mr. Thompson for his Opening Statement. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman in nearly two decades that i have served on the panel to panel created in the wake of september 112000 attack have seen this committee come together to address some of the most important Homeland Security issues facing our nation. From supporting the establishment of the departed of Common Security in the early days to implementing recommendations for the 9 11 commission and more recently been cybersecurity legislation. Theres a record of bipartisanship service to Homeland Security. Over the past seven months the character of the Homeland Security committee has fundamentally changed from a Bipartisan Solutions focused committee to a platform for the most extreme. To be honest im embarrassed for the republican majority wasting the committees time and socalled investigations that this entire endeavor is nothing more than a political stunt. Patched in backrooms so extreme mother republicans can conflict power for the speaker hearing is yet another attempt to appease the crowd who are demanding. That same goes for the report we are hearing from the press that republicans plan to release today. We begin been given no time to review this document lets less offer any input. If its anything like their republicans released in the last hearing rife with errors and full of extreme mother rhetoric void effect. Meanwhile the republican jury is squandering time and opportunity to deal with the real work of our committee and seven months since we took her oath in the 18 covers the republican majority has proven itself to be uninterested in legislating in incapable of serious oversight. Instead of holding oversight hearings that will strengthen our nations security improves our department of Homeland Security authorities to carry out its complex mission the majority stuck the southwest border groundhog day. The majority has held variations of this hearing to. Repeating the same hearings over and over again so extreme maga members get their way is not oversight. Dragging Border Patrol chiefs away from their jobs for politicizing is not oversight. Dont get me wrong addressing problems at americas border is a serious task. Oversight is about following the facts and not going on a fishing expedition for the facts dont fit the extreme maga narrative. The fact is this administrations plan to craft the challenges that are southwest border undersecretary mayorkas leadership and entrants to imports of entry in the southwest border since title 42 is terminated on may 11. The number of encounters overall has plunged in that time. Between may 12 in june 2 dhs repatriated more than 38,400,000,000 citizens in more than 80 countries. The Biden Administration has taken unprecedented steps to combat the fentanyl crisis through whole of Government Strategy bent on disrupting the fentanyl trade and addressing substantive abusive home. Operation than to know what secretary mayorkas. Up is disrupted criminal networks and frozen financial assets. An operation established with the ice in june to surge resources to ports of entry to combat fentanyl smuggling and break the fentanyl supply chain. Leveraging intelligence to target precursor chemicals and the movement of illicit fentanyl and operation rolling wave with inspections of the southwest border. Its recently named Border Patrol chief jason owen said in the transcribed interview on may may 5 we have a very robust targeted Enforcement Effort so we work handinhand with our invested partners actively disrupting degrading in dismantling networks and those pipelines of the smugglers. He then went on to say because we have more detection capability, because we have more on the way and additional processing coordinators we are in a better situation than we were in years past. Present bidens secretary mayorkas leadership and hard work have paid off. Our borders are not open to those affecting outside lawful pathways are being sent home. The facts do not support the republicans case. We dont impeach the president or cabinet secretary because you do not like their policies and you surely do not impeach an officer of the United States just to placate the most extreme wing of the Political Party he it is time to move from this sham impeachment effort and do your duty as overseers and legislators. Present bidens fulfilling his duty and secretary mayorkas is doing his job. The republican majority doesnt like what they are doing or how they are doing it then they should get off their soapbox and work with democrats to pass by persons for security and immigration legislation. Mr. Chairman i mr. Chairman i yield back. The gentleman yield. Other members of the committee reminded their statement may be put in the records are pleased to have a distinguished panel of witnesses before us today and they asked that her witnesses please stand and raise their right hand. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you will give before the committee Common Security in the United States hope how several president spoke the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god . Let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative. Thank you. Id like now to formally introduce her witnesses mr. Jones is an international respective Border Intelligence expert with decades of experience on the southwest border. He is a retired captain for the Texas Department of Public Safety intelligence and Counterterrorism Division and supervise human intelligence operations in multiple nations including leaving the longest 24 7 order operation in Texas History Operation Secure texas. Is responsible for leading multiple investigations targeting car to leadership in klavern with u. S. Intelligence community to save and numerous lives both mexico and the United States. Ms. Hahn is director of policy studies for the center for Immigration Studies with a d. C. Based in search of attitude that studies the impact of immigration policies. Shes been at the center since 1992 and her area of expertise is immigration policy and operations covering topics such as visa programs immigration benefits and immigration enforcement. Ms. Vaigjam is an expert on Public Safety having been the director of the public director funded project. Prior to joining the center ms. Vaigjam was a Foreign Service officer for the state of art where she served in Belgium Belgium and trinidad. A retired special agent for the Drug Administration he dedicated 28 years of his life to service and currently working as a National Security and Public Safety executive who appears on National News networks and to the subject Matter Expert to mr. Walz was a special agent in charge of United States department of justice special Operations Division for almost 10 years before he left the federal government. He also periods they held the position the chief of the new York Drug Enforcement Task force which is the oldest and largest Drug Task Force in america. Ms. Greg kading, did i pronounce that correctly is a senior fellow in the Strobe Talbott center for Security Strategy and technology uniform policy program at brookings and the directive initiatives on nonstate actors in the codirector of the Africa Security Initiative brooking series on opioids. The opiate crisis and International Intervention the codirector of brookings project improved global drug policy imperative perspectives beyond 2016 u. N. G. A ss 2016 as well as another brookings project constituting local orders. Shes an expert in International Internal complex and nontraditional security threats including insurgency organized crime urban violence. I think the witnesses for being here and i now recognize mr. Jones for five minutes to summarize his Opening Statement. Simi chairman green Ranking Member thompson and distinguished members the committee and honored to be here at our Nations Capital to talk to all of you today about without question what is the most significant National Security threat and Public Safety threat to the American People in this country and that is our common enemy the cartel. After returning from the Texas Department of Public Safety i was so frustrated at what was not getting out about their evolution that decided to publicly myself did that the day among your border every other week riding with Law Enforcement trying to eliminate activity and the impact of the American People. What you have not been told as these are no longer drug cartels. They have evolved into organized crime in 2006 into an insurgency in mexico. I was there on the ground with people and we were stunned at what we were seeing. Six to 10 hour gun battles with. 50 caliber machine guns grenade launchers rpgs of rockets and they truly were fighting back against the most elite special forces and the government. This was the insurgency and what brought that about they brought two forms of discipline. Special forces came to work for cartel and what they brought with discipline and tradecraft and from that every other cartel was forced to create enforcement ring and rise to the occasion or fall and thats where you see such wide variety of violence, hyperviolence across mexico and in 2010 at tripwire wind to say that began executing mass migrant as to the rim may remember the 72 migrants killed in san fernando mistreated men women and children killed chopped into pieces because they had have a saying you cant count the body that doesnt exist. The final revolution has turned into two true parallel governed mexico. 2015 the operation are most elite soldiers wanted to get ahead of the generation they were shot down. We went after guzman and 2019 in the president of the country was forced to release him. What you were told because the cartel ahead of them had so many peoples heads at knife point ready to cut them off if the president would not release them for this is where mexico is. How does that impact you and how does it impact America Today . Im telling you with everything i own if we do not designate these cartel as foreign organizations for least the tools of National Power using year after year to date is just the beginning for the cartel will not stop because they cant stop the this is what you are not told. U. S. Intelligence agencies should be briefing you. They do not fear you. They fear their rivals and the reason they continue to escalate in hyperviolence and capability is because if they dont their rivals could completely take them over. Today they have evolved again. February 2021 i wrote the story. This is the adjustment ladies and gentlemen from the smuggling of people i cartel into the trafficking of men women and children. These are wristbands the cartel each one represents a different organization. They began moving them into debt. We have never seen this before. What im holding in my hand before you today i want to be very clear this is americas new. And now we have moved these people throughout the country and send a virus of death across the nation and im happy to talk to about that as i wrote that story in february 2021 and finally want to say this they will continue to increase because they have a validation to all of you. Look at fentanyl. What we are seizing the streets is not regular fentanyl. They have gone from regular fentanyl to an introduction of silas ian. China have evolved around in the last part of this i will say because im running out at time you had to take aggressive action. Texas has sent 9 billion to fight the cartel and its not enough. What we need is authority beyond the Law Enforcement capability. The mothers and fathers across this nation the indicator to you that this government is on the right track to end this problem in this country is only designate these cartel to get the tools of National Power and go after them. Thank you all for having me today. Ms. Vaughan you recognize. Good afternoon thank you. President biden and secretary mayorkas have inherited the most secure border we have ever seen and they discarded the security in favor of what they want and what they call a more humane more equitable system. What they seem to want us to normalize immigration. The system is far from humane. Plenty people benefit from it to be sure employers seeking a split of workers and government contracts but the biggest winners of the criminal cartel. They are breaking in huge profits made possible only because the policies give them in the supply of formal probe customers that they can exploit and abuse. And hundreds of thousands of them are children. The human cost of these policies is unconscionable and for some irreparable and indeed most worthy of the hearing. The three Main Elements of the Biden Mayorkas policies or catch and release policies for illegal border cross or set of broadband more the cbp1 program which gives out about 1500 appointments to the illegal aliens into support entry in the dismantlement of immigration in the interior so theres next to no threat of removal for migrants including those who abscond from this which is the majority and importantly so the employers and traffickers of these illegal workers can avoid scrutiny of their hiring practices practices. But in officials have claimed the cbp1 policy has been a success and because the Illegal Migrants no longer had to do business with the cartel and we should be skeptical of these claims. First of all cbp1 can only be used in locations in northern mexico and the migrants still had to get there and for most that means paying the cartel through smugglers. And the cbp1 appointment itself turns out to be yet another opportunity for them to extort migrants. Of course the bad guys are still coming in with unaccompanied minors. The situation is nothing to brag about. We have merely gone from truly catastrophic to very bad. And to the extent that there is a decline in illegal entry is also helped by the efforts by texas border to block the most popular crossing points. They have been shockingly indifferent to their policies with the migrants. The dangers began on the journey with a highrisk of robbery and assault, distortion injury and illness and as we have discussed the abuse continues after they get there. Some people pay a discounted fee and give up their children to the smugglers to use to get to other single adult and others agree or are forced to drug deals in large numbers make it down payment on smuggling to be paid off and fear driven forced lathe labor in debt bonding. We now have a Thriving Market for cartel involved Human Trafficking and according to one source about one fourth of the victims are children. Part of this is because the policies of how these kids are handled once they are brought into the country as unaccompanied minors Border Patrol has turned them over to hhs as Assembly Lines where the goal is to turn them over to his sponsors than is possible with few questions asked and not surprisingly they end up in servitude working in factories processing plants on farms or in the worst cases traffic. Kids are vulnerable targets for criminal gangs like ms13 and ms13 many of whom came here to the very same policies and are looking for new recruits are commodities to make money for gangs to some of the worst cases that i have ever seen or happening close to hear it in Montgomery Frederick baltimore Fairfax Loudoun and Prince William cos. All had perfect cases per cartel sent to forced labor to the summit called narcos lavery not just drug dealers. Farmworkers in oregon and california. The Public Safety threats that come on top these Public Safety threats, top of other significant cost to taxpayers and we have effective tool to fight back against the cartel directly but the most obvious steps to secure the border and control in illegal migration to deny the cartel the opportunity to make money off the migration of vulnerable people. Thank you ms. Vaughan and not now recognize mr. For five minutes. Thank you for the opportunities opportunities become is very topic. After 28 year career career with dpi been supporting Law Enforcement agencies over the country and is up with the grieving families that are burying loved ones on a daily basis but i believe the safety and security of america must be a top priority in the Current Border policies are placing every american the cartels are taking over and taking advantage of the vulnerabilities of the border. They are working with the chinese transnational at levels levels that there was in this country and operating with no fear. Brave men and women that cbp are doing tremendous work but they are distracted every day because they are dealing with the tsunami of migrants coming in from over 150 countries. How can any reasonable person in america think the Current Situation at the border which is known protecting all of america is safe and secure makes no sense. Look at the historic numbers desperate ideals every day 9161 dead americans headlined in the news nine in Cleveland Ohio the most ever in a 24hour period. Last month another Public Service alert for five dead in a 12 hour period. What about rai lewis the legendary nfl player forced to and the famous actor Robert Deniros grandson dead or baby elijah in florida with the fentanyl mixed in a blender. Look at the s. Wedding cram the country and we dont even know who they are or where they are or what they do. Look at the 143 migrants apprehended he chaired the border. Was only three 2020 during the last administration unless your picnic is how many criminals got away and this is common sense. You dont have trained expert to understand this. Look at the Record Number of migrants making the treacherous journeys baking desert and this man is look at the a Sexual Assault and the to migrants on the journey. Mental illness are on the rise and americans are turning to drugs for help and unfortunately the cartel have tainted the illicit drug supply. Allowing cartel operas and unidentified people from around the world to enter the country illegally at record levels is enhancing the ability for criminals to kill americans. This is not the government should be doing to keep us safe. You dont had to be a border immigration expert to understand the administrations policies related to the border a recipe for disaster and im not a maga, pay . Look at the recent statement on china made by fbi director wray. Lets think about it. China is the most the biggest National Security threat in this country in based on the warning based on a warning look to get the facts. Already this year 14,655 chinese nationals many of the military age men are apprehended on the border and 1540 increase since last year and over 10,750 increase since 2021; to ruin here what are they coming for here military age men from china and how many are in those that the Bombing Campaign from china continues from the chinese labs. This is a tranquilizer. Its rotting people from the insideout could Mike Mccallion made the statement i will never forget it selling fentanyl from americans is great Foreign Policy in china is right on point. Synthetic drugs made in mexico and china are a gamechanger to the sn chinese criminals are fighting Money Laundering services which i can answer questions about. Its not a red or blue issue. Its a red white and blue issue and every american should care. In my view the chemical weapons are destroying our country rapidly and u. S. Law enforcement is a corrupt highlevel government of mexico corruption. You cant rely on software and crime and cropped leaders in mexico to save our kids but as far as i know theres never been a organization in the history of america that has killed as many americans. The cartel should be dealt with severely for what they are doing to our communities and families through the Law Enforcement has done tremendous work and hats off to all of them. 400 million deadly dosages taken up the street and Homeland Security investigation cb on Operation Blue lotus 8200 pounds a fentanyl two months. Everyone had to think about how much is being and how much is there to here. These are the biggest drug threats we have ever seen up without Border Security we have no country. Thank you very much an Ranking Member sorry for wasting your time. I now recognize in your Opening Statement said this was a charade or waste of time to kids are dying at record levels and i dont appreciate that. To mimic the Ranking Member is not recognize. We will continue with our witnesses. Ms. Felbabbrown youre recognized for five minutes. The Brookings Institution is a u. S. Organization in research and political solutions. These are my personal views and not those of anyone else. Criminal groups particularly fentanyl in china in mexico and smuggled them into the United States. Some 90 of fentanyl seizures occur and ports of entry and this is likely the most. Cartel predominately higher u. S. Citizens across supporting a citizens represent more than 85 of those convicted of fentanyl charges. Drugs are hidden frequently in personal vehicles or as illegal cargo. And ports of entry scanning technology authorized by the by is expected to significantly increase the percentage of inspected vehicles and cargo. A highly pernicious development is as establishment as in mexico the pharmacies that sell fentanyl laced drugs and other substances like antibiotics and prescriptions. These are located and linked to cartels although they operate in plain sight of authorities to authorities refused to take action against them. Increasing payment for precursors originating in china are now a significant problem endangering Public Health and safety and repercussions for the United States. Mexico the collapse goes far beyond the high rates of homicide. While the administration of the president labrador and cartel to the groups are increasingly becoming more and violent as well as governing large economies and institutions and the significant people in seeking to influence corruption. In contrast in the United States because of the high effectiveness of u. S. Law enforcement policy criminal groups do not behave in the same way. Indeed the overwhelming majority of serious crimes the United States are committed by u. S. Citizens. U. S. Cartel and Law Enforcement bargaining with mexico is constrained to the u. S. Reliance on mexicos migrants in the United States. If United States were able to pass a comprehensive Immigration Reform that would allow Legal Process for those seeking opportunities in that state you would be far better able to reduce the government to meaningful cooperate on narcotics and Law Enforcement issues. In its engagement with the government the u. S. Should prioritize shutting down pharmacies that sell fentanyl and fentanyl laced drugs and the dismantling of Drug Trafficking networks and seizures and more Effective Press to get tarrio action. Rather than designating criminal groups and supporting organizations United States should intensify border inspections that requires adequate resourcing. U. S. Customs and Border Protections impersonal or legal ports of entry as well as developing packages of leverage such as indictment for denial against officials who sabotage the rule of law in mexico and facilitate activities. The United States should adopt whole of government approach when it comes to fentanyl smuggling operating a wide range of u. S. Including the department of state to support u. S. Law enforcement. Because the cartel and no longer specializing simply in Drug Trafficking but a whole variety of legal and illegal economies the approach needs to be multifaceted. That means increasing intelligence collections against a wide variety of cartels such as crimes against nature and the number of u. S. Fish and wildlife agents investigated as well as other specialties. It also means bringing a wide set of Law Enforcement access to organized crime. Thank you. Thank you mrs. Felbabbrown i want to make a statement members the witnesses and members of Committee Committee whip rules and the rules are that you direct your comments to the chair soap you direct them to another member on the dais or even within the committee we dont do that unless we ask for time to yield and you can ask a question and their procedures on how to do that. Heres comments for the witnesses should be directed to the chair and i want to make sure thats clear. Mr. Chairman . The gentleman is recognized. I appreciate the comment but i wrote to raise a point of order here. I dont think ive ever seen a wit as personally attack a member like that at a hearing. Clarify youre no longer recognize. Mr. Maltz a better way to say what you wanted to say would have been to say someone on the committee or to say its been said that this is a waste of time and you could say thats offensive to me and their americans dying. You could make a comment like that but to directed at the Ranking Member is inappropriate and i think everyone would agree with that. With that i recognize myself. Mr. Chairman . Mr. Carter youre recognized. Shouldnt our role would be to discourage disrespectful behavior do not coach on how to do a more appropriate way . Hold on, hold on. Let me be clear here. In previous hearings we have that individuals attack individuals on my side of the aisle. Hold on. You cannot address your comments to an individual about an individual. You can say secretary mayorkas lights but you cant say secretary mayorkas is a. I know its a subtle difference with the rules of the house are very clear on that. So the point is you cannot direct anything other than to the chair, thats the rule and that the rule we will keep. And to reserve the corpsman respect were rather we agree to disagree no member republican democrat or other no member of the committee should disrespect a member of as a witness and the witness a second ago was a direct attack. Id like to go a step further if i may. If we are going to entertain a debate on the city to be twosided. If we are going to entertain a debate i insisted be twosided. I will recognize you in a moment. Dont do that again. My only comment is that we should always preserve decorum and respect. We can disagree without being disrespectful. Youre disagreeing with me and i appreciate that and what im saying is there a way to say it without directing your comment against an individual. You can say secretary mayorkas lights but you cant say secretary mayorkas is a. You can say i dont think this is a waste of time and im offended when someone suggested is a waste of time. I think making that point clear is important for the whole committee. Mr. Bishop youre recognized. At the outs of the Ranking Member said he was embarrassed that we would undertake this hearing that was so it was embarrassing to him. That witness responded to that because it was an attack on that witness. Every witness on this panel and every member of this dais at like to know why a member of congress because he sits up with this dais can feel free to disrespect people. Our invitation to testify in declaring what they have the same about you being killed by fentanyl poisoning across this country, but that is not where this committees time. And i will say another thing in every hearing that i have attended where witnesses testify they address the remarks of the chairman into the Ranking Member. Ive never heard it done otherwise and ive never heard anybody address the Ranking Member and i dont know why this will be the first time that would be brought up and i object to it. We are going to respond to that. I would would buy his members that under clause one rule 17 the rules of the house they must observe the house standards at the corpsman debate but they must speak and act respectively and not use disorderly words unparliamentary and language such as impugning the motives of their colleagues or words that are personally offensive. I would encourage the members to adhere to the house decorum and proceed in order. We need to get on with this and members will be recognized by the order of their security were five minutes of quitting additional round of questioning may be called after all members have been recognized and i recognize myself for five minutes of questioning. My first question is to mr. Jones. The cartel is essentially a taken over allowed the Drug Networks inside many of United States cities and if you look at headlines just in the past few weeks about San Francisco alone they have basically seize control and are coordinating to seize control of the drug trade potentially taking over all the criminal networks. The attorney general Merrick Garland has submitted to the senate that the Cartel Strategy was to plug the Border Patrol and by tying up Border Patrol is Border Patrol is doing basically catch and release system the drug cartels will split people around the other side. Can you tell us how this policy of the open border and the strategy of the cartel have combined to allow them to take basically takeover crime in the city . Chairman to wait works on the southwest border you hear the term all the time offers a control. No one ever tells you what that means and thats what im going to share with you today. I want to answer questions and that the utilizing network, their scouts and lookouts. They check eight to 10 hour and 12 hour shifts. Ive seen them as far as 30 months and the United States and ive seen them in arizona as far as 70 miles. They hold hand encrypted radios and they communicate back to what is known as so what happens is you have these lookouts everywhere in what they call the gate meaning a bend in the river and there is no Law Enforcement. They surge whatever commodity it is that they want pushed so when we are talking about policy all of these migrants that come from all of the world is cartel by design will Commission Hundreds of people as youve seen over the last few years and the media focuses on that. It causes a surge of local state and local Law Enforcement and they do that by design because it opens up other gates and if they do a commodity they will shut down to make sure that commodity makes it and what they do chairman is the contract directly with usbased street gangs what we call cheer gangs that impact multiple regions of our country and work directly with the cartels and today is important to understand u. S. Street gangs are working sidebyside contracting with cartels and i could go on and on but in 2009 mafia and i was in texas as the war broke out. We were stunned at what we found. Red mafia working in mexico working operations going through intermediate and advanced training warming special Law Enforcement at a reduced cost. That is the way it really works. If you wonder today why youre being overrun with drugs its because the tier 1 gangs and street gangs are contracting working directly with these cartels and ill go back to this and that is they will not stop. They cant. They are going to have it be stopped and wanted to take extreme aggressive actions. How has the open policies catch and release and stimulation of a mass wave of migration by having an opera border facility affected this . This is it. I want to be very clear historically your cartel the cartels on the call them drug cartels and today they are in over 54 countries around the world. This is not a u. S. Mexico problem ladies and gentlemen. This will not stop and now they have transitioned into the final version of Human Trafficking. I am holding in my hand this is how emboldened they become. I cant stress to you that you had to take extreme, extreme action to after these cartels and to truly create relationships with mexico and the rest of the world in a unified command and treat them as what they are and im happy to discuss that with you. Thank you. I now recognize the Ranking Member for five minutes of questioning. Thank you very much mr. Chairman. You talked about congress should take extreme action. Let me tell you what was in the last omnibus package that we passed in 2023. We provided 17 billion for customs and Border Protection including an increase in spending a 17 over the previous years. It allowed for hiring, operations along the southwest border. We also provided funding for 19,855 Border Patrol agents, an increase of over 308, the most since 2011. We also appropriated 60 million more per for 125 customs and Border Protection offices and support staff. Id also tell you that a single republican on the committee voted for it. It was passed only by democrats. We are the ones who are trying to provide resources to the good men and women along the border to address this. Every time an opportunity presents itself for resources on the border democrats are the ones who vote for them. You can talk to but when it comes to being a member of congress you need to vote your convictions. If you dont give the men and women that money they need to help protect us and then thats our fault. Thank goodness the democrats in Congress Gave the money that was asked for by the department. They need more and i look forward to the next time that people ask for money. Youre talking about resources, that they will vote for it because thats the only way we can address this problem. Another situation as i said ive been on this committee for a long time. Responsible men and women but there is a way to be disagreeable. I understand the witnesses on the republican side. This is a great democracy and its only great because of the men and women. Its not a personal attack, its just the facts and i hope mr. Maltz you understand that. Be that as it may we have policies here. I think nine hearings on this subject is a bit much. I am embarrassed in fact because we are wasting time trying to impeach a secretary or may ought to be providing our men and women along the border the resources. Ive never voted against the Homeland Security budget since the department was created and i dont plan to ever vote against it. Its not the right thing to do. I disagree with the chairman and i probably will continue to but where adults and as long as we are adults will get things done. People around the world look at us and they want to be like us. But what i see happening in trying to discrete and trying to somehow take it to another level is not who we are. So doctors felbabbrown can you tell me what kind of programs have been helpful along the border in addressing this problem . Certainly. Improving technologies and inspections of people crossing the border is a very useful measure. Cbps several years ago stated its only capable of inspecting Legal Processing and 17 . Raising that number to a much higher level especially because the majority fentanyl is seized through legal forces of entry to stop the amount of fentanyl coming at United States. The whole of government approach needs to be adopted increasing in collection intelligence that the cartels engage in applying various tools and various agencies by the United States to be able to facilitate Law Enforcement work. Thank you. I yield back. The testimonials i recognize the gentleman from texas and mr. Mccaul. That mr. Chairman i want to thank mr. Jones and mr. Maltz for your service and your Law Enforcement service and duty and very dangerous conditions. Mr. Maltz want to thank you for your Foreign Policy because they cant think from kindness china standpoint a better Foreign Policy than introducing poison their mexico into the states killing americans and making money off of it its almost like a reverse opioid and they see it that way. It has killed 70,000 young people. 20,000 pounds of fentanyl seats, enough to kill 4. 6 billion people. My children have been to five funerals of their friends. They thought they were taking xanax or add medication and they never woke up. Mr. Jones i commend you for being number one in my great state of texas which will that we know this better i think that anybody and i remember going down after mayorkas said to remain in mexico and i talked to the Border Patrol chief and it was chaos and i said what do you attribute this to . Is there any cause and effect a direct causeandeffect between what youre seeing now and the policy change of this administration and he said congressmen theres no question theres a direct causeandeffect between the rescission tremaine in and mexico in what we are seeing today. What else are we seeing like ive never seen anything like this but i was u. S. Attorney in the Western District of texas at the texas border. It was chairman of this committee. We were ms. Vaughan getting this under control before controlling asylum because the cartel to manipulate critical asylum and they couldnt manipulate anymore because they couldnt enter the United States. Their claims were adjudicated in mexico and therefore catch and release was ended finally be the very first li introduced in congress 20 years ago, imagine and here we are today. Its alive and well and the secretary is in my opinion. The unpadded homes these kids go to and the men go to ms13, there is a criminal enterprise now not just in mexico and latin america. Right here in the United States and it was created by this administrations policies. My question to the three of you ms. Jones ms. Vaughan and mr. Maltz do you believe that the actions of the secretary by rescinding to remain in mexico the policy was effectively working that has created this criminal enterprise . Do you believe the secretary is responsible for and complicit with the criminal enterprise as a result of these policies . Mr. Jones. Yes, it do and its validated by not only the data from United States customs and Border Protection the numbers across into our country as a result of the exemptions created under title 42 which secretary mayorkas is the architect. In addition the Overdose Deaths in this country and this year impacting mothers and fathers and families across this country and the data. Wanting to add the District Court says you must reimplement remaining in mexico and secretary did not comply with that order. Ms. Vaughan . I believe President Bidens policies are responsible for the disaster. Its responsible for the situation we have today and no amount of money is going to help the situation until the officers and agents are allowed to do their jobs. The policies are more important. And we are turning our backs on you because we turned our backs on you. By sayed starts at the top with the president and it comes down and i just want to say i make these collages with kids amount time to spread awareness so the results are dead children and families going to funerals for thats what comes down to become an expert on Immigration Law Border Patrol policies but i know whats going on in america. We market the bill to designate chemical as a chemical weapon at the chemical weapons conviction convention. The former chairman of and i recognized the chairman. Thank you mr. Can before i start a war wanted to submit for the record without objection the cbp released it just came out yesterday showing the southwest border encounters since february february 2021 total border encounters in june including individuals who presented at ports of entry with or without cbp1 appointment were down 30 to 144,000. And like to submit that for the record. Without objection. I want to personal banker witnesses for being here today. I quote general john kelly secretary of Homeland Security this is Border Security is not end or begin at the border. And mr. Jones to think i heard your testimony and ive listened to it very carefully and ill theyll tell you i really dont like what you said. But as an individual on both sides of border the border had to tell you you have some valid points. We do need some extreme solutions. We need to coordinate with mexico and we need to get it right. Speaking to officials recently they reminded me just recently they had seized 46,000 Bank Accounts the equivalent of almost 700 million of money from organized crime and have entered into an antiMoney Laundering with the United States. 1600 members of the military today are deployed at 55 security points along the border. Seizures recently 7. 5 tons of fentanyl, 1700 labs shut down almost 74,000 criminals arrested in mexico and the course in january of this year the arrest of chapo guzman that erupted into one of those gunfights that youre describing where 12 marines were killed. I think the effort is there but i dont think its enough. This is an effort that were choir all of us working together i speak german higginsen i introduced the bill, legislation to enhance support home and securities investigation of transnational criminal investigations of transnational criminal units mexico Central America and south america. This is the kind of effort they would help us drill down and work with other countries of the border to identify some of these folks . Thank you for the question congressman. I will tell you those statistics you gave are fantastic and i applaud the efforts of all of those in mexico who are in harms way. They have incredible people working to try to fight for their country. If you notice not one cartel has fallen. As a matter fact more citizens and migrants have fallen to these cartels and brutalized like youve never seen before in mexico. We have also seen violence now spreading across the country that levels historically at our border. Today it is across the nation in mexico and where im going with that as a way to no the effort is not near enough, not even close. Me interrupt you because i only have one minute left. Is there a new dynamic emerging . Mexico is our largest trading partner in the world. We are going to depend on each other for economic success unlikelihood and we need to Work Together to address these comment issues. I have 4040 seconds and is there any thought to moving forward on the . And thats a great point and how we can leverage the Work Together. They are dealing with guns going south for militarygrade weapons coming our weapons coming up with a lot lot of areas that we can worth work with. I want to tell you and be very honest theres a lack of effort in mexico right now and a lot of paint on the wall and it means nothing. It is doing nothing. You see the deaths of americans in the citizens and its paint on the wall but but this amount to anything. We need to engage in these transferred issues that affect my citizens on a daily basis in terms of fentanyl death. Thank you mr. Chairman ideal for my time is up. The gentleman yield. The gentleman yield to me now recognize mr. Higgins. Thank you mr. Chairman and thank you ladies and gentlemen for appearing before us today. Lets see if we can clarify for the American People mr. Jones and mr. Maltz i will go to you in my limited time. Mr. Jones your former kylan Law Enforcement in a former captain of intelligence and counterterrorism at the department of Public Safety, is that correct . Yes sir it is. Youre a resident of texas . You know whats going on down there, dont you brother . Yes, sir. Mr. Ivey you are former special of agent with the dea is that correct . The long history of Law Enforcement. Where do you live sir . I live in virginia now. So congratulations. You a lot of time down there with dea operations did you not . Absolutely. You know whats going on down there . Lets get to it shelly . Is present by and was inaugurated in may perhaps the poorest decision in the history of poor decisions secretary mayorkas enacted his policies and although secretary mayorkas has a great deal of expertise as you gentlemen do as well. As an added responsibility as the secretary to advise the president is the president s policies are injurious to americans. Once those policies have been demonstrated it would be clearly injurious to our country. The secretary further reflective of this his oath as a responsibility step away from that administration if the president does not abide by his advice when the president s policies that the secretaries and acting are clearly hurting our country. And they absolutely are. Gentleman i want to ask you a little bit about the cartels access to or contributed both conduct United States operations in and with mexico, have you not . Yes, sir. Yes sir. Yes and yes. United states operations in mexico as they followed United States law and be organized at the government and Law Enforcement . Mr. Jones . Yes sir. Yes and yes in the course. We have operations in mexico Law Enforcement operations and we had to follow the law, do we not . Of the best example of that is the unified operations capture that captured el chapo working with the range but they did the hour person of u. S. Understood. They like your spirit so lets compare that to the cartels. Gentleman do you consider in a statement that the cartels have gained unprecedented access to networking within the United States of america United States of america . Yes. Yes sir i do. Then they get sir. Mckitty seen as increasing credibly over the last two years mr. Jones . Mr. Maltz . Yes. Do they had to follow our laws . No way. Absolutely not. They have unfettered access to the communities of america and they truckee into things drugs and human beings. This administration has accommodated their efforts. How can you say that congressman higgins . The me give you an example. We spoken a great deal about technology on the border. My colleagues across the aisle say we dont need a barrier system. Technology, okay. First of all thats tonight with the fact that a physical barrier is a part of the Security System that includes physical barriers to deter and delay and attempted criminal crossing or trafficking of human beings and drugs into our country. And secondly lets talk about the technology. Which is then been said about drones being used. We have technology on the border requested by Law Enforcement the border approved by Congress Funds appropriated contracts to arrange for to detect and take down cartel drones. Its called the detection and mitigation capabilities and tied drone attacks on the border deployed. Its a defense and offensive operations today. Somewhere secretary mayorkas has been in charge and i promise you we will find the smoking gun. Secretary mayorkas has been in charge to offensive capabilities or the mitigating capabilities of the antidrone tech has been suppressed. Mr. Chairman my time has expired that my passion is not an ideal. The gentleman yields. Sometimes representative higgins says of the that the best way but i now recognize mr. Carter. From louisiana. I think you mr. Chairman. Ask unanimous consent to enter into the record and article title card ray of nativist groups, figures have long pushed replacement by immigration ideas into mainstream which explains how the replacement conspiracy inspired domestic terrorism the presiding officer the senate will come to order. The clerk will read a communication to the senate. The clerk washington, d. C. , july 21, 2023. To the senate under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable jeff merkley, a senator from the state of oregon, to perform the duties of the chair. Signed patty murray, president pro tempore. The presiding officer under the previous order the Senate Stands of entry for human rights . Stands seema congressman thank you. Certainly comprehensive Immigration Reform that would allow legal points of entry would immeasurably improve Law Enforcement domestically as well as would improve sponsorship and meaningful cooperation in countries such as mexico. In the meantime increasing inspections is an important measure as well as recognizing the cartels are no longer focusing on smuggling drugs that engaged in a variety of activities that require all of u. S. Government. Thank you. There has been a shift round the world of people seeking asylum in safety and Economic Prosperity and individuals have uncertainty. This is not only a struggle here in United States. Worldwide. Ms. Vaughan you work at the center for Immigration Studies in which you agree theres Unprecedented Movement of people in the americas and worldwide . There certainly is Unprecedented Movement in admissible migrants into the United States for sure, yes. How is that impacting our points of entry . Is overwhelming the men and women of the Border Patrol in cbp to the extent they cannot adequately talk to migrants to protect trafficking for example. They are forced to process and release them as quickly as possible. It is distracting them from preventing often the bad actors and the drug loads from coming into United States and it is creating chaos in border communities and impacting the safety of those communities. It is compromising the safety of the people who live along the border who had to deal with the cartels bringing loads of people and drugs through their private property and threatening their lives and wellbeing. The problems created by the open border airing calculable. We are all yours now and we are presumably here to listen to learn and to do better. We are now all ears. How should government interact with our regional partners to make a difference . Well i think the United States needs to make it clear to our International Partners that this level of migration, illegal migration says it cannot be sustained and is causing problems of with their country and we need to Work Together to address it and stop it because to the extent the criminal cartel are in richest emboldened affects Civil Society in their countries as well. Its destabilizing to mexico and panama is destabilized because of trafficking that occurs in the gaps. They have an interest in working with us. And thank you very much. My time has expired and i about. Some of the gentleman yields and i now recognize mr. Bishop from North Carolina. Thank you chairman the witness ive been waiting to hear from for months and months of this committee. He talked about and i forgot how you describe the ultraviolence . Hyperviolent among cartel. I have question witnesses here before about the january open warfare. 50 caliber machine guns using being used in narcotanks against the army and the second ever to take out guzman i believe. You said i think i have concern about militarizing and having the United States military take on the cartel but theres another aspect of interest to me and i wonder if you would comment on it. The wristband that you hold up you testify to any talked about what a did you call that slavery . Debt. Debt yes sir so you have hundreds of thousands or 150,000, 200,000 migrants entering and the cartel is tabs on all of them we saw the headlines the chairman put up on his Opening Statement honduran migrants operating in the drug trade and believe in San Francisco at very troubled place. They bring these very vulnerable human beings that they have absolute control over an knowledge of into the United States in their keeping tabs on them these organizations. Do they not develop the same sort of hyperviolent in the United States that we are seeing in mexico given sufficient time . They will. I can assure every member here if you do not take action on this and change what we are doing and look at them not as criminals. Truly as organizations to leverage the full weight of this government it is coming here. I worked in 2015 on the beheading of an individual and South Padre Island that was committed by u. S. Border patrol working directly with the cartel. He was gutted from the naval and his intros were removed and his head was taken back to mexico. Ive worked in 2013 with lawyers for l. Gatto spending 1 million to put tracking devices all over families vehicles are able to locate him and texas and executed him. They are here, sir. The people who have erased our borders as a means of improving the voter population rdf gotten got more than they bargained for i would say in the fentanyl death and i want to ask mr. Maltz about that but we may see the same open militarist conflict with their own Law Enforcement and military resources here in the United States. I have video that ive submitted to this committee have. 50 caliber rifles on interstate 10 going from tucson arizona passing to Arizona State troopers. They are here sir. Lawmakers only decry the fact that werent spending more money. Mr. Maltz heavy ribbon to Charlotte North Carolina . Its a community of very affluent community. Tuft high school a member of a sports team up their young men died a week or so ago and they say fentanyl has pierced Tuft High School and cornelius North Carolina its happening everywhere. Its everywhere across this country and is there something i dont know if you would say more disturbing than that. I just watched a movie sound of freedom and i would urge everybody to see it. Child sex trafficking is i understand that epidemic levels as well. Being fed from places of the United States and now the United States we have children that have 600,000 children coming to United States under the policy that democrats have abdicated. Secretary mayorkas is thats not even the worst of it. The people being sold into, sex trafficking. You keep up with that at all mr. Maltz the they have total control the borders of their making money on all those young kids is dancing kids and thats why i commented before because of his and assaults on these Young Children that make the journey to the United States for one thing i would add secretary mayorkas did say the fentanyl overdose is the single greatest challenge that we have in america. My question to everybody is why would you reverse the policies that were working before to keep that stuff out to keep those people out. Its the operatives that are all over country running the business of collecting money of pushing poised on the streets. They have total control control. Is the problems so insignificant that it embarrasses you to be the law . Thats your answer and i yield back. The gentleman yield to men now recognize mr. Thank you mr. Chair. And thank you to the witnesses who are here today. Two months ago the dea confirmed the interception of a massive shipment of over 50 kilograms of fentanyl traffic stop in my city of detroit. Think about this for a minute. A fatal dose is only two milligrams. If you look at 20 milligrams, 50 kilograms seizure of fentanyl and if i do quick math here that 20 kilograms is enough to kill 10 million people. Thats almost the entire population of my state of michigan. Let me clarify, this deadly drug finds its way to my district because there is a need an unattended the path of destruction waiting for them. That is the root cause of this fentanyl crisis. Demand for open rates. My message to my republican colleagues is that the Opioid Epidemic does not begin or is it aimed at our borders. This is not a border crisis. It is a Public Health crisis. We need to focus on health care and by doing so we not only save lives but also disrupt the profitability of the cartel. We can their operations by helping those trapped in this grip of addiction. Dr. Can you describe how demand for these drugs to what Cartel Operations while saving lives . Thank you. I said in the beginning of my testimony focusing on treatment is absolutely critical. This is indeed what will save lives. Both on the u. S. At the border and internationally we want to minimize flow into the United States and also because objective should be dismantling the Drug Trafficking however expanding access to ensure so more more people in the states would get treatment for topping the smartest most proof and evidencebased approaches so that people are not dependent on sourcing illicit drugs on the market is crucial. With that of very important almond of that is also keeping the underlying cost which is still significant overprescription of legal opioid and i want to go back to emphasize another point for my testimony pharmacies in mexico are brickandmortar buildings that look like any pharmacy for selling all kinds of drugs including fentanyl and meth laced drugs to International Tourists and they need to be shut down. Thank you. My understanding is that is working to expand its Public Health initiative to combat the fentanyl epidemic. And you view this as a necessary step . The biden demonstrations deserves enormous credit for policy and terms of Public Health. Significant progress has been made. The u. S. Congress recognizes a much smarter and much wiser strategy such as the availability of medications for overdose. Thank you and mr. Chairman i yield back. Hegemony of the man now recognize mr. Menendez. Thank you very much. In september the 11th of 2001 killed around 3000 americans and we went 7000 miles and waged war for 20 years because 3000 americans were killed. 70,000 americans are being killed every single year by fentanyl and we are doing nothing about it. I had the director of the fbi sitting in chair and i asked him do you think that we should be labeling cartel is a multinational . He said its a technicality. While they are and they are killing us. We have lost close 60,000 people in vietnam in 10 years of war. This is killing 70,000 americans every single year and they are right across the border. So my question to you mr. Jones is this predo believe the Biden Administration policies have strengthened the cartels . Yes sir i know they have. Do you believe that by strengthening the cartels we are not only destabilize the entire states of america there were also helping to do stabilize mexico . Yes. That is the problem. I do not believe in going to war with the cartels. Those are dark network spread that way we win against them as fullspectrum operations, leveraging powerful u. S. Intelligence agencies, Law Enforcement operations. How you go after the cartel as a network will be to many others. These networks are different. We have to fight in the future it differently than we have in the past reflex i agree we also need to change our policy so the migrants who are coming through, who think they can get into the United States, they are paying their passage prides them of that revenue and makes them weaker, is that correct . It does. You need to understand east cartels are global. You hear all the time but i was making billions of dollars off the Human Trafficking of people. That is absolutely true theyre making more than they are off of drugs. When you look at them in the totality today look at how the new generation has risen so quickly so fast. They began moving their narcotics overseas to europe, russia, and australia. Making hundreds of thousands of dollars literally 1 kilo at one time in a story was 180,000. This is why the rice is so massive. What are you always told by the socalled experts . These cartels if you legalize it will all go away. Look at what has happened to us. X you are right this is not a simple simple simple answer to the problems we face in the United States. But we need to view them as adversaries. We need to view them as people that are killing americans. 70000 a year. Look i was in the streets of miami i am a paramedic, that is my craft for the 70s and 80s i responded to overdoses left and right all of the time. And overdoses with open is the but they were not laced with this poison. This poison hooks them. Makes it much more addictive and then it kills us. We have to do something about it but the Biden Administration is doing is not doing very much to protect the american lives. That is the duty of governments for the duty of government is to protect the lives of american citizens. And in this respect the Biden Administration and this secretary is failing miserably. Much has been said about the decrease in the number of migrants that are coming to the border now. And maybe it was but the number that i got in february 2020 only 36000 migrants were encountered at the border. Now we are looking at 100,000 as being a good number print 150,000 being a good number it is an utter disaster what is happening at the border for its utter disaster was happening at the border and one final thoughts my colleagues across the aisle think everything can be resolved by throwing money at it. And it cannot. In this case the best think we can do is change the policies. And by changing the policies you will diss incentivize the migrants coming into the United States, deprive the cartels of the money they get from them and then we start focusing in on destroying the cartels which are the source of the fence and out which is killing 7000 americans every single year end i yield back recruit the judgment yields. Without objection the title of the testimony submitted for that for thetestimony has to be stri. The wording of that title makes an accusation against the president and the secretary that they are accomplices to crime and we have to strike that. So without objection of the title of that testimony is stricken and we will move to the next question i now recognize for five minutes break works thank you chairman. The American People want us to Work Together in a bipartisan way to solve the nations problems and to strengthen our security. But instead were here for yet another episode of impeachment theater. The latest installment in House Republicans plans to impeach someone, anyone from the Biden Administration. And it is disappointing for the facts do not support it. The premise of the argument and we all know where its headed. The premise of the argument is Something Like this. That secretary and President Biden are breaking the law because they are not attempting to stop transnational criminal activity of the border. But unfortunate for my colleagues the facts are not on their side. Here is just a sample of the actions he Biden Administration have taken to combat Transnational Criminal Organizations of the border. In 2021 secretary launched operation sentinel a collaborative enter Agency Effort to disrupt logistical networks of criminal organizations but also in 2021 the administration launching joint Task Force Alpha to enhance against smuggling and trafficking groups operating in mexico and in the northern tranquil countries. December 2021, President Biden issued executive order 14060 establishing the United States council on transnational organized crime. The executive order outline policy in the United States combat and establish a counsel to monitor the production implementation of coordinated strategic plans to do just that. Last Year Congress passed and President Biden signed legislation to increase funding or order it security, for Better Technology for more Border Patrol agents. In almost every case our republican colleagues who were there last year voted against this legislation. The issue the Biden Administration launched Operation Blue lotus enter agency surges of operations to seize narcotics investigate crimes and investigate dangerous individuals associated. In just two months those operations sees nearly 10,000 pounds of fentanyl and more than 10,000 pounds of other narcotics like cocaine, and methamphetamines for the last week alone Operation Blue lotus opportunity for people on benzyl charges. I can keep going. Secretary mayorkas lodge operation artemis to target precursor chemicals and finished substances involved in fentanyl. Secretary of state blinken who some of our colleagues are also trying to impeach organized a ministerial meeting of more than 80 countries to launch a Global Coalition to address synthetic drug threats a worldwide effort led by the unites states to disrupt fentanyl supply chain. In april to buy Administration Justice department announced charges against 28 cartel leaders. And of course most importantly the expiration of Donald Trumps title 42 policy, illegal border crossings are down or than 50 . That is on President Bidens watch. So it listen we can all have our own opinions about the administration is doing a good job or not. Everyone is entitled to those opinions. But if your core argument is the by demonstrations breaking the law by not trying to disrupt the facts do not support it. We are going to keep having this debate apparently for months to come but that is the central point. And heres what all was done she. Even though the president and his administration have taken numerous actions to address the challenges at the border detaining short criminals, seizing drugs some of our colleagues are bent on impeaching a cabinet secretary for the first time in a 150 years. For some this is been the plan all along. House or republicans first introduce articles of impeachment against secretary trent 22 years ago that id only been in office for couple of months. They have been gushing to their donors about behind closed doors before they even took control of the house and before any of these investigations even began for even though there is no legal basis. So, look, the American People want us to Work Together, to secure the border on a bipartisan basis. There are things we could be doing week should invest in technology and personnel pride we should strengthen our relationships with allies in the region who are key partners in this fight. We can reform the immigration system and make it more orderly. We can finally do something about the flow of illegal guns across the border from United States to mexico which is a part of this problem that her colleagues dont ever want to talk about. But in order for us to move forward in a productive way, impeachment theater has to stop so that we can get to work for the American People and i yield back. Whats a judgment yields i now recognize ms. Lee from florida for five minutes. Think it mr. Chairman. I would like to return to your testimony. You touched on a subject i think is a very important aspect of what we are here to discuss today and that is Human Trafficking and how the policies are affecting women and girls and children who are being trafficked. Specifically you use the phrase in your opening that these kids go into hhs Assembly Line few questions being asked for a bike to focus a bit there. Is it correct or not that when that happens we see numerous incidents of children who are put into placements in homes that proved to be unsafe. Absolute yes. There are a number of instances for example girls have been placed with older men and what is clearly an exploitative situation. There are kids who have been turned over to labor traffickers. There are kids who get turned over to gang members. There are kids who gets placed into domestic servitude and other forms of abuse is quite horrific. Weve also seen cases where this happen even in my own state the children themselves are not screened that can pose a danger inappropriate circumstance for a host family is that also correct . Yes. There are problems at some of the shelter sometimes. Incidents of predatory behavior on the other kids who are house there. There is a case in jacksonville where the ledge and a minor who turned out to be 24 years old because Border Patrol is not able to really screen people, murdered his sponsor. In your opinion after children are placed in these sponsor homes is there an adequate level of followup and supervision that is occurring by hhs . Absolutely not. Theres almost no supervision or followup that goes on. These standards that they have for not only placements, but also post Placement Services are weight way inferior to the procedures every state in the union uses for foster care order to adopt a cat sponsor an unaccompanied minor because there are rarely background checks. Note financial assessments, Biden Administration has stopped doing a background check other people in the household to make sure simply would not be tolerated in foster care. You also mention roughly a ma quarter of the trafficking victims were children. Would you tell us a little bit more that patterns affecting young people and children coming to this country . What happens is the smugglers either convince the parents of these kids that they will have a better life in the United States surpass a down payment on that now and the child will make enough money to be able to go to school or some other tale, to get the parents to release the kids who when they get to the United States are often released to a sponsor who turns out to be a trafficker or put directly into trafficking situations. Sometimes forced labor trafficking, sometimes commercial sex, sometimes domestic servitude, but the child is isolated from their family members, in complete control of the people who have custody of them. There is no monitoring of the situation by the federal government that put them in the situation, there is very little opportunity for seeing whats going on in some of these workplaces, to rescue the kids. It is a lot of hear no evil see no evil, there must not be any evil, deliberately looking the other way at what is happening. I want to return to derek maltz. You used a phrase that i think is important, the distinction you make as someone who spent so many years with dea, the distinction is between drug traffickers which is something weve seen for many decades across the southern border but you used the phrase narco terrorists. Explains was distinction between a drug trafficker and a narco terrorist. Drug traffickers in the business to make money only. The cartels, weve known them as drug traffickers but they have evolved, Drug Trafficking has transitioned, they are narco terrorists, look at the death and destruction they are doing in that country. When i was head of special operations i kept on my phone the greatest hits of the violence in mexico with the heads, the decapitations, chopping off limbs, throwing people in acid. They had a guy called the stew maker, would drop 300 people in acid pit so they were never found. Thats why in mexico today there are so many disappearances. They dont want to put that out because it will deter tourism in mexico but these cartels, jason reports on an every week or two, they have tanks, rockets, drones drop explosive. Thats another thing that makes me concerned as a citizen, great men and women on border, what happens if they drop the explosives on our own people, these guys have evolved to the point, multibillion dollar enterprise, they have plenty of money, no rules, no bureaucracy so i am concerned about the evolution the lack of the way we deal with it. I yelled back. I now recognize mister ivey. I appreciate it. A lot of ground to cover. With respect to the impeachment issues, weve got two tracks of things going on, one is there is an impeachment track thats pretty obvious, dereliction of duty language details exactly what screens hs 598. Had his article on to impeach President Biden and so we know thats part of what is going on. But the fact that you all are here as a panel, i have questions i want to ask, you may have differing views but i want to try to figure out some of the things that are going on because we have a duty to try and address the problems weve got. Jessica vaughan, you mentioned prince georges county, one of the groups we prosecute was ms 13, we did a joint prosecution with the us attorney at the time who later ended up being Donald Trumps Deputy Attorney general. A lot of the stuff they were doing is a lot like some of the things we are talking about now, the Human Trafficking, prostitution up and down the coast, the enforcers, the money at all of that. I want to come to you at some point too. I do wonder about some of the differences that seem to be there. And derek maltz touched on this. In the old days, i put myself in that category, the sale of drugs, they were not trying to kill their customers, they would sell addictive drugs, cocaine, heroin, whatever but they werent necessarily killing them off. Fentanyl seems fundamentally different to me in the sense that it is extremely addictive, but also the fatality rates are incredibly high. One of the things id like to figure out if we get a chance to move to a hearing on that front would be why that changed in the business model. Mister jones, i want to get might have to ask for a response, im almost halfway through my time. Mister jones, to you, you made a couple references to essentially military action is the way you phrased it. More authority and more tools beyond Law Enforcement was one and your last answer you gave a few minutes ago you mentioned explicitly wanting to have a military get involved to push back against the cartels. I will pause for this answer. What do you have in mind on that front . What im talking about is the tools of National Power. Our system by design moves how we want under the fourth amendment. What exactly . Military involvement if we go beyond the investigative model we go after their assets and their money real time. It allows us to limit the mobility globally around the world just to mexico. You cant get on aircraft or boats and third it allows us to remove them who were here on visas because most of you would be stunned, they have the money for visas. It puts speed in the system it gives us tools, now we go after the network. I dont know that you need the military to do any of those things. Thats part of justice does that currently, but we can discuss that at another time. I also had a question too, derek maltz mentions working with china and i think mexico. At a previous hearing, cant remember if it was mr. Higgins or mr. Bishop we had someone at i want to say it was the white house that also said the importance of getting involved with china especially locking the amounts of precursors coming out of china and going to mexico because when the relationship between the United States and china broke off a few years ago china stopped enforcing the exportation of precursors that led to the explosion of availability of that in mexico and that witnesss thought was part of the answer was going to be that we need to work with china to address that was with respect to mexico im running out of time but mister jones, you mentioned another issue which was money. You are the first witness ive heard in one of these hearings to say more money is in the issue. Those guys talk about we need more agents, more drones, everything really because they are outgunned in a variety of ways. I will get that from you later on. I would ask unanimous consent to offer a couple articles. How to stop the Mexican Cartels, supply them with guns which was the point you made, mr. Jones, on bidens border policy, critics both left and right are wrong, southern border eerily quiet after policy shift on asylum. Without objection so ordered. I now recognize mr. Garbarino from new york. Thank you for the witnesses for being here today. Mr. Jones, 2,020 one Border Security metrics report, dhs documented an increase in alternative forms of payment in exchange for migrants being required to participate in smuggling controlled substance or other illicit items across the border or to work off debts upon arrival in the United States as well as reports of harsh negotiations concerning payment plans for family members. Talk about the prevalence of debt bondage and how the cartels are using those to smuggle and traffic into the country . The gulf cartel has a saying that the gift that keeps giving his people because they can make them move as a commodity. Weve seen out on the border, making migrants carry narcotics. Weve seen where they have been exploited, weve seen where other migrants are being used to transport migrants themselves because you can truly make this commodity do what you wanted to do. What these really represent, most important to understand, this is a process because just as Border Patrol was being overwhelmed with these people, so were the cartels. They had to come up with a process that worked. You are seeing it, theres a number on each of these and youve got something here you can see. That number goes into a database. If at the time we broke the story, if you were a mexican citizen, 2,500 across the river in south texas, Central America, 3,000, if you are chinese, 5 grand and if you were russian or middle eastern, 9,000. Ive never seen money like that ever. Always 100 if that. Now think of this. Now these people are moved throughout our nation but they are indebted to these people for years if not decades to come in a foreign country. This is where we really are now. You talked about lower numbers but these higher numbers and the amount of people is relatively a new phenomenon . It is. The smuggling of people, the adjustment from smuggling into trafficking through debt bondage because of the sheer numbers they thought to themselves we can make so much money and do it for the long run. This is the game plan. When you think of Human Trafficking most people think of commercial sex. Thats one piece of it, forced labor, this is your final form. It is nationwide. I want to continue with the process. In 2021 you said i can without any doubt tell you the profits they are making today are like nothing weve seen prior to major revenue streams. How those processes increased and how much do you think the cartels are making annually on Human Trafficking and smuggling alone. We dont know what the exact amounts are. This will go on for decades which we will be dead and gone before we clean this up but i can tell you there will not be a Law Enforcement agency in this country that will be doubling down on the threat we are facing from trafficking as a result of what secretary mayorkas, the architect behind these changes. When he took power and created the 3 exemptions under title 42 allowing uacs, unaccompanied alien children into the country, pregnant mothers to come into the country and family units, this was the Game Changing moment and it is validated by the data if you just look at cvp when these people came pouring across the country. You said went from 100 to 3000 up to 9000. Just at the river. Nevermind what country of origin you came from. Right now if you are chinese across from china to ecuador and make your way, charging 30,000 a head, moving 35 at a time, the cartel literally takes all your id before they let them into the us and drop it on the nightside so when it comes across it holds a Border Patrol so they can move weapons south and as much commodities. The last 21 2 years the cartels have increased immensely. Agreed. How are these profits giving the cartels more power to make them more dangerous . Look at monetary grade weaponry they are using, the level and span of control in mexico. Mexico, the people of mexico have taken the blunt of this. They have lost 340,000 citizens since 2007. In the last National Election there was 132 politicians and staffers killed. Anybody can move them. Mexico has truly fallen to these cartels. When i tell you they are a parallel government you are truly looking at a narco state. The problem is when youre killing journalists in mexico and they cant get the information out, this is why we are so far behind what these cartels are doing and why we are feeling the impact in every part of this nation. If you could respond in writing about whats happening because of the cartels, thank you. The gentleman yields. I recognize Mister Jackson lee of texas. Kind enough to yield to this next individual. You are recognized. Thank you. Thank you, chairman and Ranking Member thompson. Weve been here in hour and 1 2 and i want to thank you for this hearing. This hearing should be shedding light on the pressing issues surrounding immigration policies. What is causing migration and how to make sure their children we talk about, children the are killed for cared for. We continue to politicize and issue both sides need to address which is Immigration Reform. I want to get back to why we are here today. The American People expect us to do our job to solve the problem. They expect us to have unbiased people who are witnesses here and provide us an opportunity to shed light on how to move forward. As i think about the hearing now and hearing the witnesses i think about last year how a horrific domestic terror attack at a new york supermarket, my colleagues across the aisle offered up their thoughts and prayers but no action to address racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism. Its not lost on me that before murdering ten people at the supermarket last year the shooter wrote, quote, we are experiencing an invasion on a level never seen before in history. However, the shooter believed he was repelling an invasion of the United States by immigrants from latin america. Does that sound familiar . Derek maltz said i know whats going on in america. So let me ask you, do you support the assertion that the United States is experiencing a historic invasion by immigrants . That is a yes or no question . Illegal immigrants yes or no. Yes. You believe we are experiencing a historic invasion of immigrants. Yes. Despite knowing the pittsburgh shooter justified his actions based on the idea of an immigrant invasion to replace white people, despite knowing invasion ideology was used to justify the shootings in buffalo you continue to spout the great replacement. Extremist ideology that people like me, when my mother crossed the border pregnant with me dont deserve to be here because we are invading the country . Mister chairman, this hearing is not a factfinding mission, it is a raw political sham to stoke fear and it will continue to justify violence against immigrant communities and i find that unacceptable. This bodys job is to address the problem in our country, not to spew more hate. That is what we should be focusing on, legislative solutions. Not divisive distraction and prioritizing the expansion of resources for immigrant communities and Immigration Reform. That is how you address Public Safety. Let me end by saying let us direct our efforts towards meaningful action that upholds our values and ensures the security and wellbeing of all of us regardless of immigration status. That is the america of that i know and the america that i love. I yelled back. I now recognize mister ezell. I know theres a lot going on and we appreciate your time. Ive spent 42 years in police service, three terms here and enjoyed every day and i can tell you, the safety and security of people has always been on my mind, my home state of mississippi and across the nation. I want to be clear the Biden Administrations open border catch and release policy, cartel crime is transitioning from a border issue to a national issue. Every state is a border state. Border patrol agents have arrested 30,000 illegal aliens with criminal backgrounds since President Biden took office. This is a staggering number. It is not even considering the illegal aliens with criminal backgrounds that have evaded Border Patrol and entered the country illegally. Mister jones, and your estimation how mcconnells, gang members and suspected terrorists are now in the United States among the one. 5 million got aways that have evaded Border Patrol agents . We have no idea, the border is so wide open. What threats to these individuals posted communities not just at the border but throughout this country . Everything from terrorism to the unprecedented amounts of deaths from fentanyl and many other drugs crossing the southern border. Derek maltz, we know cartels are the leading, and organizations that manufacture and distribute illegal fentanyl in our country. Over the past three years Border Patrol has seized 45,000 pounds of fentanyl, enough to kill 10 billion people. Most of it has been seized at ports of entry on the border. However, the sheer amount of this drug on our streets shows the ports of entry arent the full story. Can you walk the committee through how cartels are using mayorkass open border at ports of entry where there is little infrastructure stopping them, to smuggle these drugs into our country . They are making billions of dollars so funding is not an issue and they are flooding the zones, sending massive amounts of migrants to serve areas where they know Border Patrol has looted resources and using the open border area to smuggle in unlimited amount of people, unlimited amount of drugs and bringing the weapons south and the money south so it is basically they are taking full advantage of the vulnerabilities and weaknesses and Border Patrol out there and they dont have a personnel, they dont have enough people in certain sectors. Obviously this document, i deliver the attached this into the record, is all the news stories around america, headline news, all the mass poisonings. That the ultimate impact when the cartels have such control at the border to send their people into america to set up operations and move this poison all over the place. Do you believe a border wall would deter the flow of fentanyl in this country . Yes because the border wall would force everybody to go into the poes where we put the best and brightest resources and technology and do a much more thorough search. We wouldnt have to worry about manpower running around the open border trying to chase people down, one or 2 guys, its very very dangerous to be out there when you dont have the manpower. I prefer to focus everybody into the doe, that wont solve the problem but it will help and that is what we are looking to do. What we heard today is completely irresponsible, President Biden since his first day in office signed an executive order pausing border wall construction. 70,000 fentanyl deaths in america are attributed to this open border policy. I will not stop working with you to protect our nations families and i yelled back. The gentleman yields. The gentleman yields. I recognize Mister Jackson lee from texas for five minutes. Ive been in this command watched chairman green and chairman thompson work very well together on a number of issues. They have shown themselves to be respectful of each other. For them i say thank you. Ive had the ability to monitor what has been going on in this room and i frankly believe problems dont get solved by castigating and making incorrect statements. Also a 28 year history in this congress and have been involved with the issue of immigration for at least that long a period of time, the Judiciary Committee, member of the subcommittee, chair of the transportation Security Committee, ranking chair of the border Security Committee and as a texan have been to the border many times. I do believe that we can do this and solve the problem of Immigration Reform together. What i also know is at least the border in texas, there are many on the border who dont want a border wall because of its intrusiveness. In addition, because of topography and design the border wall sometimes is not effectively put in the right place to create any kind of criminal incident. After title 42, we found statistically as answered by those at cbp, customs and Border Protection, and the Border Patrol, the numbers have gone down. It is clear that we have work to do together on those that are coming across. It is clear that not one american no matter what their Party Affiliation abhors cartels, violence and viciousness and will come together to work on that issue, but it does no good for any of us to suggest that the president of the United States, the secretary of Homeland Security, are the only reasons for migration which i take offense and it is wrong, frankly. Migration is a worldwide concern. Some would say problem, others would say crisis. People desperate be come even if it is for their economic goodness, and they argue something else. We well know that immigrants contribute 1. 3 trillion in spending power to the economy, not one person in this room was an indigenous person in the United States of america. Your ancestors came from somewhere. Mine came unwillingly in bondage but it is clear to me that we have to find a better way. Let me raised this question and quickly do so. In 2018 the nation was horrified when its mystic terrorist shot down 11 worshipers at the tree of life synagogue in pittsburgh. Before going on this rampage the shooter shared a manifesto alleging that, quote, we Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society likes to bring invaders in the kill our people. I cant sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Two weeks before that he called immigrants hostile invaders on social media. Jessica vaughan, do you believe theres a flood of immigrant invaders at the southern border who are slaughtering victims in American Communities . This is a yes or no answer. No. They are taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the current policies. You have answered no. Let me say this. In your testimony on page 8 you say theres a flood on the border, these careless policies created for the new victims in American Communities all of which were preventable crimes. On the issue of your partisan extremism goes beyond your testimony today. You alleged the tragic murder of a man in florida was another casualty due to open borders and before that on january 2019 you laid blame for the murder of a Police Officer in San Joaquin Valley at the feet from democrats border weakening and centauri policies which i find this very dangerous because we need to come together as americans, to be able to work, not name call but to say none of us wanted those kind of incidents which how dare you say and of us would want to have an officer killed a family killed. It is untenable. Neither does the chairman, the secular, the secretary, let me move quickly to something thats very important. I would appreciate it if you would allow me to do that. I happen to be someone who knows barriers that can be utilized in certain ways, being a texan and i also know that we need to stop penalizing nonprofits for trying to help persons so that cities wouldnt have to put persons somewhere because of nonprofits but let me raise this i want to applaud a dps officer who is on duty today in texas who became a whistleblower to ask the question why is State Government and lone star efforts causing immigrants to die in the water, causing a pregnant woman to miscarry over the raised water and the boys that are there forcing them to go into deeper water, why a mother lost her life, her childs life and another child missing, why are 4yearold was denied water, this is the words of a dps whistleblower on staff today. The question would be to all of you as i asked the question, this is not america and Border Patrol agents saying the razor wire creating a difficult situation for them because sworn officers of the United States of america are sworn to protect these people even as they send them back and they are going into deeper water to save lives. The gentle ladys time is expired. Im putting that on the record because i want an investigation. These are not governmental witnesses, but witnesses who came to share their stories but i want an investigation. Can i respond to that . Im taking control back, the gentle ladys times expired. Mr. Desposito is recognized. The gentleman is not on staff at this point. I would like to yield 30 seconds to mr. Jones. Im the only one sitting in this room that has been exactly where those accusations were made. On my phone ive got video of what the men and women of Law Enforcement at local, state and Texas Department of Public Safety and National Guard are going through. Hundreds of people three miles from the closest port of entry are being crossed by the cartels. To say the men and women of dps are throwing babies into the river is absolute absurd, that they would do that. The gentleman is recognized. I did not mr. Desposito, you reclaimed your time. The name of this hearing, biden and mayorkass quote, advancing cartel crime in america. Ive heard it described as a sham. Ive heard it described as theater. I heard it described as a complete waste of time. It is beyond explanation. People are dying and crimes are being committed. How is that a sham, how is that theater, hows any of that a waste of time . I want to thank all of you for being here today. I want to thank you for your service in Law Enforcement. I too spent a career in Law Enforcement and retired from the nypd as a detective. There is no doubt, there is a crime crisis in America Thanks in part to the dereliction of duty of secretary mayorkass wideopen southwest border. I ask all of you a yes or no question, do you believe the Biden Administration app soft on crime policies such as efforts to limit Law Enforcement access to surplus federal government and the restrictions on federal grant dollars to Police Departments worsened our nations crime crisis . Mister jones yes or no . Years. Mccaul . Yes. Yes or no . So i have heard this also mentioned, that we should be thankful that the numbers have fallen to such a low level. They are not low. They are still thousands upon thousands of people coming to this country illegally and thousands and thousands more that we dont even know about. Quite frankly it is like celebrating a category 3 hurricane instead of a category 4 hurricane. It is absurd. I want to focus on the Law Enforcement for second. Mr. Jones, what are the main consequences for local Law Enforcement of increased Cartel Activity in their jurisdictions. Completely overrun on the southwest border. If you go to arizona and sit back with sheriff mark lam. I am embedded with his Law Enforcement agency. Do you realize one out of every 10 traffic stops that man is making in his personnel are in pursuits, 70 miles into the country on interstate 10. These agencies are overrun, the depalma to Public Safety spent 9 billion from the state legislature to try to operate between ports of entry because we are overrun with crime. Do you believe Law Enforcement for about this country faces more threats of violence because of the open borders . Absolutely and i know that requiring record levels at the executive leadership level because they cant take it anymore, the mixed messages are overwhelming. You dont believe that it just happened to happen . I just know that i talk to people every day who are leaving Law Enforcement because morality at the lowest level because it is. Because of failed leadership like this. Youve served in leadership capacities in Law Enforcement. Have ever and would you ever make a decision that would put any of your officers endanger . Never. Thats why were here today, we are talking about cartels, crime thats being committed and we are talking about secretary mayorkas and his their election of duty because he made policies and carried out policies that have put people in danger, put Law Enforcement in danger. I only have 40 seconds left. What are the broader impacts on first responders, Law Enforcement, fire service . Because of the cartel along the border . If you could do 10 seconds apiece . Completely overrun. When you look at south texas you have Texas Troopers who have been deployed for 2 and half years, 12,000 plus texas National Guard been completely overrun and overwhelmed. The criminals dont fear any repercussions of their actions because they are not being held accountable. Exactly, so what we are seeing here today, answering the question to this hearing so its not a sham. Its not theater. Its not a waste of time. Its omission to make this homeland, our homeland, the United States of america safer for our children and grandchildren. I yelled back. The gentleman euros. I recognize mister menendez of new jersey. We can all agree that Mexican Cartels pose a direct threat to us interests. We can all agree we need to fight the scourge of fentanyl in this country, we can also agree that this body in the United States government should prioritize addressing these issues. Todays hearing has not been a serious discussion of ways to protect American Families from Cartel Activities or fentanyl traffic. How can we engage in good faith discussions of border policies when this committees majority is using this committee to arrive at a predetermined destination, the impeachment of secretary mayorkas, destination they said publicly and behind closed doors they are set oning. No matter what the facts are in the administration has done, when witnesses confirm what the majority already be leaves instead of engaging in actual fact finding. Jessica vaughan works for the center for Immigration Studies, correct . Yes. Yes or no, did you speak at an event organized by the social Contract Press . Yes or no . Yes or no . Yes or no . You were able to have answer other questions and yes or no fashion, yes or no . Did you appear excuse me, mr. Chairman i am just asking your question. As one reclaims his time. Did you appear alongside an editor of chronicles magazine . Repeat please. Do you appear alongside another of chronicles magazine yes or no . Not that i know of . Did you give an interview to the American Free press . Never heard of it. Never heard of the American Free press, never done work with the American Free press. Im reclaiming my time. It is important that we rely on the organization you work for and the organization i believe you have either worked for or appeared alongside. The center for Immigration Studies has been labeled in antimigrant hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The social Contract Press and White Nationalist publisher has been labeled designated hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center crime the magazine with strong neoconfederate ties that caters to the White Nationalist movement and according to the Antidefamation League the American Free press is an antisemitic newspaper founded by a holocaust denier. On the day congress welcomed the israeli president to address us we have someone who has contributed to an antisemitic newspaper founded by a holocaust denier. A witness makes 9 assertions in her written testimony about the administrations policies, assertions the majority will likely rely on to further their cause for the impeachment of secretary mayorkas, yet only two citations were provided for those nine assertions, both of which were provided by the center for Immigration Studies where you work. Again an organization that has been labeled in antimigrant hate group. I also think it is important that we discussed some of these issues through the lens of our values. Members of the majority along with our witnesses have mentioned their concern for the safety of migrants. You contended the it ministration policies expose migrants to abuse by the cartels. Im glad you recognized the difficult journey migrants face. Immigrants traveled to the United States by any means they can in search of a better life for their families including on foot for hundreds if not thousands of miles and during exposure to injury and almost along the way. That is why it is unconscionable to me that you go out of your way to praise what Governor Abbott of texas has done. You saying your testimony to the extent there is any improvement at all is most likely due to efforts by the state of texas to physically block the entry points such as by controlling the Rio Grande River, installing razor wire and buoys. Im sure many of us are reports about how texas is telling their medics and he propped of Public Safety to treat migrants inhumanely. Theres been a soaring heatwave in the southwest yet medics have been told not to give out water. Governor abbott made crossing the Rio Grande River a more dangerous and deadly proposition by adding buoys and razor wire you allude to in your testimony including areas of the river with high water and low visibility. This includes a story of a 19yearold woman trapped in the liar who was having a miscarriage. 5 immigrants were drowned in one period in the area near where this wire was installed. Wheres the humanity for these people . Where is your outrage when you hear these stories . What are you doing to change the outcome for the people trying to get to this country, our country to live their American Dream for the betterment of their families, wheres your outrage when they have to encounter these conditions trying to get her to seek asylum . I yelled back. The gentle yields. I recognize becheen. I would like to yield 30 seconds to jessica vaughan. I am outraged. I cannot imagine a more inhumane policies and one that entices vulnerable migrants to turn over their life savings, their families, their kids to, all smuggling organizations because they believe they will be allowed to stay in this country and end up in debt bondage and other horrific situations and im saddened members feel the need to distract from this horrific treatment of people by impugning my motives, insulting me, repeating lies about me to distract from a horrible problem. I testified at a hearing a year ago miss jackson we held, she brought in three survivors of Human Trafficking. A very well done hearing. We heard their stories, they were great. This is a real issue, a real atrocity that is occurring at our border. And to act like this was some kind of political stunt is so shame. If i may reclaim my time. Lets talk about the difference of where weve come in two years. Historic lows of illegal immigration, historic lows by the person at the helm who enacts laws, in response to we the people, historic lows of illegal immigration. Now we have the most illegal immigration in our countrys history. Decisions matter. Lack of leadership on this front matters. People are losing their lives, children are being sold into the sex traffic slave trade because of decisions that are being made. In 2022 Human Trafficking arrest have increased 50 . . 72 of trafficking victims are immigrants. Now mr. Jones, a minute ago you talked about something we have to be concerned about, the cartel coming into the United States, the new marble. I want you to respond to the fact that you set a minute ago, how many politicians were killed in mexico in the last National Election . There were some great reporting on this, one hundred 32 including staffers. Are they coming to a state near you q card are cartels richer and more powerful because of this administration . President bidens decision and secretary mayorkass decision, are they more powerful and richer today . This is a whole new scheme that has resulted in them getting richer. Are they more powerful in america because of decisions made by the executives in america, debt bondage, we hear about debt bondage, 30,000, coming from china, the cartel is charging, come into this country, and they will apply the tactics of employment but prostitution to repay that debt. In every form you can think of they will require the use people and when they paid it they will say they did something wrong and they owe another 10,000 because thats what they can do. They know where their families are in their country of origin and where they are going in our country. It is all right here in the numbers. Im concerned about the Biden Administration, many of us are, their policy of unaccompanied alien children and it is run by the department of health and Human Services so some of you have some great insight on that, fraudulent use of the program, children being trafficked, abused, sold into the sex trade. I want to ask what do you know about children that have been involved in the sex trade because of the Program Implementation . In many cases their lives are ruined. In some cases it happens because they get trade on when they are in shelters in places like san antonio or new york or chicago that are overrun by themselves. Is this administration making sure that those children who may be forced to say they are related, making sure that they verify that and what changed, not making sure that of that . Previously the policy was that no child would be released without a certain level of response does that include dna tests . Dna testing was done at the border because there was a problem. Was that changed under this administration . Is this administration complicit in children forced to claim they are related and sort sold into sex trade and done dna analysis and this administration is undermining that . Cartels and smugglers are thrilled the dna testing policies have been abandoned because its easy for them now to kidnap and use children to assist illegal aliens in crossing. The gentlemans time is expired. I recognize miss titus. In turn to the record briefly. Ask miss titus to introduce them. Texas trooper, migrants on the mexico border, the washington post, these are not my words, they are the words of the texas trooper. Without objection, so ordered. Cartel members are thrilled, how thrilled they are about this. Thats a rhetorical question. I sit here one more time and listen to one more hearing trying to attack the secretary, trying to attack the president , talking about the border with inflammatory titles like the open border, advancing cartel crime, we have domestic terrorism, antisemitism, asian hatred, cybersecurity, all of them being ignored and all those things are serious problems. Its easy to point a finger at one person and say its his problem for being a bad manager but if you look at the issue from a historical and economic standpoint you will find it is much more complicated than that. You can look at the complex history of central and south america, our currently strained relationship with mexico, the broken immigration system we dont seem able to fix. We can look at the power of the cartels and their use at every level using guns theyve mostly gotten from across the border and selling drugs to people in the us because they have customers here, we have decades long Opioid Crisis and no agreement on border policy. We hear from some members of the border what we need, hear from whatever your sources are, that it is all management. Lets look at this. I would ask you, you mentioned in your report that theres a difference between the way cartels work in mexico and when they come to the United States and that can be credited to our Law Enforcement doing a good job. They dont raise villages here. We have a Good Relationship with mexico on this front like we do on some other diplomatic fronts. Could you talk a little bit about how we could improve that relationship so we can jointly go after these cartels . Several years ago the Us Government and the Mexican Government established a policy of basic understanding, the notion of shared responsibility across the republican administration, and although the notion, the Mexican Government, significantly and we can see during the administration at profound following out. Theres adopting policies in mexico enabling their lack of response, difficult to see how this could be changed, with administrations in mexico. Its clear that any kind of effective policy with interest on both sides but this is not happening, the Biden Administration has done its best to induce the cooperation from mexico. I hear from your other Panel Members the way to solve this problem is to get rid of mayorkas and build a wall. Are there other things, more realistic, but we could do to make the situation better . Absolutely. Certainly there are many opportunities to strengthen and address the important dimensions and access to medications such as overdose medication and other medications and Substance Abuse disorders with opportunities to strengthen Law Enforcement action. These include resourcing far better ports of entry and includes expanding the policies, how we tackle cartels so thinking of them as smuggling, drug smuggling, only targeting their many dimensions including access to money, joint task forces that have us Law Enforcement agents and other members so whole of government approach expands the department of defense and opportunities and us fish and wildlife. We also hear that some of the mexican farmers are stealing goods with fentanyl and a lot of american tourists are down there, not the cartels and these retail crimes that often use what they sell on the internet to defund things like trafficking. Thats part of the all of government approach. Absolutely. I yelled back. Gentle lady yields. I recognize mister grain from arizona. Thank you for coming here today. I hear the same thing, i want to echo what my colleague mister desposito was saying, cant help but notice of this is a sham, more impeachment theater, this is the Homeland Security committee. If we are not talking about this i want to know what else we are going to be talking about. We are not talking about trying to hold individuals that are in charge of leadership on Homeland Security accountable. I dont know what else we are talking about. I wish you gentlemen were here yesterday. Some colleagues on the other side were trying to undermine how effective walls and barriers are. It is sad. I spent my life in the military and work in special forces so i understand Security Systems, we talked about deterrence, using trained personnel, technology, barriers, intelligence, all these things overlapping deterrence and Security Systems to secure what you want to secure. It is sad that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle cant even acknowledge the barriers whether it is around their house, their schools, these complexes, whatever it is are affected. Mister jones, i want to ask you about that because you understand security better than the average individual. Do you find individuals that isolate barriers that say they are archaic and ineffective, do you find those individuals serious when it comes to actual security . They dont understand whats taking place. South texas, you can be inside our stash house in a matter of seconds so its not about an electronic wall, it is how fast when you get Law Enforcement personnel there, when you get to arizona for example youve got a lot of space, you still have the challenge. In 2024, 2023, where we are today is not about a detection issue but how you get Law Enforcement to respond before they are picked up or inside the stash house, thats the fundamental problem. These overlapping deterrence help Law Enforcement officials to respond, is that correct . That is correct. Would you agree with that . Absolutely yes. You were talking about classifying cartels as terrorist organizations. Ive heard that argument before. I understand why that argument is being made. I want to ask him what did you watch the videos of the us pulling out of afghanistan . Yes. You watched people hanging from planes . Yes. Did you watch that . Yes and witnessed my brother coming back in a body bag from the war. One of my biggest concerns when we Start Talking about that is it would be the same leadership that was executing that fight against the cartels and that concerns me. Quite honestly i dont trust them to do that job and that is one of the biggest issues that i have and when i hear your thoughts because i know youve done this for a long time, how that would affect how that would affect some of the asylum claims. We have to understand the issue right now that we have with these cartels is about authorities. I dont look to go to war using the military, we have proven in the past working with the marines, driving intelligence led operations but what we didnt do was network theory, we leveraged a Law Enforcement model and it was too slow. It goes after the bosses. You are talking more about using intelligence. Talking about have to use over action at times, surfacetoair missiles over the sierras, youre not flying over there without getting shot down. My last question, the federation for america, Immigration Reform calculated the cost of illegal immigration to be 150. 7 billion to americans. You know how much a border wall would cost, anybody on the panel have an idea . The same groups is 22 billion. Do you think that would be a good investment . I think right now anything regarding money being spent by this committee or any others for the protection of this country, you have to look at the totality of these cartels, providing the authorities we need. That s our real issue. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, i ask unanimous consent to enter this article into the record. I yelled back. Without objection, the article is entered. I now recognize miss green from georgia. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Human trafficking is a one hundred 50 billion a year industry. In 2,020 one, georgia had one of the highest number of cases per capita that were reported through trafficking hotlines mother Northern Area of atlanta is well known as one of the highest places of Human Trafficking of women and children. Women and girls represent approximately 70 one of all trafficking that goes globally. More than 90 of the female victims are trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Approximately one third of all Human Trafficking victims are children. This next sentence is hard to even read. The United States is one of the Top Destinations for Human Trafficking and is among the largest consumers of child sex. The average age of entry into the commercial sex market is 12 years old. In the past few weeks theres been a lot of controversy about a movie called sound of freedom and i cant understand why anyone would say anything negative about a movie that is trying to expose child sex trafficking especially when it involves our United States border. Jessica vaughan, is it a Conspiracy Theory, child sex trafficking a Conspiracy Theory . It is not a Conspiracy Theory. It occurs too much. I have met with and help survivors and heard what they have gone through and to refer to it as a conspiracy is an insult to what they have endured. Is our border a serious issue, the fact that our border is open and the amount of people coming across the border is that contributing to child sex trafficking . Most definitely contributing to the problem of child sex trafficking, forced labor, domestic servitude, debt bondage. Is our Current Administrations border policy contributing to child sex trafficking . They are facilitating it yes. It is happening with more frequency as a result of the policies and lack of enforcement in the interior of the country as well that would help rescue some of these survivors and turn them into survivors as opposed to victims. Thank you. Fentanyl deaths are at an alltime high, 300 americans die every day from fentanyl. Having a top Government Official on the Mexican Cartels payroll helps the cartels operate with impunity moving drugs around the world. Making billions. It cost the cartels as little as 0. 10 to produce the fentanyl laced fake prescription pill since then, for as much as 10, to 30 per pill. Derek maltz, with your experience, is the amount of fentanyl coming across the border at an alltime high . Yes. The greatest drug threat we have ever faced in the history of the country. It is not a drug is a chemical weapon coming out of china just like the k 2 style is seen stylozine that rots from the inside out. I lived this nightmare in 2,008. Fentanyl started coming in around 2012. This is deliberate and based on my experience it is like the afghans used to say, selling heroin to the west is a jihad against america. America. For china they are undermining, they are destroying our country sitting back and using the Mexican Cartels to do the dirty work. I agree with you. And i believe i would ask your opinion as well. With the bite Administration Policy allowing the Mexican Cartel to trafficked the amount of poison fentanyl thats coming across china it is not negligent. Its not that they dont know it is happening for they know its happening but its hard to deny 300 americans dying every single day from fentanyl. What would you agree the bite Administration Policy with the chinese poison fentanyl into the nine states of america . Absolutely look at this little boy three years old from you look at this cute little boy three years old and this is his mother and the coffin here with a kid because of fentanyl and its happening every day all of the country. I deal with the family spirit i dont because thats know because thats that and its very sad the Current Administration overturned strong Homeland Security policies that kept us all safe here thats my passion period. I cant believe this is happening in this great country. I agree with you. It seems Border Security should be our utmost important issue were working on not only to stop child sex trafficking humap trafficking but also to prevent the poison of 300 americans today. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield back. Gentlelady deal spirit i now recognize mr. Garcia for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Just want to also to be clear to review for the hearing, democrats want to solve Drug Trafficking that we want to solve Human Trafficking and any sort of arms trafficking which finds the cartels. What we dont want and what some on this committee are hellbent on doing, dont want to demonize or scapegoat immigrants we are interested resolutions that went along with republican tax on the crusade to launch fake impeachment. Secretary mayorkas. I do have one to start with the question less than a year after the cavelike massacre in pittsburgh which we know killed 11 worshipers, terrorists shot obama in El Paso County 23 people per like the tree of lifr should be for them the murder in a passably displayed in f war to end quote hispanic invasion of ixas. Mr. Jones, yes or no, is there an invasion of texas at the southern border by immigrants. Was no, sir we are now in a new phase. We are a nation overrun. Nation overrun, not no longer invasion . You dont believe theres an invasion . And think were even beyond an invasion. You yourself have on twitter and on numerous occasions said theres an invasion being caused by the u. S. Government similar to the same words that have been said in these horrific shootings, watching the words cause impacts and can be quite dangerous here and across the country. Our country needs responsible leadership, Border Security. Of course democrats agree with that parent i also wanted to clarify the record that more than 90 of hard drugs into the used illegal crossings at ports of entry which continued to be forgotten over and over again for democrats that increase funding. Republicans of course overwhelmingly oppose. We keep hearing over and over again solutions that are not serious which is why we never seem to discuss treatment programs in this community no interest how to help. Which is keep having the same groundhog day hearing over andhe over again blaming migrants for drug crisis that continues to replay itself hearing after hearing. Quickly, good and the od ask eachac of you yes or no for each of you here yes or no solving the fentanyl class must involve addressing not only to supply but also the demand is coming from the United States mr. Jones is that correct . It is and also with a remer where the demand is just a yes or no. You. You have to remember what the cartels have done. Its my time. I asked you for yes or no peer ms. Vaughan is that correct . Well, when speeded do we also have a to fentanyl that they think is adderall. I wouldnt call that demand. So you would not agree used and you estimate is not part of the fentanyl crisis . I think it is part. Thank you. Mr. Maltz spirit absolutely demand is a disaster right now. Thank you. And ms. Felbabbrown . Just. Second question yes or no please. Mr. Jones have you ever received a direct order of the president to standdown or open the border . Have i received a direct order from the present to stand out on the border . No, sir,. Mr. Maltz . No. Miss a ms. Vaughan are f any such orders that ever happened . Mi orders directly from the president. No. Ms. Felbabbrown have you ever heard of that . Thank you very much to also want to just briefly ask about some of the border policies that have been proposed by some of my friends on this committee on the other side. Ms. Felbabbrown do you think would be a good idea to build a water filled trench with alligators along the border, without be helpful in stopping the border crisis . No . Interested. You think of the shot migrants in the leg would stop them from coming over do you think it h would be helpful . No. Those policies were proposed by former president donald trump, just to be very clear. Like members of this committee i am very concerned that we continue to have this hearing to essentially put down immigrants appear i immigrated to the schedule when i was a young kid. Im a very proud american that earned and gain my citizenshipti and help a future committee we could stop demonizing immigrants. Without i stop and deal back. The gentleman yields but i now recognize theow ranking memr for his closing remarks. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. To say the least, its been a journey the last three hours. Mr. Chairman, i remain extremely concerned that the committee continues to focus its attention on a baseless attempt to impeach secretary mayorkas to the exclusion of its legitimate legislative and oversight work. As mr. Magaziner outline thedd department of Homeland Security under the leadership of secretary mayorkas has taken unprecedented Law Enforcement actions to disrupt and dismantle cartels the notion that secretary mayorkas is working to advance cartel crime in america as this hearing title suggests is outrageous. Hes working to combat it. This is a momentous task, momentous task, one that entirely the Biden Administration is focused s committee should be focused on how we can help the administration in those efforts. This should be bipartisan. In the past it has been bipartisan. But now we need to look no further than the previous title for t this hearing, which accusd President Biden and secretary mayorkas of being accomplices to crime. To understand the goal of this socalled investigation. I will remind everyone that chairman green struck that title on the record because it didnts adhere to house rules. We can also look at the members who accuse secretary mayorkas of being derelict in his duties before the socalled investigation and even conclude doesnt seem to matter. Investigations have closed before its even open. That are explicit about this. In fact, the ring that launched this investigation was calleded open border, close case, secretary mayorkas and dereliction of duty on the border. Thats right, closed case. This doesnt sound like a good faced investigation. And releasing a report today without any consultation with the democrats is in a good faith government and bipartisanship. Nonetheless, im grateful for the witnesses for appearing here today. This is america, and we have an opportunity to voice our opinions, the greatness of thise country is that we can do it without any fear of a cartel or anything doing anything to us. But also the greatness of it is that at some point as americans we can come together. Its a process, but i dont think fighting secretary mayorkas who has been here as secretary two years six months is the way to go. Democrats are prepared to work with republicans. We put our votes where our concern have been here we actually support comprehensive Immigration Reform. We support fully funding the men and women to protect us along the border. Our votes reflectct that, and or votes will continue to reflect that. And so i think our witnesses, those who were in Law Enforcement, for the service. But you know, when you look at the democrats on this committee and its diversity, it looks a lot like America Today. And so i hope you understand that that diversity makes a strong, but it also says that our policies have to reflect that diversity. My ancestors came over to this country in the belly of the chip. Didnt want to, but the king. Im an american. I only know this country and i defend the right for what we do in this country, and for others who used to come because we invited them to come because we were the shining star. Now, for whatever reason, we decided that we dont want anybody else because we have enough. I reject that notion sure, comprehensive immigration will get us there. President reagan knew we had a problem. He solved the problem right off the bat. He said everybody whos going entering who is here to stay she back looking he wiped it out with an executive order. You know, we can do anything we want as americans, but to demonized people who travel thousands of miles to try to get to our border because what we stand for is not our value system. Our value system is what everybody else would like to be liked or ie dont ever want to change it comprehensive Immigration Reform, not impeachment is a way for us to get there. I yield back. Gentleman yields and i want to thank our witnesses for being here. Deeply appreciate it. Im sure the Ranking Member knows that Immigration Reform is held in the Judiciary Committee and not here but i do appreciate him bringing out the need for and. Ill talk to mr. Jordan and detergent to take that up there we heard today u from the rankig member about how embarrassed he is that this committee has held nine hearings on the southwest border. We effort from our witnesses though that the horrific actions that the cartels are worsening secondary, secondary to the policies of this administration. We all know the process they allowed instant parole. They stopped detention. They stop deportation. For catch and release policies happened and the migrants called home. Millions havee. Come, make no mistake there was nore change in crime or correction or Economic Conditions in latin america picked actually since covid is not the Economic Conditions in latin america have gotten better. The mass migration is secondary to the policies of this administration, period, and theres no legitimate argument to suggest otherwise. Even Merrick Garland agreed that the cartels have taken advantage of these policies antitrafficking large groups to overwhelm Border Patrol and then passed nefarious individuals pass nefarious individuals but guideways and trucks around the attorney general recognizes it. L perhaps if the Minority Party on that Current Administration is failing, perhaps if administration addresses the problem we could move on but the numbers are not o going down period cbp app showed a net releasing numbers, moving the numbers from crossing over to the ports of entry and then getting automatic parole to those individuals not decreasing the incentive they are still coming in the drug cartels will continue to take advantage of it just like Merrick Garland said. We have about automatic parole through this app and those numbers are not being counted. The border is open. The incentive for mass migration remains peer and as i said they are coming to the drug cartels are seizing the opportunity. My democratic colleagues have said its a waste of time to look into cartel crime. They said it was a waste of time to address the data and americans defend the. Nine Committee Hearings is too many picked they say look at all the policies that this administration has been picked they are not working. Fix it and maybe we will stop these hearings. I happen to believe personally as do many people in this country at the southwest border, the Human Trafficking, the overdose of deaths, thee cartel crime murders is a greatest threat to this country. So yeah we are going to continue into the board incidental and the cartels are stopped when americans stop dying and we most these hearings. Open border, drug cartels seizing the day, partnering with gangs that have taken over the criminal activity in many of our cities thats whats happening. And the democrats on this panel dont want to discuss it. No one has denigrated immigration, emigrants here today, not a single individual aspect on a particular race of individuals or anything, yet thats what they want to imply. I am offended by that is about migration policies that have resulted in the drug cartels taking advantage of them and killing americans. I hope, i hope the media is paying attention. Americans are dying at the left is think our Committee Investigating this is an embarrassment. 61 of americans get it though. Thats the percentage who say that our board is not controlled by us. Yet investigations are an embarrassment. Asked for impeachment. By Democrat College keep saying that this this is about an impeachment effort ive never use those words to not here in this committee and not in this supposedly courting that they keep talking about. Desmet reporting they also say that some of this discussion is racist here it is not racist to say we have a problem at our southern border picnics that race racist is that the cartels are seizing this opportunity for open border and automatic parole in the mass race of people o were coming here it is not racist to say that. The only reason they bring up that its racist or that were trying to impeach or its some kind of dog and bunny showed these because they cant help you that americans arere not dying. They cant say look, the numbers are going to have fun americans die due to fiddle picked look, the drug cartel crime is going down in america. They cant make a valid argument against those facts. And so they said we are racist or implied we are racist or that we somehow or have some game here or its embarrassing that weve had nine Committee Hearings on this ill tell you when the Committee Hearings will it end. They will and this Administration Starts fixing the problem. Theyti will and when the white house recognizes that there sector of human, secretary of Homeland Security isnt doing his job. Thats called dereliction of duty. Thats when the hearings will end. It is of the job of this committee to get to the bottom of whats going on and we will do it. The democrats are on record. They think this Homeland Security Committee Investigation of the board with the oversight of the board is embarrassing. They dont want these hearings because they dont want the light shined on whats going on. The decisions made by this white house and the dhs secretary. By attempt like i said we will not stop until we get to the bottom of it and the problem gets fixed, period. Again i think our witnesses for being here. As i said this doesnt end ofea the series but it doesnt end this one. The committee is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] coming up today on cspan, fixed and state Department Officials discussed the importance of u. S. Alliances in the indo pacific region. Thats live from the Brookings Institution at 10 30 a. M. Eastern. At noon a group of appellate attorneys review the supreme courts most recent term which included decisions on student loan forgiveness, affirmative action and free speech on social media. You can watch our Network Using the free cspan now video out or go online to cspan. Org