Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics Public Policy Today 20140711

Coming back, the children, the children accompanied by their parents and the unaccompanied adults. Were doing that. Were dramatically reducing the time it takes for that to happen and were asking for the Additional Resources to my department and to the department of justice to turn these people around quicker including the children. So were asking for that and in terms of the change in law as i said a moment ago, were asking and this will be in a separate submission for the ability to treat unaccompanied kids from the Central American countries in the same way we would someone from a contiguous country so that we have the ability to offer them voluntary return which the kids from mexico do accept. Senator murray. Thank you for holding this hearing today. I think everybody this this room, republicans, democrats are at least in agreement that what were seeing along the nations southwest border is simply unacceptable. As some have mentioned, the numbers of young people and children crossing our border often by themselves and almost always with nothing beyond the clothes on their backs is really staggering, and as everyone here knows were not just talking about a few individual cases. Were talking about tens of thousands of young, often unaccompanied minors ea s enter the United States, and i want to be clear about the circumstances that these children are facing. The circumstances that are causing them to cross a continent by foot and seek safety here in the United States. These are arent people coming here to take jobs or get some kind of free ride. These are children. Many of them 7 or 8 years old. Theyre fleeing some terrible violence in their home countries. They are being sent here often by desperate mothers and fathers who have had to look them in the eyes and literally tell them to run for their lives, and i have to just say as a mother and grandmother, i cant imagine what that would feel like if you were a parent saying that to your child. So i think we have to be clear about what this is. This is a refugee crisis that were seeing along our southern border and as americans, we kind of all think of refugee crises, the situations that happened far away to somebody else, but i think we need to open our eyes that this is something thats happening in our country and its happening right now and this doesnt only affect the americans who live on our southern border. This affects every single american community. Weve heard in my home state over the last few weeks in washington that were seeing some headlines in press reports that some of these children may be sent to facilities at base lewismcchord, its just a few miles from downtown seattle. So all of us, regardless from what state were in, need to take this situation very seriously. Now i am particularly concerned about the condition and care of the young women and girls being detained along our border. So many of them as we know have faced unbelievable hardship in their home countries, and i am hearing that many of them have endured physical abuse, sexual abuse, violence, Human Trafficking and a lot of them have fled in hopes of avoiding those kinds of fates. So it is important that we talk about the resources, the Administration Needs to have to fight organized crime on the border, very important, but im also focused myself on giving the administration the resources they need to protect these children and to treat them humanely while theyre being detained. We are talking about things like food, water and diapers, but it it also means we have to be prepared to protect these children and young people, particularly the young women and girls from having to once again face that same kind of violence, abuse and Human Trafficking that theyre actually running away from in their home countries. Some of these kids will be sent back to their home countries, but we cant ignore the legitimate cries for help from refugee children. We often ask our friends around the world to support refugees fleeing violence and its our turn in this country and i think we have to accept that as part of this. We are focused on fighting organized crime on our border, reducing illegal immigration, but we cant lose sight of our responsibility to provide these children with the most basic legal information and guidance and we have to make sure that they have valid claims for asylum and that someone is actually there to help them pursue that. More than a year ago now we all know republicans and democrats here in the senate voted to pass comprehensive Immigration Reform. I know thats not the focus of this hearing, but weve seen too many tragedies on our border and our communities and it is a tragedy that the house has not taken this up because that is one of the ways that we can fix this longterm comprehensive strategy, and i thank my colleagues who have worked on that. My question for the panel today is why is the administration pursuing costly detention of families instead of relying on more costefficient detention . Senator, i believe that excuse me. I believe that in order to deal with the Current Situation that and i agree with the comments of many of the senators here, we have to return people and we have to show others in Central America that we are returning people. That is how to deal with the existing situation. In order to do that and do that quickly we are building detention capabilities for adults bringing their children here. We did not have that type of detention capability until very recently and so were turning the adults around faster and were turning the adults we need to turn the adults with children around faster in order to send people home. So its a message as well as anything else. Is the administration making sure that each of the children who are detained can pursue asylum and have legal representation from a qualified attorney receiving fair hearings . Are we assured of that, as well . It is part of our standard procedure to assure to make sure that people are informed of their rights in this type of situation. And with regard to when the children come to hhs a number of things happen. First, the children are informed of their rights. They are informed of immigration proceedings. For those children who are identified and usually theyre identified at dhs if they have a different potential status than an una companied child, but that is checked again and if that happens in terms of the issue of asylum for the child then appropriate steps are taken to connect that child with someone that can help them with an asylum process. In addition with the children, we continue to try and in some cases, under 2,000, but over a thousand cases, we sometimes connect them with pro bono and other Legal Services when there are extreme circumstances. As you pointed out, there are children who have extreme circumstances with regard to things that have happened to them along the way and they need special types of help and support and so i dont want to lose sight of that in all of this so i appreciate that. And that is a part, as i mentioned, when we think about the number, 14 of the number that hhs has asked for is for health and Legal Services that are beyond the basic service that we provide for all children because there are asome childre who have extreme need whether those are legal or health. Thank you very much. Im going to turn to senator johan. I know many senators have had to leave because of airplane demands flights that they had to take. I want to protect the rights of any single senator and if any senator had to it leave, i want to make sure that the record remains open that they may submit their questions in writing and ask the department to respond, and its been a long hearing and i want to make sure that everybody has the ability to do that. Senator johan . Youre uncompromising in your fairness toward the members and i appreciate that. Let me say to the witnesses, thanks for being here. This morning i was driving into work, and i was listening to npr, you might be shocked by that, but i was listening to npr and this very wellspoken gentleman, i wish i would have gotten his name came on and talked about his travels through Central America very recently. His interviews, the families he had talked to and it was very extensive and very informative. Basically what he was saying at the risk of paraphrasing his comments is that the coyotes or the smugglers or the cartel or whatever it is go to these families and promise everything. Well get your kids to the border. Theyll be received by the United States of america, the government. They will be taken into custody. They will be eventually reunited with family members and the chances of ever being deported and sent back home are slim to none. And then they rip the families off. They hit them for 3,000, 5,000 7,000, not small amounts of money in that part of the world and then all of the way up to the border they abuse these children, they starve these children, they rape these children and they take them through hell on earth all with the promise that here the United States government will take care of them. Ive listened carefully to your testimony today and i believe youre proving their case upon. No reflection on you, madam secretary. You have to deal with the law that was given to you in 2008, december 23rd. Ive taken opportunity to read that law, but heres whats resulting. You tell me, mr. Secretary that 1800 get deported. Those are pretty darn good odds. Chances are youre not going to get deported. 46 dont show up. Now i appreciate your comments about boy, if you dont show up youre in really big trouble with us because when we catch up with you youre going home. Well, we have 12 Million People here in the United States that have those circumstances. Madam secretary, i read through the law, and i took the time to look at that 2008 law. Look at what you do and again, its no reflection on the job youre doing. Its what you have to do under the law that Congress Gave to you in december of 2008 you are responsible for their case and custody. You have to establish policies and programs as to how youre going to care for these unaccompanied minors. You have to make sure that when youre ready for placements that theyre safe and secure placements. In order to do that you have to do literally, assessments of the family, the home, the environment to determine if theyll be safely placed. You have to make sure that theres access to ongoing information. You have to do legal orientation presentations. You have to give information about access to counsel. Child advocates can enter into this and it just goes on and on and on. Now, i dont doubt that this was well intentioned. I wasnt here at the time, but it strikes me as the kind of law that came along and people bought into it. I havent checked the vote record on this, but ill bet it passed with a bipartisan amount of support, but my question is, if the coyotes are promising these families that these kids are going to get to the United States, theyre going to be received into custody and theyre going to be cared for, isnt your testimony today establishing without a shadow of a doubt that that is, in fact, exactly precisely what youre going to do when those kids are in your custody . I think that the question of the overarching plan which is something that has been raised is an overarching plan and we are one piece of the plan. We are the part that when a child actually getses here, how we treat the child, and i think thats a reflection and a question about us and our nation and our values. I think what we are saying and what were asking for in the supplement willal is the support to make the coyotes promise not true, and the way we do that is by speeding the time with which people go back. So the way we break the promise on the part of the coyote lie, that we need to do, youre right, the numbers are not high and my colleague secretary johnson said thats our objective. That 1800 number, i think we all believe is not the right number to send the signal that is appropriate to deter because what we want to do is make the coyotes promise that theyre living off of not correct. Im not sure that what we want to do as a nation when the child is here and in our care, 20 of these children is what we get a sense, 20 of these children this year are 11 or under. So how one treats how we believe we should treat and i agree, im glad you read the law and you can hear from our conversations in the back and forth, the requirements are in terms of treating the child appropriate and those are the responsibilities and i think to get to the root of what theyre appropriately reflecting in terms of these coyotes and smugglers and these people who are taking many families down an inappropriate path is we have to make sure that we are sending a deterrent signal. Ill wrap up, madam chair, because im completely out of time and complex issue, but having said that, i dont see anything in what youre requesting here that is going to impact the story that theyre telling down there and what is causing these kids to come to the United States because theyre coming here believing that if they can just get in your custody theyre not going to go home. Thank you, madam chair. Senator landrieu . Madam chair, thank you very much. Well come to coombs and leahy. Thank you, madam chair. I want to begin with the law which, i think, the appropriate place to begin and follow up on some of the questions that have already been asked. Everyones been referring to the 2008 law which ive also reviewed, but i think woe have to go back to the base law which is the 1980 refugee act which establishes the basic right of refugees to come to this country and it was ordered because of the fall of vietnam, because of Asylum Seekers and they needed asylum, from vietnam, jews from the former soviet union, was there a crisis and the vietnamese boat people, et cetera and it was signed and enacted unanimously, and signed into law in 1980. Senator feinstein who is here today will recall because she introduced several pieces of legislation to build on this, her legislation was never passed, stand alone, but it was incorporated into the 2008 trafficking and victims protection act. That act separated the Refugee Status for children away from adults, unaccompanied children. Because of her concern she can speak more eloquently about this than i can about several instances and one in particular that was really gruesome was chinese children that were shipped here in a container and some of them might have died on the way. She can explain other things about what was in her mind. So weve got to go back a long way when we talk about this law. It wasnt 2008. It wasnt 2010. Its the asylum law and figure out who we want to give asylum to and under what condition, et cetera. Thats number one. Number two, i want to help, but i also have strong feelings about right now, today, a lack of accountability as to what agency in front of us is ultimately in charge. Each of you has a part, but i want to support something whether its one agency in charge with some Budgetary Authority coordinating with the others otherwise it will be a dispersal of funds, no metrics, no overall accountability and i think this is a really important issue to get correct for many reasons. One, we have to secure our borders, two, we have an obligation to the taxpayers to spend their money well and three, we have lots of children that are dependent on us to get this right and families. Number three, we already have a plan and this is for you, mr. Shannon and youve been very, very quiet and not too many people have addressed questions for you, but i have questions for the state department. I worked for several years with many memberses, republicans and democrats and the government has a plan and its called the United States action plan on children and adversity. Are you familiar with this plan . You might want to get a copy of it and read it. Its very on point because its the state departments plan and ill just read the first paragraph. The goal of the u. S. Action plan on children and adversity which these children clearly would be an adversity is to achieve a world where they would receive family care andy froo from exploitation and danger. This shows a promising future belongs to those nations that invest wisely in their children. Failure to do so undermines social and economic progress. Child development is a cornerstone for all development and is central to u. S. And diplomatic efforts. I want to underscore that, diplomatic efforts. The plan seeks to integrate internationally recognized, evidencebased good practices into all of its International Assistance for the best interest of the child, and i am proud to say that with my help and others, particularly on the both republican and democratic side we underscored the importance of this plan of children being in families because families are the basic institution of all governments and societies. So, madam chair, in my time i just want to point out to the committee that there are several laws that need to be reviewed. There is a plan that the state Department Already has which the gentleman in charge testifying here is unaware of and they may want to read that. There are a couple of other things happening in the state department that might be well funded in this. In closing, because my time is short, to the Justice Department i want to make mention that as chair of the Homeland Security i am fairly clear about some of these numbers, you have a backlog of 375,000 kids. The average to deal with them right now is from three to five years. So that is what mr. Tom holton who testified in our committee, a backlog of over 300,000, three to five years to adjudicate. So weve got a, to make sure were talking about the right amount of money and right per remember toance standards and right accountability and im willing to work with you all on it, but ive got quite a few questions. Thank you. Senator cochran . Madam chairman. Secretary johnson, let me direct my question to you. The number of unaccompanied children criesing the southwest border into the United States is expected to increase by 2,000 percent. Yet the administration did not request any increase in funding for any of the agencies responsible for addressing this problem in the fiscal year 2015 budget, despite the fact that the administration was aware of these worsening conditions at the time. So given these fact, how do you justify this request as an unforeseen emergency supplemental requirement . Senator, i would say this, we have very definitely over the the last two years seen a rise in illegal migration by unaccompanied children up. Up to now weve worked with the government of mexico on a plan for their southern border. Weve added Additional Resources and some with the support of this congress through the southwest border. Weve worked with the government of guatemala on a task force because weve known about this issue now for some time. It really spiked rather dramatically beginning in january and then most notably in the period of about march and april. Thats when it really spiked, and i saw it for myself when i went there to mcallen, texas, in may, but it is the case that it has been rising and weve attempted to deal with it in a variety of ways that have been incorporated in prior submissions. What is the outlook in terms of improving the either the capacity to deal with the increase in numbers and in dealing with the local government to try to establish some alternative to the u. S. As a safe haven for these migrants . The assumption in this supplemental request is that there will be approximately 90,000 unaccompanied children who cross the border in fiscal 14 and 100,000 in fiscal 15. I believe it is crucial that we have transfer authority in case were more successful than whats implicit in the assumption to devote to things like increased detention capability so that we can effectively turn people around. Thats part of this request. What is also part of this request is money to support repatriation and reintegration in Central America so that we can return people quicker. You see that reflected in the state department submission, and i believe in my own submission from dhs, sir . Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. Senator kuntz . Thank you for chairing this important hearing and for your personal engagement in traveling to texas and to visit with those who are serving our country and to hear from the stories of individuals, children and adults who are part of this extraordinary humanitarian and refugee crisis on our southern border. I think the evidence is clear that the children who we are seeing and who are being interdicted at our southern border at record numbers are fleeing three country, guatemala, el salvador and honduras and if this increase of refugees coming to the United States was caused by some change in policy, we would see a comparable flood of refugees from other country, but we dont. Its just these three countries and its because of conditions in those countries as your testimony suggested. So its my hope that a significant share of the investment and the action that will be taken as a result of this emergency supplemental will focus on those countries as a member of the Foreign Relations committee i was pleased to see secretary kerrie and Vice President biden personally engaged by making visits to the leaders of the country and i would like to hear more about the intended increased investment. And as a Judiciary Committee number i also want to comment that this requests additionally, badly needed resources for Immigration Judges and for the expang of the program, for counsel for minors because while we know we have a significant backlog and we have significant unmet detention costs and humanitarian costs and i think we need to act now to fix our most urgent problems and the due process protections embedded in the tvpa and signed into law by president bush. Thank you to our four witnesses to being here and i look forward to working with you. First, ambassador shannon, if you could, could you just give us more details about the 300 million state Department Request and what your plans are for incountry processing of these countries, for a comprehensive approach. What is the baseline funding requested in the state foreign opes appropriations and why is it not greater and second, if we can, if both you and secretary johnson would speak to the media campaigns other be its a very modest amount of money and in my view, perhaps more is required to ensure that parents understand that their children are most likely not going to be granted the opportunity to stay in the United States only those few who are genuine refugees will have a chance for asylum and the majority will be deported back it to their countries of origin. Ambassador shannon . Thank you very much, senator. I appreciate the questions and appreciate the opportunity to respond. Let mow start with the public messaging campaign because that has obviously been a focus of the president , the Vice President , secretary kerry, secretary johnson, secretary burrwell and our embassies in Central America as we attempt to deal with the misinformation presented by the Human Smuggling Networks and also to start a larger debate about migration in the region because as noted, this is an unprecedented phenomenon in terms of the composition of the migrants that they have children leaving in these numbers that weve never seen before, and as weve dealt with our public messaging, we focused first on the danger of the journey. Secondly, on as secretary johnson noted that there is no pass to get in that one does go in deportation proceedings independent of the outcome of those proceedings and that within the supplemental we are making a request for money that is designed to accelerate those proceedings and ensure that there is timing and handling of these cases especially for children who do not have protection needs. However, that said, its important to know that our public messaging campaign is not just our campaign. Its also a campaign that the government of mexico and the governments of guatemala, honduras and el salvador has joined and in fact, the first ladies of those countries have visited our southwest border and have met with their citizens who have come across the border and especially children and have used those opportunity directly back to their countries and especially back to mothers and fathers in their countries and also in the migrant communities that exist here in the United States to highlight the dangers and to highlight the misinformation that the smugglers are providing. We are already spending about 2 million in the public messaging campaign that President Biden announced during his trip to guatemala several weeks ago and within the supplemental request, were asking for 5 million for public diplomacy. Part of this is for our Public Service announcements and additional public engagement, but a big hunk of it will be focused on on the community of returned migrants so they can talk about what happens to them on their journey. Im sorry. Im out of time, but if we had a brief response about are we doing enough on these three countries . With the stability and security. We need to do much more, obviously. We have through our Central American Regional Security initiative and through bilateral assistance addressed some of the issues on violence and economic job creation, but the 300 million will allow us to focus on new areas and accelerate the work were doing, but this would be a down payment. Madam chair, may i add to, that please . Yes. Senator, public messaging is critical here for the reasons ambassador shannon said. When i was in guatemala two days ago it was a rather awkward moment, frankly, standing next to the president of that country telling his citizens dont come to our country because if you do we will send you back and its dangerous to do this, but the public messaging is critical. Ultimately, i believe that in addition to the public messaging, the population in Central America and the parents up here who are thinking about sending their kids need to see that theyre sending people back. Thank you very much for your testimony. Senator hoven and then senator leahy. Thank you, madam chairman. Id like to ask secretary johnson and also mr. Shannon, is mexico helping stem this flow and secure the border, if theyre helping what are they doing, and if theyre not, why not . And what are we doing get them to engage them to help to stop the flow of illegal aliens through Central America . Senator, let me take the first crack at that. This has been the subject of conversations at the highest levels of both governments. President to president , my counterpart as recently as yesterday when we were in guatemala, and i believe that the mexicans will step up and assist us in the security of their southern border. They announced on monday a plan for added security on their southern border to deal with the migration and to put in place a Guest Worker Program for guatemalans who come into the southern part of their region, but a component of that will also be border security, and ill defer to ambassador shannon. Thank you very much, senator. As secretary johnson noted, the president of guatemala announced a mexican Southern Border Initiative which is focused on the border between mexico and guatemala which all of the migrants have to cross and that is really the first point at which they can be interdicted in a meaningful way and what the mexicans have done is effectively create a threetiered layer of interception and interdiction where they will be looking at documents and Border Crossing cards as people move across that border and attempting to address the Human Smuggling Networks and routes that move up the coast both by bus and by train in an effort to stop these smugglers and to turn especially the children around. Last year mexico removed from country in expeditious fashion over 8,000 unaccompanied children and they do interdict. Not at the rate that we would like to see largely because of resources and because of the vast nature of the terrain that theyre working across, but they understand that this is a problem of monumental proportion and what they dont want is for these children to be caught somewhere between our southwest border and their southern border and especially to have these children in the states of tamalipas and michoacan and they will be subject to gangs along that part of mexico. And they have the network which has facilitated our ability to remove expeditiously unaccompanied children from mexico because they can confirm their nationality and ensure they have travel documents and remove them from the country in quick fashion and also the mexicans have been working with the Central Americans to highlight the important nature of this challenge and the importance of having a regional approach. So the engagement with mexico has been positive and i think its going to bear fruit. When will this plan be implemented and how will you measure it and what access do you have to get metrics to see if theyll stop the flow . The plan was announced on monday and it is being implemented as we speak, and we are spending 86 million of merit Initiative Money to work with mexican officials in enhancing these border controls especially on customs and also interdiction along rivers between guatemala and mexico and were working with the guatemalans on their side of the border helping them establish Interagency Task force that control the rivers, the mountains and some of the key areas that theyre moving migrants across and were going to judge our metrics in terms of who is being returned and who is appearing on our southwest border, but we will be following this very closely and secretary johnson and i were there yesterday. Secretary johnson, this is the most effective deterrent for young people leaving Central America coming to our country and actually having the people in those countries, honduras, guatemala and el salvador, seeing those young people returned and isnt that the most effective deterrent with the Advertising Campaign and how can you assure us that these funds will be used to accomplish that to secure the border and return these young people to their home country . I agree that they need to see people coming back. They need to see that they wasted their money when they gave the smuggling organizations whatever it is, 3 ,000, 4,000, 5,000 and a large part of this supplemental request goes to expediting and accelerating the removal process and building increased detention capability and thats what a lot of this is about because i agree, we need to . Can you do it without repeal of the 2008 law . I believe we can. Yes, sir. I believe the 2008 law reflects fundamental values and commitments of this country that we should continue to adhere to, but i also believe that through increased detention capability, added resources by my department, the department of justice we can and we should turn people around quicker and send them home quicker. So you can ensure that you can enforce the border and return people expeditiously even with the 2008 law in place. I believe that what weve requested which goes in very large measure to detention and removal capability will, well get at this problem. Thank you, madam chair. Im glad you hear that, secretary johnson and i agree with president obama when he signed the 2008 law. I think it speaks to our moral values as a country just as we dont tell jordan because they can theyre being overwhelmed with refugees and just send them back to syria to be killed. We have to set some examples and following our laws are a good way to start. On the way over i was stopped by someone in the press who said theyd heard from a republican member of the house that were not doing enough, and we should be changing Immigration Laws and i remind them that we came together, republicans and democrats in this body last year and a year ago and after weeks of working the Judiciary Committee in markups and way into the evening and then a long debate on the floor and in all 150 and 160 amendments we passed an Immigration Law with both republicans and democrats voting for it and the Republican Leadership in the house, i dont mean to sound partisan, but im tired of the sniping that we dont have a better Immigration Law, they will bring up anything upon. Its easier to vote yes or vote no. Its much easier to vote maybe and complain that its somebody elses problem. Well, they get paid the same as i do and they have to pass a law. Now i dont believe that of course, i agree with you you said in the testimony that our border is not open to illegal immigration, and i agree with you on that, but and i dont believe that all of these children qualify for immigration protection, but some do and our laws protect them. The United Nations Commission Found that 50 of these children have been forcefully displaced from their own country, fleeing gangs, rape, domestic vealence and Human Trafficking. They distinguish the senior senator from california worked hard on this law. The trafficking protection victims acts with children, fleeing guatemala and el salvador. Violence is killingyearold children as reported by the New York Times today, and they should have an opportunity to tell their story to a judge. Thats how we identify victims of trafficking and Sexual Violence and persecution. I just want to know, im willing to help. A couple of hours before the president and two or three hours before the Vice President arrived down in guatemala and i know the planning was way ahead so he could announce that it was two or three hours, we were seeing if they could reprogram the money and we needed to look further than that, but i can assure you that i will fight tooth and nail changes in the trafficking victims protection act. We have to do the right thing. We can work we can work with you. Woe should work with you. We will help you, but when you have an 8yearold or 9yearold girl who is being raped by gangs that are sending them up here or theyre being sent by their parents to escape that kind of violence, im not sure america s s all really feel we should send them back. We routinely ask other countries to support refugees fleeing violence. Lets uphold our own law and tell us specifically how we do that and then well look for the funding in the longrange plan. In the meantime, i hope the other body will pass an Immigration Law. Anybody want to respond . I do, senator. Just asking. In my 27 seconds, i have a letter written by a number of senators including senators on this committee and there is a sentence in the first paragraph that i absolutely agree with. We strongly believe that in responding to this humanitarian crisis we must not set aside our fundamental commitments as a nation, and that statement is the bedrock of my Public Service whether im secretary of Homeland Security or general counsel of the Defense Department in doling wi dealing or responding to a terrorist attack, we should not jetstison the law and bend the law and its times like this that the adherence to laws and principles, in my view, is most important. Im very familiar with that letter, as you know. Thank you, madam chair. Senator bozman. . Thank you, madam chair and thank you all for being here. Ill be honest with you, i really fell like youre going to have a lot of problems with the proposal youre giving us because its not balanced. And i think youve heard that from both sides that theres been real concern with the cartels advertising falsely for them to come up and if you get here youll get amnesty and those kind of things. The other thing is in regard to the ability to administratively deal with the young people, the people in general that are here. You mentioned, mr. Osuna, that you had 1800, 2,000 people that you sent back last year. How many administrative judges did you have to do that . We had 243 Immigration Judges. How many additional are you asking for. The supplemental will add an additional 25 immigration judge teams which when added to another Regulatory Initiative could take us up to about 40 judges. An additional 40, from 270 243 so 283 and you have a 275,000 backlog. Let me add that were the in the process of hiring through fiscal year 14 appropriations. Were talking 2,000 versus 375 if you if you multiplied your judges by ten youd still be in trouble. The there is no question, senator that the that there are a large number of cases that are not in the four priorities that i mentioned that are going to be lasting for a long time. What about the people that have been in detention already . Are they at the back of the line . Are we going to do the new people first or whats the the folks that are detained right now are actually at the top of the priority list currently and for obvious reasons theyre detained and were resetting priorities and resetting the Border Crossing cases to that priority and what that will mean is we have consequences for the other largest portion of the case load. Im not the sharpest guy in the world, but that doesnt make sense to me in the sense of increasing my 40 administrative judges working through a backlog of 375,000 plus the additions that were talking about in coming if we dont develop a plan. My understanding is fort sill has 1,000 or 1200 kids. How long will they be out there . It is one of our temporary facilities and part of the reason why we need the money and we need the money soon is because permanent facilities are much cheaper. In terms of what we do is we contract and what we can use the permanent facility and you get a sense of what a bed can cost and a bed can cost up to 250 to 1,000 and our ability to plan and go into grand agreements with people into an extended period of time affords us the opportunity to do this in a much more costeffective fashion. How long do you think that they will be housed in there . Right now with the department of defense we had 120 days, weve renewed that for additional days. So how do we if we can get the funding. How do we educate them . How do you provide health care and the basic things for all of these facilities scattered . Through grantees that are on the facilities in fort sill and the facilities in lackland. These are often religious organizations that do Child Welfare services. They are licensed services that enter into Grant Agreements and agree to provide the care. Well, what id like, madam chair, is again, not pie in the sky, like i said, when you look at it logically theres no way we can adjudicate these people. Im very concerned about that. Im also very concerned about how theyre being housed and i hope its not pie in the sky because when youre talking about keeping people for a long time it sounds like we possibly are going to be keeping people for a long time as far as the education process, the health care process. Its got to get worked out and ive got to see it on paper so that we truly can provide the money that its going to take, but again, the biggest thing is, the biggest deterrent is making such that they realize if they come to this country, theyre going to go back. I would, madam chair, if i might clarify, that the children that are in our care in 2011 as i mentioned earlier, it was about 75 days that it took for placement of a child with a sponsor that we believed was safe, appropriate and informed of the immigration process. We have cut that down to 35 days and several weeks ago we have started a pilot for the group of children that we think we could place most quickly to reduce the time. As i mentioned, the three variables that are about cost for us at hhs are number one, the number of children that are coming across through the border. Number two, the number of beds we have and the type of those beds in terms of what we have to pay for them and number three is the speed with which we can appropriately place and well work on all three of those. And very quickly because the chairman will gavel me, but you dont have any problems with congressmen showing up and looking at facilityities in their districts or their states . Unannounced . There have been some reports that thats been a problem. With regard to the question ofs having the f of visiting the facilities we Welcome Congress to visit the facilities and i think i speak for my colleagues in terms of boeing sets of facilities. What we are responsible for is to make sure that we can appropriately handle guests when they come and that has to do with both making sure that we can provide the members need in the types of research and information you need and protecting the children. So the one thing we do ask is we do ask that there is scheduling. Right now since we have opened the temporary facilities of which you are referring to, one of them, there have been over nine visits by elected officials and over 90 elected officials have come through. We want to schedule those as quickly and as appropriately, and the scheduling is simply a matter of our ability to make sure that we are managing the work that the people are doing on the ground. We welcome it. We want it. The scheduling is a part of trying to be respectful so we do the appropriate things for members who come to see as well as respecting the children as well as respecting the Border Agents and grantees that are working to serve those children. So we are sorry if theres misunderstandings or miscommunication. We do schedule, and those are the reasons we do. Let me be clear, we welcome members to come. I couldnt say it any better. Were now going to turn to senator feinstein, but i want to respond to a question from senator bozeman when you asked certain questions about the Immigration Judges. And, sir, i want to acknowledge the validity of your questions, and i want to point out where we are here, which is why senator shelby and i are passionate about a regular order, this is a is up supplemental to the fiscal 14 appropriations. This is not for fiscal 15. This is the supplemental for fiscal 14. In other words to get us to october 1st, am i correct in that . Some of the funding, and i think in terms of how weve written the supplemental would be sunday funding that would be paid out in 15 and it would be above the current levels in terms of what the president s budget proposed, and the reason is if we bring on but isnt that like if you do a contract like with the Catholic Charities or the Baptist Charities or so on. Its outlays versus obligations. Yes. In terms of we need to be able to if we enter a Grant Agreement with someone and we enter a Grant Agreement two weeks before october 1st, the idea that we will have to take those beds down so at current levels so you have a cents wese have to take off 1,600 beds but by and large this is for fiscal 14. I want to turn to senator feinstein but remember this, we have to pass our appropriations for fiscal 15. If you want more Immigration Judges, weve got to pass the cjs bill. Thats where the Immigration Judges are, and thats why we would really urge if we could get our bills back on the floor and for anybody that has other amendments, leave us alone. Let us get our bills done. Were all ready to move on Homeland Security. Foreign ops is all ready to go. So we have the fiscal infrastructure to do fiscal 15. Regular order, no poison pill amendments, let us come to the floor. Senator feinstein. Thank you. Thank you very much, madam chairman. I listened to your words early on. I want you to know im fully supportive of the supplemental and i agree with what youve said. Id just like our distinguished heads and secretaries to know, i kind of in the senate at least began this effort legislatively back in 2002, and i want to tell you what happened. I was home. I turned on the tv, and what did i see . I saw a 15yearold chinese youngster shackled, handcuffed, and tears rolling down her face in front of an immigration judge. She had no interpreter, no counsel. She had been held in a jail cell for eight months and was detained another four months. She was one of the survivors from a container of chinese who were who came to this country, one of the very few, and i believe her parents died coming across the ocean, and i thought at the time, im going to take a look at the law and see what we can do. So i introduced this unaccompanied minor bill, and the purpose is pretty much as secretary johnson has louu elucidated, and that is to see that unaccompanied youngsters who came from countries that were far away through no initiative of their own for the most part really would have a process that was somewhat different. They would be transferred into hhs, and they would be able to at least have help in terms of pro bono counsel, in terms of an advocate, in terms of research as to whether there was a place to bring them back to their country or whether there was a place for them here. Now, the numbers of people at that time in that year was about 5,000. Now we have 60,000. I just want to thank you both, i have had my staff go to all the facilities that are starting up in california, in arizona, and they come and tell me that they are really well run and people are moving quickly, alertly, whether its customs, whether its Border Patrol, whether its i. C. E. , any other staff, and i am really grateful for that. You have moved, secretary johnson, i really respect you. Youre a man of your word. You do what you say youre going to do, and i find you a very impressive secretary of Homeland Security, and, madam secretary, i have known you, but its pretty clear from your comprehensive discourse here today that you really, too, know what youre doing. From 2002 we were not able to move the bill through, and we worked with large numbers of groups, church groups, other groups, and i think the bill grew somewhat, and then finally it was included in this trafficking bill in 2008 and actually signed by president bush at that time. To secretary johnson, who said he thought he might need added discretion, i would like to refer to section 235b3 which says the following. Except in the case of exceptional circumstances, any department or agency of the federal government that has an unaccompanied alien child in custody shall transfer the custody of such child to the secretary of hhs not later than 72 hours after determining that such child is an unaccompanied alien child. Now, what this does is trigger a number of other provisions, but what i would say is that the exception is the case of exceptional circumstances, and i would urge hhs and dhs to sit down and set the exceptional circumstances. It may be the number of children coming through in a week or a month, however you see it, and how the process might be modified to give you more time. I agree very much with what you said, secretary johnson, about the values of this country, and i think if people see the children, if they know the growth of crime and particularly in honduras which today is reportedly the murder capital of the world, the fear that people have. Now, i dont think a mother in this country necessarily acts the same way as a mother in honduras, guatemala, or any other place because their options are so limited, and so i hope that this exception is enough to give you what you need, mr. Secretary, in terms of added discretion. I just want to take that opportunity to say this. This is really hard, and from 5,000 weve gone now to 60,000, and i really i offer to work with you. I hope the bill does not need amending because it took six years to get where we are, but i thank you for your good work, and i wanted an opportunity to say that. Thank you, madam chairman. Excellent. Senat senator. I have been looking at the handout that senator collins had presented in terms of the numbers that we have seen over the years since 2009 and the very dramatic rise beginning in 20 2012, and i come back to the fact that the chairman has noted that you are here today presenting this as an emergency supplemental. This is a crisis. This is a hue hahn temanitarian and it think it pulls at the heartstrings of all of us as we recognize that these statistics, these are not numbers, these are lives, and these are childrens lives. But i find it just very difficult and very troubling to think that we are just now trying to get our hands around this, and weve seen these numbers grow from 24,000 in 12 to 38,000 in 13 to 52,000 in 14 and actually now 57,000, and so im frustrated and im concerned, as im sure that all of you are, but i just cant understand why we have not had you before us prior to this time. Why it is now part of an emergency supplemental request and to hear the testimony from both secretaries about the very immediate need to act before august or the consequences in terms of how these children will be cared for when they are here in this country are quite dire. As you have stated. And so, secretary johnson, you have said that doing nothing is not an option, and you have outlined some of the things that you have done within your department to reduce the transfer time, some additional detention facilities being built, but it certainly is not translating into terms of what were seeing in the numbers coming, and so the proposal that what we do is we build out more permanent detention facilities, more permanent beds because somehow or other those are less expensive than temporary facilities, i want to believe you, secretary johnson and secretary burwell, you have all said we need to stem the tide. We all want to stem the tide, and thats what were trying to drill down on now is how do we reduce these numbers . How do we reduce these bar charts that are real, live children . And if we are successful in what were doing, were now going to have detention facilities that we have put in places in new mexico and around the southern border that we needed to gear up quite dramatically so, and if you do what youre hoping and we fund what youre hoping for, we have now in place facilities that would seemingly no longer be necessary if we have done what we all hoped we would do before this became a crisis. So im trying to reconcile what is being asked for here in this emergency supplemental, and as much as i can lament about we shouldnt be where we are, we are where we are, and thats a shame. But i guess my question to you, miss burwell, is do we truly understand what the strategy and the plan is Going Forward beyond august . We havent seen legislation from the administration. Were making the assumption that the numbers are going to continue to grow, and thats why were going to need the request that you have within your budget, but if were doing what were all talking about doing, which is to reduce the times and to have a process that is greater better expedited, is this the right answer . So i think there are two things, and one is at the beginning of your comments with regard to the numbers, the chart that senator collins handed out, i think an important thing we need to distinguish is it includes the mexican numbers. Because there is a different process and procedure for the mexican numbers, almost the vast majority of those never come but in fairness, those mexico numbers are actually going down. Right. If we take those numbers out and look at the actual numbers that we have received as unaccompanied children, from the year 2011 to 2013, 6,500 to 13,600. Thats 108 increase. The increase from 12 to 13 was about to 25,000. Thats an 81 increase. If you take lets just say we all thought at a minimum it would be a 90 increase. Lets just take the average of the two years of increases and were working off a higher base, so anytime youre going to say theres 100 increase off of 24,000, youre estimating something big. What this congress and the administration funded in the fq 14 appropriations was enough money for 54,000. The transfer secretarial transfer the secretary before me did was 44 million. That got us to a place where we would have had 60,000. Last year we had about 25,000. We had planned for 60,000. That was a worst case scenario. It was greater than the increases we had seen in percentage terms off of a larger base. What we are seeing now is numbers as has been reflected in everyones comments that are far beyond. So the planning element i think in terms of the question of why we were here. With regard to your second question, which i think is a very fair one, it is related to how we make sure we stay in front. We are extremely hopeful that you are correct, that the plan were putting in place will i think we have to have more than just a hope, hope for a policy. And part of what we have asked for in the supplemental is the ability to have transfer authority. If the needs arent there and we are trying to plan ahead so we dont have the backup at the border and if the needs are not there, we are hhs, as the secretary mentioned in his opening comments, we are very willing and happy to transfer any funds that are not needed to the other departments to increase the transfer would occur to any of the departments, most likely to dhs, but could occur to any, and we think thats an important part of trying to balance the planning ahead with what you are rightfully pointing to. We need these numbers to come down. And so we are trying to balance that need for what you said in your earlier comments, did you not plan for the worst, making sure we do that, at the same time create a space for the success we hope we have. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you very much, madam chairwoman. Ambassador shannon, in your remarks you said that part of this strategy is to, quote, attack criminal gangs structures. That implies someone is responsible to coordinate that effort, that it would also imply i think intelligence operations and criminal prosecutions, so can you give us sort of the outline of the plan . Who is in charge and what intelligence assets you need and are they reflected in this budget or where are they coming from . In the supplemental request weve asked for 100 million for security, which would augment activities were already undertaking under the Central American Regional Security initiative. Some of that has to do with Law Enforcement capacity training. Some of it has to do with Community Policing in order to address the structure of gangs in communities and to work in communities to find alternatives to gangs, especially for atrisk youth. There is no specific money aimed at intelligence activities related to gangs, and most of the work around immigration security related issues would be done by i. C. E. And by our cbp operations here. However, we do have intelligence activities that are focusing on that that i cannot discuss in this environment, but most of the activities focused on breaking down the Smuggling Networks and working with the local police and the local authorities would fall within the range of Homeland Security. We are, however, working through the judiciary to enhance the judiciaries and especially to improve their ability to prosecute these cases. Secretary johnson, if Homeland Security has the responsibility for identifying, targeting the smuggling rings and disrupting those rings, do you have the resources to do that . It seems to me that what the ambassador is saying that there is money here to go in and try to do antigang activities much as we do in Major Urban Centers in the United States, et cetera, which is important, but these children are getting here because there are this is a business. These are pretty hardnosed people who are you know, we have to take them off put them out of business to be blunt, and does this plan or these funds or your efforts at Homeland Security specifically go after these people . Part of our request will go to not only working with the Central American governments on the Law Enforcement effort there, but our own hsi, doj efforts which is something weve already begun. In the month of may we made 163 arrests of those attached to smuggling organizations, and im actively working with doj right now to get at the money flow, the interdiction of money from the United States and, senator, to simply underscore your point, i want to read from briefly from my Operations Report that i got this morning which is unclassified. Hsi mcgowan special agents reported the rescue of Honduran National who was reportedly held against her will and threatened by human smugglers in the arrest of two citizens of mexico. The relative reported that the smugglers demanded 2,000 for the release of the victim. The smugglers stated to the relative that if they did not pay the money, they would decapitate the victim or sell her to a brothel cantina. So thats the kind of groups were dealing with, and so i think its crucial as part of this effort to not only return people, build detention apassity, but to get at the smuggling organizes and i think we can and i think we should. . In terms of priority that has to be at the same level as the humanitarian treatment of these children. In some respects these are unavoidable courses because what were talking about is creating a standard which were maintaining these young people, and we cant or many reasons, some are basic values as a nation, allow, you know, a facility suitable for 12 children to be inhackebited by children. Mr. Secretary johnson, i think what happens then if we dont do this, youre going to have to find some moneys from tsa, from Cyber Security efforts, from a host of different functions because, again, we have a problem now. Well have a much greater problem if we are seen as basically, you know, mistreating these children who are in the custody of the United States. Is that fair . Senator, thats a very fair statement, yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you, madam chairman. Madam secretary, if one of these children are placed with a relative in the United States, do we check the legal status of that relative . That is not a part in terms of the legal status with regard to the immigration status, that is not something we do. With regard to the legal status that is relevant to what we believe is safety of the child and there are a number of conditions that were guided to so are we, in fact, turning children over to people who are here illegally . We do not know the answer to that question, but we can assume. I think we should know the answer to that because the likelihood of them showing up for a hearing is zero. If the person who is taking care of them is illegal, i doubt if theyre going to bring them to a deportation hearing or any other kind of hearing. So id like to see that changed in our law. Mr. Secretary, is this problem a result of failing to pass comprehensive Immigration Reform or is it Something Else . Senator graham, if i may, to your prior question also before i answer this one, i do not think that removal of the parent who probably has been in the interior for years is the answer to dealing with this Current Situation. Mr. Secretary, its all about signals here. Youre right, youre trying to say were going to tell people back in these countries stop this and the best way to stop this is to send the kids back. I dont think youre reinforcing another bad problem when you dont check the legal status of the person, there is zero hope theyre ever going to get into the legal system because the person that youve turned the child over to is illegal themselves, and youre just compounding a problem. Im pretty far out there on reforming immigration, but i think youre reinforcing bad behavior. Now to my point, is this problem a result of a failure to pass illegal Immigration Reform or is it Something Else . I believe it is essentially three things, the conditions in the Central American which has nothing to do with Immigration Reform. The reality of how we treat these kids pursuant to the 2008 law. Which has nothing to do with Immigration Reform. And the misinformation that is being put out there by the smuggling organizations about the current state of legal i agree with you with all three, and it has zero to do with but i do, senator, if i may i want to pass Immigration Reform, but i want to stop this narrative that if wed passed some law, we wouldnt have this problem. Senator, i do believe i couldnt disagree with you more, madam chairman. I think this is a result of somebody in these countries believing if you can get here, you can stay, and i dont know whats driving this, but the senator made a good point. Theyre all coming from three countries. Theres an idea a kid gets a better deal in america than somebody else, and i think it goes back to the 2012 change by the president , but theres no use debating this. Lets look forward. Knowing what we know today, would we write the 2008 law the same . Knowing what we know today, the problem we got in front of us, would we write the 2008 law exactly like we did . Senator, i cant oh, how can you say, yes, we would . Clearly we wouldnt. Senator nifeinstein is one of t worlds best senators, nicest people. What she addressed was a real problem. Shes talking about a and were dealing with b. This 2008 law never envisioned this problem. It envisioned the chinese girl and other people that were being sexually exploited. I understand not wanting to throw somebody back to the hell they came from, but were now being overrun by folks. Its hell to get here, and if you agree i agree with you to stop it, you have to let somebody down there know stop doing it. If we dont change the 2008 law, were never going to get a handle on this problem because the 2008 law had nothing to do with this problem. So i think we should adjust our laws to meet the needs in front of us, so im very disappointed to hear that the administration believes after everything weve been dealing with for the last two years theres no reason to change the law. I just find that almost impossible to understand. But lets get to this point about mexico. The difference between mexico and these three countries is substantively different, right . The time to get somebody back to mexico is because its contiguous, its different. Is that correct . Yes, plus we have the Legal Authority now to offer an unaccompanied child voluntarily return to mexico. Okay. So there is a screening process when you turn somebody to mexico, we dont just throw them over the border. We look and see if they apply for refugee or asylum status, right . That is correct, sir. So i think youre onto something of trying to create similar conditions for these countries as to mexico. In that regard i think youre pursuing a good solution that is what i said earlier. Fundamentally we have to change this law. Were nuts if we dont. As to senator reeds problems, were nuts if we dont go after these groups. We need to make their life hell. We need to get the mexicans and every other group form up a task force and hunt these guys down and put them in jail. They should be like a military operation because its a National Security, humanitarian threat that i havent seen in a very long time, and i think our response, our sense of urgency is woefully inadequate, and its not just the money problem. Its a will problem. We need to have the will to do something about this stronger than those who are abusing the law and abusing these children. Thank you. Im going to turn to senator shaheen, but i understand secretary johnson has to step out to take a quick phone call. Why dont you do that and come back and join us. Okay . Thank you. Secretary governor, senator thank you, madam chair, and let me thank my colleague, senator durbin for being willing to let me go ahead of him. I very much appreciate that. I want to follow up on what senator graham was pursuing in whats happening in those three countries in Central America, and i wonder, counselor shannon, if perhaps you could talk a little bit about whats changed in the last three years or two years in those countries to encourage this influx of children and families and also whether were seeing that same kind of influx into other neighboring countries from honduras, guatemala, and el salvador. Senator, thank you very much for the question. We have not seen the same flows from other Central American countries. In other words, costa rica, nicaragua, panama, and belize are not sending people to the United States the way honduras, guatemala, and el salvador are. Maybe i wasnt clear in my question. I appreciate that. What im asking is are we seeing people from those three countries going into neighboring countries close to them at the same rate or in similar rates . We are seeing that. As i noted in the testimony, the u. N. High commission on refugees notes that asylum requests in surrounding countries are up 400 . And what i noted is that its not obviously at the same rate or the same number. In fact, the numbers are quite small in comparison, but theyre much, much higher than historically they have been, and that indicates that there are groups of children who are fleeing, and when they determine that they cannot flee to the United States either because they dont have the money or theyre not prepared to take the risks but that they must flee, they go to the nearest place possible. So from our point of view, although the vast majority of these children are moving towards the United States, this is a regional problem, and for that reason it needs to be addressed regionally, and as senator landrieu noted, its a problem related to children, and its a problem related to what happens to children when theyre caught in environments in which the breakdown of state authority and the presence of gangs in communities and controlling the communities puts these children at risk. Now, in terms of whats happened over the last three years, its going to take sociologists i think a long time to dig through that data, but i think whats evident is that as mexico has become more successful in its activities in combatting Drug Trafficking and drug cartels and as colombia has been bm moecomee effective in attacking the farc and changing the nature of drug production and trafficking out of colombia, the burden has fallen largely on Central America and its largely fallen in the three countries that offer easy jumping off points into mexico and into the Drug Trafficking routes that lead to the United States. But in the process of mexican cartels moving into honduras and guatemala and looking for ways to faciliitate the movement of drugs through the region, theyve obviously built relationships with gangs, and this has provided gangs with levels of wealth and weapons and Communications Equipment that historically they have not had and has allowed them basically to take over and control parts of communities which puts at risk teenagers, and what were seeing in the groups that are leaving these three countries and moving northward is that 75 of them are between the ages of 14 and 17, which means theyre in recruitment age, both males and females. Thank you. I am going to cut you off at that point. Im sorry to do that but i have a question for secretary burwell that i would also like to have answered. One of the things that im hearing from organizations in New Hampshire is concern about the movement of money out of the office of Refugee Resettlement and concern that once if this appropriation goes through, that that money might not be replaced and that the services that are offered through that office might not be available. Thats a concern that were hearing about refugees in New Hampshire. So can you speak to that . Because we actually take the concerns that it sounds like folks at home are articulating, that is why we actually asked for the backfill for the 94 million. I think you all know we sent a reprogramming up to the hill, and we have started in on that reprogramming. Those funds that we have taken out of the office of Refugee Resettlement, so you have a sense of what those funds do, a number of those funds go to schools that are impacted by high refugee populations. A number of those funds go actually to affect haitian and cuban refugees, that affects florida disproportionately, and the third category of that money is money that is sometimes going to states to help where there are disproportionate numbers of refugees in what is our other refugee program. We had to make choices in order to continue on a path of making sure we could move children from the border and from dhs to hhs. They were difficult choices and choices that we hope that in the supplemental can be taken care of. Thank you. And thank you all very much for your efforts to address this crisis. Thank you, madam chair. Senator durbin. Thank you, madam chair. Each year under president s republican and democrat the United States of america issues a report card on human rights to the world where we grade other nations as to their record on human rights. Thats pretty bold of us, isnt it . To hold ourselves out in judgment of other nations . And one of the things we ask is how those nations treat refugees and children. We dont have a very long record when it comes to refugees in this country primarily because of location. Haitians, cubans, vietnamese, hmongs. Weve had some, but certainly when you look at the state of the world with 2. 3 million refugees coming out of syria and fewer than 200 coming to the United States, we are kind of on the periphery of this issue until now. Now we get to face it, our backyard, our border. I just got a report about two children that came from the young center for immigrant childrens rights at the university of chicago law school. Samuel and emily are siblings, amazingly ages 3 and 6. 3 and 6. They got here from honduras. I dont know how. When they initially arrived in the United States they were very quiet and they didnt open up. They were clearly victims of trauma. After two months of care and custody of these 3 and 6yearold children by hhs, emily revealed that both children had been raped by members of a local drug cartel. I think about those children when i think about this debate. Are they the exception . God, i pray they are, but im afraid there are many more with similar stories. So, mr. Secretary, secretary johnson, i think youre a good person. I even have evidence youre a good father because i got to meet your son, and i know youre a good lawyer. When you ask for added discretion so that we can voluntarily deport some of these children, i think about these two. Where i grew up in downstate illinois, you wouldnt enter a courtroom with a 3yearold or 6yearold without someone standing next to them representing them, explaining to them, trying to speak up for their rights. And i worry about what were asking for here, and here is why i worry. Lets get down to dollars. Theres a request for 15 million in this multibillion dollar appropriation for direct legal representation to contract with lawyers to represent approximately 10,000 children, 10,000 children in immigration proceedings. I think were dealing with 50,000 to 90,000 children, and it strikes me this number is grossly inadequate to make sure these children have someone standing next to them to protect them, maybe to explain this to them. Thats first thing that crosses my mind. The second thing is what are we returning them to . Honduras, the murder capital of the world where it is not safe to even have your children outside of your home, where garbage is piled in the streets so the poorest can go through it and maybe find something to eat because thats all theyve got. What kind of social Service Agencies are we referring these kids to when we return them to honduras . Beds. I get it. I want these kids to be in the safest, cleanest place possible. I couldnt live with it any other way, but as i understand it, 85 of these children are reunited with family. 55 with parents, 30 with relatives. So when were talking about beds, it sounds like for the most part, at least 85 of it, its for temporary beds. I assume thats what were discussing. Finally, before i ask you to comment on this, i authored the dream act. Im proud of it. We passed it in the house and senate, but we cant beat the republican fill buster in the senate for the comprehensive immigration bill. I asked this president , my friend, to sign daca. He did and im proud that he did, and im not going to stand here and let people blame those two acts on what were facing today because during the same period of time there was a 700 increase in children from those three countries to neighboring countries not the United States. It had nothing to do, as you said, mr. Secretary, with daca which set a 2007 target, couldnt come any later than that. So id appreciate it if you could respond to this in the time remaining. Senator, the only thing ill say is a request for discretion as long as im secretary means a request for the ability to do the right thing. Thats how i see it. I have met with enough of these kids now, including a 15yearold in nogales two weeks ago who was three months pregnant, to have a real sense for what these kids go through. Weve heard about how before they leave Central America some of these kids parents actually will give them Birth Control in case theyre raped along the way, and so whatever we do, whatever discretion im given to address this situation will be the discretion to do what i believe is the right thing for the country and for these kids. Theres not enough money being requested to provide the kind of representation and advocacy to protect these kids. Its not even close. 10,000 out of 90,000 . And i think thats secretary burwells world. There are different portions in terms of sometimes its provided by justice, sometimes by dhs. We do provide the counsel that i have described in the initial stages and then for the extreme circumstances such as that that you described, hhs does provide counsel, and we try and connect with pro bono counsel. You are right that we do not have the resources to provide counsel for all the children that pass through and go to sponsors, but there are a group that we do that for. Senator harkin. Thank you, madam chair. First of all, i just want to associate myself with everything that senator durbin just said. Hit the nail on the head. I also want to thank all of you for the work that you do. As we hear more and more about the situation with these young people coming across the border, you know what my ears are hearing . Round them up and ship them back. Sounds like were dealing with cattle sor so cattle or some kind of live stock. Just round them up and ship them back. Senator murkowski had it right, this is a humanitarian crisis. Again, senator durbin talked about a couple cases. I suggest anybody want to know whats behind a lot of this, read enriques journey. Its a great book. Read it. Now, i have a problem with the administration, this administration. On the one hand they say, we want to send kids back as soon as possible. Then they turn around and say, well, but these kids are escaping violence and drugs and sexual abuse and gangs. How do you reconcile those two . Ship them back as soon as possible, and theyre escaping violence and drugs. That doesnt sound to me like those two statements are compatible. How they exist side by side. The focus, our focus ought to be simply on making sure these kids are first, safe, that theyre fed, that theyre clothed, that theyre shelter, and that they get not only Good Health Services but mental Health Services and under the law that they have every meaningful, thats a key word, meaningful opportunity to apply for asylum. Are we a country of laws . Thats what the law says. Now, there are some that want to modify this law and i hear voices from this administration, want to modify the law. Secretary johnson, i have no doubt that you are a good and decent and honorable person and i think you do a great job, but you want flexibility. Theres danger in flexibility. Not just because of you but everybody that works under you and the Border Patrol. A lot of these kids that come over there, and they see someone in uniform, its a flashback to what they just came from where the people in uniform may have been beating them up and on the side of the drug lords. Are they going to open up about what they are and what they are . Thats why we have a law that says you got to transfer them in 72 hours to hhs. Now, hhs is supposed to provide all of these things for these kids, shelter, clothing, meaningful counsel. People to stand alongside of them so that they can tell their story, so they can apply meaningfully for asylum. You cant do that with a Border Patrol. Im sorry, you just cant do it, and you cant do it just as somebody comes across the border. They need to be taken in. As i said, and given these protections under our laws, under international law, under international law. Some people want to modify the law to let dhs ship them back right away. I hear this from the administration, and you may say, secretary johnson, that youre going to be very careful and stuff on this, but thats why we have laws. Thats why we set it up this way. I dont know who is coming after you. I dont know how long youre going to be there, and i dont know all the people that work underneath you and how good they are. They may have in their head the best thing is round them up and ship them back. I rely upon health and Human Services to make sure these kids are protected, and that they have their full legal rights in this country. Now, theyre supposed to be transferred in 72 hours. Now its what, six or seven days before they get transferred. And now hhs, they dont have the wherewithal to do it, to take care of these kids, the Mental Health providers, the social workers, child advocates who can look after not rounding them up and ship them back, but the best interests of the child when they arrive here and protecting their rights under u. S. And international law. So we have a situation where im sorry i have to disagree with this administration. This administration should be saying we should follow the law. These kids need to be protected. They need to have hhs protect them and care for them and give them every meaningful right to apply for asylum. Now, the problem is hhs doesnt have the money to do it. They should do it, but they dont have the money to do that. Thats what this supplemental is about. Its to allow hhs to follow the law, which they arent right now, but they cant. They cant follow the law because they dont have the money to do it. They cant transfer them in 72 hours, my fellow senators, because they dont have the money to do it. So thats why this supplemental, madam chair, as you said, is so critical. We cant turn our back on these kids. At the cant hold ourselves up as some paradigm of human rights when we say round them up and ship them back. Should they say that to the syrians that are escaping . Or other refugees around the world, round them up and ship them back . Were better than that. And i have to disagree with my friend from South Carolina. We are not being overrun by these kids. Were a country of 300 Million People. Were talking about 50,000, 60,000, 90,000 at the most. Thats overrunning america . Nonsense. We can deal with this. Now lest anyone think, well, harkin, you just want to let them keep coming no, look, weve got to work with those other countries. We have to do things in those other countries. Its a complex issue as some of you have stated. Not going to be solved overnight. Its not going to be solved with a few military people. Its not going to be solved with that. Its going to be solved over a longer period of time but in the meantime the single most important thing is to take care of these kids to make sure theyre safe, theyre housed, theyre sheltered, theyre clothed, theyre fed, and they have Legal Protections and they can apply for asylum, meaningfully, not with the Border Patrol, not as soon as they come across the border. I read your testimony, but after theyve had due process and where hhs can take them in and provide them the kind of shelter and support that they need. Now, after that we can talk about returning them, but not until theyve had adequate counsel, advocates for them to stand by their side to let them know what their legal rights are in this country. So i hate to be so emotional about it, but when i hear this coming from the administration, ship them back, weve got to do everything as soon as possible, but theyre fleeing violence and drugs and gangs. No. Theyre fleeing violence and drugs and gangs and all kind of things like that, yes. I disagree with my friend from South Carolina also that youre reinforcing bad habits with bad habits. I have never considered a bad habit for any human being to leave a bad situation where they are being killed, beat up, sexually violated, denied their basic human rights, denied the opportunity to live a life, and they want to seek it some place else. Thats not a bad habit. Thats sort of in the human spirit that i thought we liked to extol in this country. So i guess ive run out of time and i have used up my time, and so, therefore, i guess i dont have a question. But i hope i made my point. Senator, you can also submit questions for the record and thank you for your statement. Senator shelby. Mr. Secretary, ive been told that there currently are is 162,000 children at the Homeland Security ranch. Is that number about right or wrong . In other words, in this country that have come in over the years still pending oh, i see. I dont know whether that number is accurate. Can you furnish the number for the record though, check it out . Yes. But its a lot of children, isnt it . 162,000 people is in my book a lot of people. Keep in mind that of that population, assuming that number is accurate, of that population, a lot of them may have turned 18 by now. 18. And youve only sent home, what, average is it 1,800, period, or is it about 1,800 a year . About 1,800 a year. That youve adjudicated and sent home. Yes, up until this recent situation, yes. What if suppose at the rate theyre going whats 52,000 people children were detained came in and were apprehended you call it in the country, if this number continues to grow, there could be hundreds of thousands of children coming here, could it not . Which is yes, which is why we believe we need to add resources to the process of repatriation and return for uacs. Do they just walk while preserving the ability to make a claim for humanitarian relief. Along the border with texas, the rio grande mainly area, do they just walk across the border . Is the border unprotected . Is there no fence there or anything . How do they or they just come up and say take me into custody, whatever . The Rio Grande Valley sector is bordered by the rio grande river. Sure. The river. And its a windy river that 360 miles long or something. And they swim across, they walk across, and if you look at a map that the Border Patrol will show you, its all tending to concentrate in one particular area. So even if we gave the money thats been requested here, 3. 7 billion, it doesnt solve the problem in any way. It helps you deal with the current problem, but it doesnt solve the problem, does it . It will well, in my judgment it will definitely stem the tide if we provide this funding. Of the people senator graham asked the question and i didnt hear a clear answer to it, maybe you dont know, but these children, are most of them that are trying to come to this country, do they have parents or uncles or aunts in this country already . Legal or illegal . Do you know . Yes, when we place the children, the majority of the children are placed with relatives. So they know who their relatives are and where they are and so forth . The children in some cases know. No other cases as part of the hhs process we learn and make that determination through questions and an interview process in terms of trying to understand the child. Now, if people are here legally, they come as immigrants legally, and their children are where they came from, you know, the country of origin, cant they go through the Legal Process and bring their children to this country . Isnt there a Legal Process for that . I would defer to my colleague from justice on the process. It depends on their current status. If theyre here illegally if theyre here legally and she wanted to bring their children that are, say, in Central America somewhere. There is one category for lawful permanent residents who can petition for their family members. That would be the only category that is currently available i believe for them to bring their relatives over. Well, i know money, its a humanitarian problem, but its an immigration problem, a big one for this country. Thank you, madam chair. Well, that concludes the number of senators who wanted to ask questions or ask statements and questions. I think this has been an excellent hearing. The fact that 25 senators came from this committee to participate and the other 5 had commitments for which theyll submit questions. We also want to thank the witnesses for their straightforward, candid commentary, but also for the work that they do every day. In addition to dealing with this situation, they also have other pretty significant responsibilities, and we know theyre working 36hour days and 10day workweeks. And i think its pretty impressive. And also to the men and women who work under those agencies, its pretty impressive. When you meet the Border Patrol agents and also the response of our particularly our local faith had be faithbased organizations. To me it was very heartening and touching to see the way the baptist Child Welfare agency was running the leackland facility. It was a plus in terms of any standard of Child Welfare, but what was particularly interesting to me was that Catholic Charities in oklahoma had come to lackland to work with the baptists to learn what was the most effective way to deal with this. So i think were doing a lot. But the question is, what is it we are going to do . There is the urgent supplemental that meets the needs of today. Every single colleague has said we do need to look at the longrange implications of this. Some talk about a more military interventionist strategy. Some talk about changing the law on refugees. These are not necessarily my personal direction because when youre talking to the children, you find out why would a mother making minimum wage somewhere scrape together 3,000, and you can imagine what it took to save that money, to send it to essentially a scoundrel to bring her daughter or her son across the border and to know the treacherous, dangerous journey that theyre going to do. You will onlyrisk that, the danger so severe, we all heard these stories that are so wrenching that we dont even want to repeat some of them in public because of their poignancy. The fact is that its because in guatemala, honduras, in el salvador, the violence is so bad that the violence of the journey, the violence of the journey is less, and the risk that they will take. And then to say were going to send them back, send them back to what . The gang that tried to recruit a good old girl and threatened the family that if the two girls, two young girls didnt join the gang they would be killed, mutilated or turned into something called queens. I wont even talk here about what that means. I could not bring myself to describe it. So what are we going to send them back to . Its not like juan valdez is going to greet them at the airport with roses. I mean, i think we have to get a real strategy here to know why they left. Now, i have said repeatedly, and i will say this again, that i have felt that over the last decade we have fought four wars. We have fought one in afghanistan because of an attack on us. We fought one on iraq that we members voted for. I did not. Then we fought the cyber war which continues to be a significant threat. And i dont minimize the threat of terrorism. Then i talked about the war at our border, but i was worried about drug dealers. I wasnt worried about children. But the children are coming because of the drug dealers. So, sure, we can talk about root cause and poverty. I dont minimize that, but we have to really now i think weve got to really have to really focus on our hemisphere. I believe that weve had three decades of uneven policy in terms of looking at our own hemisphere and in Central America. Senator harkin knows about it. Senator shelby. We come from a background that heard about the nuns that were assaulted. The assassination of oscar romero. War after war with brutality after brutality, and then just when were ready to deal with it some other thing turns our head and were off running with flak jackets visiting some new issue. So i think we need to, in addition to all of the other wars we have to fight, bring to a closure, you know as mr. Homeland security, theres a lot of threats to this country. I believe that the threats of the children the children are not threats. The children are coming because of the threat to the children. And i think we need to meet the urgent needs here. We have to then really focus on our hemisphere and have a focused way that deals with the crime, deals with the corruption, deals with exactly where a mother will risk sending her daughter on a perilous journey because its less violent than what she would find staying home with her grandmother. We have a lot of work to do. The record will be opened for two weeks. I invite any nonprofit to submit testimony. Well continue our discussion. The committee stands in recess until the full committee will be marking up on next thursday, the defense appropriations. With the modification that if we can get other things done this week, im sure going to do it. The National Governors association today kicked off their annual summer meeting in nashville. Coming up this afternoon, live coverage of a discussion led by Steve Bashear and Brian Sandoval on education and economic development. That will start at 4 00 eastern on our companion network cspan2. Coming up tomorrow on cspan, well continue live coverage from the nations governors summer meet with a discussion on Health Care Reform at 10 00 a. M. Eastern followed at 11 45 with a look at education and job training. Thats live tomorrow on cspan. This weekend on newsmakers Raul Grijalva discusses immigration, border issues and the Progressive Agenda in congress. Newsmakers airs sundays at 10 00asm m. And 6 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. And so dedicated not be made because of the infutile by unthinking and stupid labels. I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. [ applause ] thank you. Thank you. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. Senator goldwaters acceptance speech at the 1964 Republican National convention, this weekend on American History tvs reel america sunday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan3. Baseball does strike me. I dont want to get metaphysical about this. But it is a good sport to be the National Pastime of a democratic nation because democracy is about compromise and settling. You dont get everything you want. And baseball is like that. Its a lot of losing in baseball. Every team that goes to spring training knows its going to win 60 games, lose 60 games. You play the whole season to sort out the middle 42. If you win 11 out of 20 games you win 89 games, you have a good chance to play in october. So its the sport of a half loaf, as is democracy. George will on his latest book on baseball and Wrigley Field and the recent controversy surrounding one of his columns. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern and pacific an cspans q a. Assistant secretary of state for european and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland says they are ready to pose sanctions against russia for the issues in ukraine. Help us look more closely at develops in ukraine. We are pleased to have the assistant secretaries from state, treasury and defense to brief us on the situation on the ground and our second panel two former National Security advisers to provide insights into the broader geopolitical implications of putins actions in ukraine. In the past week, ukraine appears to have mobilized around its new president. Ukrainian armed forces have been actively reclosing their border with russia and pushing back russian separatists. At the same time, president putins instigation of this conflict continues to breed uncertainty as to whether a corner has in fact, been turned. In my view, president putin is entirely capable of trying to divide ukraine one day n then when the International Community applies pressure withdraw from the scene long enough to avoid the International Community scrutiny while effectively continuing his aggression to achieve his intended goal. In june, i wrote to president obama asking him to seriously answer consider implementing sanctions to deter putin from further destabilizing ukraine. I fully appreciate the importance of acting in concert with our european allies to ensure that sanctions have their intended effect, but at the same time, we should not hesitate to act unilaterally to support an independent ukraine and counter malign russian interference where delay threatens these goals, our strategic objectives or National Interests. In the long run, a stable and secure region will serve our National Interest and enhance opportunities for the u. S. And european businesses. In my view, unless putin is confronted with strong disincentives, he will continue to ensure that the ukraunian government will not be able to stabilize the situation and that he will position himself to fill the power vacuum when the government cant fill the needs of parts the ukrainian people. What steps and measures must putin take to resolving the conflict and at what point would you call his bluff and proceed