Conditions of Migrant Children at housing facilities. This is two hours and 20 minutes. The committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare recess of the committee at any time. The full committee during convening to identify, resolve and present vulnerabilities on tsas Security Operations. I now recognize myself for five minutes to give an Opening Statement. Today, nearly 20 years since the terrible attacks of september 11, 2001, we are holding this hearing to examine why urgent warnings from independent auditors about security vulnerabilities at the transportation and Security Administration have been languishing for years without being resolved. In 2016, i led a Bipartisan Group of members in asking the Government Accountability office to examine tsas covert Testing Program. This past april, gao issued the declassified results of its work. Unfortunately, gao confirmed many of our worst fears. According to gao, nine security vulnerabilities were identified through covert tests since 2016, but i quote, as of september, 2018 none had been formally resolved, end of quote. Not one over the past four years. Gao also found that tsa was, and i quote, not using a risk informed approach, end of quote, to its covert tests. As a result, gao warned that tsa has only limited assurance that it is, quote, targeting the most likely threats. Unfortunately, this is part of a larger trend. In addition to failing to implement gaos recommendation, tsa has also failed to address warnings from the Inspector General. As of this month, 37 recommendations made by the Inspector General from 12 reports on Aviation Security remain open and unfulfilled. Several of those are also manyyearsold. I want to thank administrator pekoske for being here. And i support some of the positive steps he is taking, but we need to know why these longstanding vulnerabilities are not being adequately addressed. I thank the witnesses from gao and the Inspector Generals office for being here and for keeping the focus squarely on these dangers to the flying public. Today we will also examine why the Trump Administration instead of focusing all of their resources on trying to resolve these vulnerabilities is actually gravitating them in front of a weakening Aviation Security by taking tsa staff out of our nations airports and diverting them to the southern border. Earlier this year, the Trump Administration submitted the 2020 budget request to tsa, for tsa. In that request, the administration warned, and i quote, tsa continues to experience Airline Passenger volume growth at airport checkpoints nationwide. As a result, the Trump Administration says it needs 700 more screeners at tsa. And it is asking for more funding to hire these screeners, yet at the same time the administration is diverting tsa employees away from their primary responsibilities and sending them to the southern border. We saw several press reports about this a few weeks ago. So the committee sent a letter to tsa to request the exact numbers and locations of the tsa officials who are being diverted. On friday, tsa sent a response to the committee with new information showing the extent of these diversions. According to tsa, they have already diverted nearly 200 employees from airports and headquarters to the southern border, including transportation and Security Officers, supervisors, and inspectors, as well as an additional 172 federal air marshals. The employees are drawn from more than 50 airports across the country, ranging from small, Regional Airports to largest, busiest airports in the nation. But this is apparently just the beginning. According to the letter on friday, tsa has already approved an additional 294 employees to divert to the southern border. Let me put this quite starkly. On one hand, tsa has dozens of security vulnerabilities that languished for years, but the Trump Administration is asking congress for 700 more tsa screeners to handle huge increases in air travel. Yet on the other hand, the Trump Administration is taking more than 350 of these critical tsa employees, diverting them away from their primary responsibilities, that is securing our nations airways, and sending them to the southern border. And more may be sent. The administrations actions are not helping Aviation Security, theyre harming it. In fact, in their letter to the committee on friday, tsa admitted that there is, and i quote, a potential increased risk to inflight security, end of quote. I ask unanimous consent this letter be part of the hearing record. Without objection, so ordered. And at this point it seems clear that Congress Needs to step in to ensure that tsa finally addresses the security vulnerabilities and to prevent additional airport workers from being diverted from their primary roles. Today, with chairman thompson of the Homeland Security committee, i am introducing the covert testing and Risk Mitigation improvement act, which would establish standards for covert testing and require t. S. A. To track and report its progress in resolving vulnerabilities as part of its annual budget submission to congress. I look forward to working closely with all of my colleagues to move this legislation as quickly as possible. Closely with all of my colleagues to move this legislation as quickly as possible. With that, i now yield to distinguished member Ranking Member mr. Jordan. Thank you. Chairman asked why the administration is sending tsa personnel to the border . Why are they sending tsa personnel to the border . Because theres a crisis. Just a few months ago in one drug seizer, enough fentanyl to kill 150 million americans. He is asking why were sending people down . Because it is a crisis. Whats the democrats response . Speaker of the house says walls are immoral, abolish i. C. E. , and supplemental waiting of six weeks to address the crisis. Thats the problem. Criticize the administration for trying to do anything and everything they can to deal with the humanitarian crisis on the border. Give me a break. Mr. Chairman, tsa has an Important Mission to keep americans safe, and airports in the air. We rely tsa to be one step ahead of those that want to do harm. However, we learned as you said earlier from gao and Inspector General that tsa can improve, how to evaluate its own security vulnerabilities. I look forward to hearing from administrator pekoske about how tsa can use the work of gao and the Inspector General to better secure our country. Aviation security is just one part of securing our homeland. The key part is where i started, Border Security. I want to extend my appreciation to men and women of tsa, and all of the dhs components who have volunteered to go to the border and help address the crisis. Theres no other word for it. The crisis. Several weeks ago, acting secretary testified to Senate Judiciary committee, quote, identified almost 4800 migrants this year presenting as family units that were determined to be fraudulent. He testified that they uncovered when we talk about humanitarian crisis, think about this, uncovered child recycling rings, innocent children used multiple times to help different adults gain illegal entry into the country and be released. He also mentioned an example of custom and Border Patrol officials speaking to a man that confessed to not being the father of the child he had in his custody. He told officials he paid the mother 80 to take her child so he could gain entry, be released into the country, because he knew under u. S. Law, he would be released into the interior of the United States in 20 days. But for six weeks, there has been a supplemental appropriations bill sitting there that the democrats wont pass. That child was six months old. Acting secretary also said in 40 days prior to his testimony 60,000 children entered dhs custody. And were going to criticize the administration for trying to get as many people there as we can to help with this crisis . I want to commend my colleagues from texas, mr. Cloud, mr. Roy, for taking a leadership role and highlighting the emergency on the border. We must get the crisis at the border under control. But it seems to me my colleagues in the majority of preoccupied criticizing the president , criticizing the administration. Too preoccupied with trying to decide whether to impeach or not to focus on the problem. Maybe we should focus on the problem, forget about the personalities, and help these kids, help this situation. I urge my colleagues today to do whatever we can, stand up for Strong Border security so we can bring an end to as i have said now several times, what everyone in this country understands is a crisis. I yield back. Thank you very much. Now i would like to welcome our witnesses. Mr. Charles johnson junior is managing director for Homeland Security and issues at the Government Accountability office. Mr. Donald bumgardner is the Deputy AssistantInspector General for audits at the u. S. Department of Homeland Security. And the honorable David Pekoske is the administrator of the transportation and Security Administration. If all of you would please rise and raise your right hand. I will swear you in. Let the record show the witnesses answered in the affirmative. Thank you, you may be seated. The microphones are very sensitive. So please speak directly into them. Make sure theyre on when you are speaking, of course. And without objection, your written statement will be made a part of the record. With that, mr. Johnson, you are now recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Chairman cummings, Ranking Member jordan, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to address gaos findings from its april, 2019 report on tsas covert Testing Program. My Statement Today will cover three areas. The extent to which tsas covert tests are risk informed, produced quality information, and have been used to address security vulnerabilities. In addition, i will provide an update on the actions tsa has taken in response to our recommendations. Before i address these areas, it is important to note that threats to Aviation Security persist and continue to evolve. For example, the Intelligence Community has noted that terrorist organizations now have capabilities to plant explosives in personal Electronic Devices such as laptops. So why is risk informed approach important . A risk informed approach not only helps Decision Makers identify and evaluate the threats that exist but also to develop mitigation plans. Tsa uses its covert tests as a means to do so. There are two units within tsa that undertake this effort to do covert testing. The Inspections Office which looks at the wide spectrum of security vulnerability associated with the Security System and the office or Security Operations office which focuses on the screener performance in terms of Standard Operating Procedures they established in undertaking checked baggage and check point screening. As such, these tests based on identified or potential risk. With respect to whether the covert tests are risk informed, good news. Tsa has taken steps to improve this area. Specifically the Inspections Office redesigned covert tests in 2016 to be more risk informed and quantitative. And has taken additional steps to document its rationale for selecting covert tests. Additionally, the Security Operations office redesigned covert tests to address prior deficiencies that have been identified by ourselves and the Inspector General, and more formally incorporated risk into the process, particularly use of intelligence reporting. With respect to tsas covert test producing quality information, not so good news. While tsas Inspection Office has redesigned its process to produce quality information, the Security Operations unit has not been able to ensure quality of its tests and covertness of its tests in particular. Particularly those performed by tsa personnel at local airports. As such, we recommended that tsa assess its Security Operations office covert testing process, to identify opportunities to improve qualities of its tests and as i mentioned particularly consistency and undertaking the tests as well as covertness of the tests. We believe this will tsa improve quality of test results, thereby enhancing tsas ability to address vulnerabilities. Good news. Tsa agreed with our recommendation, and its estimated they will complete this recommendation, implement it within a month from now, sometime by next month. With respect to tsa use of covert test results to identify vulnerabilities, also not so good news. We found that although tsa established a security Vulnerability Management process in 2015 to review and address security threats, this process in itself had not resolved any of the nine vulnerabilities submitted to the process by the Inspections Office. According to tsa, this process was set up to ensure the cooperation of various tso Program Offices that had expertise that could assist in addressing vulnerabilities. Among other things, we noted in the report a lack of established time frames and milestones to achieve this, particularly for the office to be assigned the responsibility and to mitigate identified threats, has made it more difficult for tsa to effectively use this process to address those vulnerabilities. As such, we recommended that tsa establish time frames and milestones within steps for security vulnerabilities management process, and establish procedures for monitoring progress. The good news is tsa acted and revised the process to meet intent of the recommendations. Overall, although tsa has taken some steps to improve its covert Testing Program and to address two of the nine recommendations, or actually four of them, two of them we have closed as implemented, we are in process of looking at the information, there are five that remain to be addressed. We believe sustained management attention will be needed to ensure continued progress toward identified and mitigating security vulnerabilities. This is vital to ensuring the safety of our Aviation Security system. In closing, i would like to personally thank the staff that worked on the review and this committee for the opportunity to testify today on our findings. At this point i am happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you very much. Mr. Bumgardner. Chairman cummings, Ranking Member jordan, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss our work on tsa security vulnerabilities and persistent challenges. Tsa has a vital but extremely Difficult Mission to protect the nations transportations system and ensure freedom of movement for people in commerce. Every day Security Officers at about 450 airports screen approximately two million passengers, 5. 5 million carry on items, and 1. 4 million checked bags. This responsibility is complicated by the constantly evolving threat of adversaries willing to use any means to cause harm and destruction. Missing one threat can have potential catastrophic consequences. In the past we shared concerns about vulnerabilities in tsa operations while also acknowledging tsas challenges in areas of improvement. Our more recent work continues to show that tsa needs to strengthen its efforts to address persistent problems. Since 2014 we have audited and inspected various security related aspects of tsa, including passenger and baggage screening operations, precheck, the federal air marshall service, and i. T. Systems. These resulted in being issued 24 reports to tsa with 138 recommendations designed to reduce security vulnerabilities in the Aviation Transportation system. For example, these covert testing continues to reveal persistent, troubling problems. Since inception, we conducted thousands of covert tests. We assessed through covert testing checked baggage screening, passenger screening at check points, and airport access controls. Our findings and conclusions from these tests have been consistent with those of tsas internal testin