Every year the committee invites the Homeland Department of security to brief us on the affairs. To question the administrations policy as well as an opportunity for the department to take responsibility for its actions. It is a pleasure to have secretary johnson here. This is our first opportunity to question him publicly since his exact action on immigration in november. In another is an injunction we can get a good idea of what to expect from the programs based on the way the department has incremented the program. It appears that applications for deferred action are being rubberstamped. Evidenced by the fact that criminals and gang members are receiving special benefits despite supposed policies against it. Take the case of the recipient recipient, accused of murdering four people. Last week the department admitted that he had received dock a despite his gang membership which was known to adjudicators and despite being in department proceedings. Deportment proceedings. It is not clear who made the arrangement to approve the application but we need to get to the bottom of it. We know that the agency terminated 282 daca requests. This appears to be a bigger problem. This tragedy compels the question, what background checks are in place and are they adequate. Does this administration truly have a zerotolerance policy for granting immigration benefits to criminals and gang members as suggested by true the president. The committee will also want to hear from the secretary about the proposed expansion of daca. And why this ministration provided over 100,000 daca work extensions despite assurances the lawyers gave the federal court that it would not implement any aspect of the president s executive action until february 18, 2015. There are questions about how the department will fund the program and whether legal immigrants will suffer. The secretary must also answer as to why this administration is allowing people here illegally to be put on the path to citizenship which is clearly a constitutional responsibility of congress. This path to citizenship they are encouraging applicants to take advantage of. This loophole will set a dangerous precedent that will allow lawbreakers to obtain the benefits of permanent residence and citizenship after showing a total disregard for american law. One thing seems clear. There is little we desire by the administration who swear to uphold the law. The Administration Needs to answer for the release of criminal aliens in the community. In fiscal year 2013, they released from detention that he thousand convicted criminal aliens in removal or seedings after they had been ordered removed. In 2014 the released 30,000 convicted criminal aliens. They had convictions ranging from homicide, Sexual Assault kidnapping to aggravated assault and drunk driving. According to i. C. E. Statistics, 58 of the releases in 2014 were purely discretionary. The remainder were due to court mandates and the ability to retain travel documents. Why did the administration release 60 of the criminals and coat their custody and what are they going to do about it. I expect the secretary to address that today. I expect the secretary to also address the programs rollins with the investment program. Not only are there gaping holes there are serious management problems that were highlighted by the Inspector General. The ig laid out how preferential treatment was granted to those wellconnected. It was clear the secretary does not plan to hold the former director who sits and coat the number two poll accountable for his action. Instead it appears the violations of ethical conduct will go unpunished. All agents or adjudicators are being threatened or reprimanded if they do not follow the president ial policies. I would like to hear secretary johnsons thoughts on how combating an array of National Security issues that the country faces, the rise of isis prevents a significant presents a significant threat to the homeland. They are actively investigating an plot to commit a terror attack inside the United States, perhaps by targeting uniformed personnel in california. The transportation secretary and tsa alerted local Law Enforcement to be on the lookout and to increase security. Earlier this month there were a number of arrests for their involvement with isil. The justice departments also alleged that isis helped to train a man from ohio. The man had traveled to syria, was directed to return to the United States and commit terrorist attack here. Other individuals including a kansas man, two people in new york were allegedly inspired by isis propaganda. And numerous other americans have been arrested on the way to the airport as allegedly attempting to travel to isis. The president has down played the threat posed by isis, but reportedly has billions of dollars, control significant territory, and is accusing innocent men, women, and children across the middle east including americans. Its obviously a threat that requires a serious, sustained response to keep our homeland safe. Another threat i expect the secretary to address is ever increasing risk of cyberattacks whose reports are filled with shocking examples of the federal governments lack of preparedness against the threat. It was reported this past weekend that the president s unclassified email was hacked late 2014, defense secretary carter recently disclosed that earlier this year Russian Hackers accessed an unclassified pentagon computer network. Moreover, the Government AccountabilityOffice Report found that d. H. S. Lacked a strategy for protecting government buildings and Access Control systems from intrusion by hackers. Cybersecurity cant be on the periphery of our National Security strategy any longer. It has to be at the center. There are many issues to discuss today and i thank the secretary for being here and im told that senator leahy cannot come and im willing to call on anybody on that side of the aisle. Go ahead, senator schumer. Senator schumer thank you for choosing me among all the choices. [laughter] i appreciate that very much. I thank you, mr. Chairman. Welcome, secretary johnson. Secretary, its always a pleasure to see you and speak with you about the Critical Issues confronting our nation. As a fellow new yorker im proud of the work you have done since being confirmed. I think most americans join me. You have done a great job and i think can i speak for our friends on both sides of the aisle, youre always available. Youre always candid. You ask the right questions. You give answers so you are a credit to your department and the country and your depth and breadth in counterterrorism and defense issues has served the department very well. And i want to tell you you have a great staff. They hear from me constantly. New yorks the center of terrorist target. New york, we have all of the sandy issues and defense issues, and your staff is fabulous. I thank you for that. We all know that d. H. S. Is tasked with an enormous range of responsibilities from guarding our borders and coastline to administering immigration, responding when disaster strikes, shielding the president , protect our airports, securing the homeland is a huge job. In my state from new york to buffalo, new york city to buffalo, and along the northern border, the departments work directly impacts our economy as well as our security. Whether its the peace bridge in buffalo, the j. F. K. International airport, Hurricane Sandy relief efforts, d. H. S. s work is vital to new yorkers and your dedicated Civil Servants who fill these responsibilities are essential. Unfortunately, we have an appropriations battle where we fought from the beginning of the year. We emphasize time and time again that 90 of d. H. S. Personnel would be declared essential in the event of a Department Wide shutdown. That meant they would have to work without pay unless congress got its act together. It befuddled me how so many people could want to hold up d. H. S. Funding when you have so many vital issues at stake unrelated to immigration, because it was hostage taking at its worse and im glad the department didnt shut down. Im relieved, too, that you were able to keep your hands on the helm during those difficult times. So i want to close by addressing two issues that my dear colleague, senator grassley, as addressed. First is isis and terrorism. There are new terrorist threats, believe me. As a new yorker, who lived through 9 11, knew people who died, i know that. I would say this to my colleagues, with the new threats and the changing threats, we ought to be taking our hat off to the secretary, his people and all the people in the c. I. A. , d. O. D. , n. S. A. Who do an amazing job. Its not an accident that praise god, we have not had a 9 11 like incident in america. In fact, just about every, with the exception of boston, which was unique, just about every major terrorist incident has been thwarted ahead of time as senator grassley talked about. Thats not an accident. That is not an accident. And i think that the men and women who work for you, c. I. A. D. O. D. , n. S. A. And all the other agencies, f. B. I. , deserve a tremendous amount of credit. They are wonderful. They are like our soldiers. They are wonderful Civil Servants i talked to so many of them who are truly dedicated to preventing, god forbid, another terrorist attack on our homeland. So i salute them. And certainly questions should be asked. Lets not forget to give a little praise where praise is due. Second, on immigration. I find it truly befuddling about my colleagues from the other side of the aisle, they cry out against a broken border. The bipartisan immigration bill passed, senator mccain and myself, the gang of eight, does more to tighten up the border than any proposal made by the other side. More than any. We talk about a broken system. But our colleagues are just happy to let the status quo go on. Employers are allowed to hire new illegals. Our bill stopped that with things taken from Jeff Sessions book, everify and things like that. So we get a lot of complaints that the president s moving forward on immigration, but we have no activity, no solutions from the other side of the aisle. Only complaints. Thats not governing. Now they are in the majority they have a responsibility to start governing on this issue instead of just complaining when the administration, because of the paralysis in congress on this issue, not caused by democrats, blocks us from moving forward. I would just say youll hear a lot of those complaints, but let us all bear in mind that this senate, bipartisan, came together on a solution that dealt with border, dealt with illegals crossing the border dealt with all of the issues we faced, had overwhelming support in the country, a majority of republicans supported the bill but because of a hard right few, we have been unable to pass a bill. That should be constantly borne in mind as you will hear the criticisms that you will hear today. With that, mr. Chairman, i yield the floor. The microphone. Not the floor. Senator grassley before i have you go ahead, stay seated, but id like to have you affirm that the testimony you are about to give before the committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god. If secretary johnson i do, sir. Senator grassley thank you. Proceed. Secretary johnson , thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank the members of the committee for hearing me today. You have my prepared statement. Let me just say a few things in the five minutes that i have. In my view, counterterrorism needs to remain the cornerstone of the department of Homeland Securitys mission. Its the reason we were formed and the reason why i accepted service as the secretary for this department. In my view, the global terrorist threat has evolved to a new phase. It is more complex, it is more decentralized. In many respects it is harder to detect. There are more groups. And we, therefore, need a whole of government approach that includes very much so the department of Homeland Security. We have the phenomenon now of foreign fighters, who leave their home countries go to places like iraq and syria and return. We need to track foreign fighters. We need to track foreign fighters from countries for which we do not require a visa. My staff is developing as a follow on to what we did last summer greater security measures that can be taken with regard to travelers from those countries. We continue to focus on aviation security. I want to build preclearance capability on the front end of a flight to the United States, and we are working daily to do that. A lot of our efforts continue to center around Airport Security. We directed a number of things last week concerning Airport Security. We are engaging state and local Law Enforcement which in my view, given the nature of the homeland threat, which involves the threat of the lone wolf, the independent actor, its much more important that we work with city police departments, commissions, commissioners state Law Enforcement as well. We have our engagements in the community to counter violent extremism. I traveled to places like minneapolis, boston, lang large, chicago, columbus, ohio los angeles, chicago, columbus ohio, to engage Community Leaders counter violent extremism. Im pleased that the congress is active in evaluating and voting on cybersecurity legislation. Its one of my top priorities. Im happy to discuss that further. We are doing a lot to enhance Border Security. We have added resources stemming from last summer. We have prioritized those apprehended at the border. We have developed what i briefed to some of you the southern Border Campaign strategy. Which is a d. H. S. Wide combined effort at Border Security on the southern border. As i reported last week our numbers of apprehensions on the southern border midway through the fiscal year are down considerably from where they were this time last year and even the year before that. Apprehensions are an indication of total attempts to cross the border illegally, and they are down considerably, though i believe that there is more we can and should do. As all of you know, the president and i are interested in reforming our immigration system. We announced a number of executive actions that include deferred action for parents, which is the subject of the litigation in texas, but it includes a number of other things as well. Added Border Security. The southern Border Campaign strategy. Pay reform for Immigration Enforcement personnel. And so forth. We are ending the controversial secure Communities Program which led to a lot of resistance from state and local Law Enforcement, in an effort to get at the criminals who should be removed from our country. I am interested in enhancing Public Safety. Im interested at in getting at the criminals. So we are working with mayors, governors, county commissioners, sheriffs, chiefs, to introduce them to our new Priority Enforcement Program so they will work with us again in an effort to get at the criminals who should be removed from this country. Im sure we will have an opportunity to discuss the eb5 program. There are a number of security enhancements i would like to see for the eb5 program. I wrote a letter to the chairman and the ranking on that yesterday. We are doing a number of things to reform the way we manage the department, to make it a more effective and efficient place. Last but not least, i want to thank the members of the senate for helping us fill the vacancies in our department. Over the last 16 months we have had 12 Senate Confirmed president ial appointments. To the department including myself, our nominee for undersecretary for management, russ, was confirmed two weeks ago. Im very appreciative of the senate for that. And our nominee to be the new t. S. A. Administrator should be announced shortly. Perhaps even today. I thank the committee in advance for your time and attention. And i am interested in building a more effective and Efficient Department of Homeland Security and i appreciate the Supreme Court in doing that. Senator grassley im going to start with a statement on that i dont expect you to respond to but i want you to know how i feel about it. The Inspector General report on mr. Mayorkas and the eb5 program. The Inspector General clearly laid out the evidence against mayorkas. The report explains how he intervened on three political cases each had high profile connections. Despite the outrage, it seems to me you have no intention of doing anything and planning to stick by mr. Mayorkas even though he provided preferential treatment and violated the very rules he wrote about ethical conduct. Its no n wonder that there is a morale its no wonder that there is a morale problem. Employees see leadership getting away with violating the rules. Employees are given clear rules on preferential treatment and how do you adjudicate eb5. Yet when the director himself breaks those rules, there is no recourse and then what are employees to think about that . The only defense that i have seen so far on the preferential treatment is the agency gets pressure from members of congress and from both sides of the aisle. I think that thats comparing apples and oranges. It is no excuse. Members in congress are in a position to effect final decisions like a director. So secretary johnson, i think that i