Official responsible for the landsearder we are moving toward in general a riskbased strategy to Homeland Security. Perhaps the most notable example of that is t. S. A. T. S. A. Has t. S. A. Precheck. A lot of people here are a member of t. S. A. Precheck, im sure. Submit some information on background. You get to the airport, theres a shorter line. Less Aviation Security screening when you get there. It enables us to free up resources to devote toward the class of individuals we know ess about at the airports. Popular has become with the public. Its the agency of the the government that the public deals with the most. At the same time weve developed and grown t. S. A. Precheck. Its an amazing fact i like to repeat to audiences. Just in the first three months of calendar year 2014. T. S. A. Has seized from the carryorn luggage of aviation passengers people getting ready to get on the airplane that you carryon firearms in luggage including 1,471 of which were loaded, over 3,000 various different types of weapons seized by t. S. A. In the first months of 2014 alone. I salute the work of this organization. There is a lot of misunderstanding, misapprehensions about the state of our Border Security right now, particularly the southern order. Im more devoted to the transparency in terms of the numbers of people removed in the course of a fiscal year. I think theres a fair amount of misunderstanding and mystery surrounding the numbers, so im committed to more transparency and were developing better ways to make that happen. Under t, the case that president obama in particular and over the last three president s, president clinton, bush, and obama, weve dedicated an unprecedented amount of personnel, technology, to Border Security, particularly the southern border. I gave a speech at csis about a month ago when i talked about our Border Security efforts, the number of additional patrol agents which has gone from 8,600 in the year 2005 to over 18,000 now. The day president obama took office, there were approximately 15,700 Border Patrol agencies. There are now over 18,000. The amount of fence has gone to over 700 69 now. Weve gone over the last 15 years from two 84 vessels. All sorts of surveillance technology, mobile surveillance technology, night vision technology, and this investment by our president s, the congress with the support of the American Public has shown results. A lot of illegal migration is driven by pushpull factors relating to economics, the economy in the country youre leaving, the economy of the country youre going to. Very clearly, the violence, poverty in countries where my grants leave from. Migrants leave from. There is an aspect to illegal migration clearly. But in fiscal year 2000, apprehensions on the southern border, which are an indicator of total attempts to cross the border, reached a high of 1. 643 million. The last several years, its been down 70 from that to around 400 to 500,000 a year. As simon noted, the population of undocumented in this country reached a high of 1. 2 million in 2006. Today its now around, according to pew estimates, 11. 3 million. It has stopped growing. It has actually decreased over the last several years, it has stopped growing for the first 19 80s. The 55 of which were just in the Rio Grande Valley sector alone. I saw the situation myself in a number of visits to south texas to mcallen to new mexico to phoenix. It was clearly humanitarian aspect to our response, but we responded aggressively to the. Ike this past summer an aggressive Public Awareness campaign about the dangers of the trip for child for a child, and the numbers today of unaccompanied children crossing are at the lowest theyve been in almost two years. The high point was june 10, 2014. And it dropped dramatically from that point forward to the point where the number of unaccompanied children crossing the southern border is in the rio grande sector in particular the lowest its been in almost. Wo years all this is affected by push and pull factors, but were determined that we need to do more ourselves for Border Security. Im concerned about the possibility of another rise in illegal migration. Much of it is seasonal. It begins to climb each year at the beginning of the year, peaks in the early summer and drops off when it gets hot in the late summer so were concerned about another rise. And we have to depart against another rise in illegal migration of the type we saw this past summer. So we have to be aware of the fact that the economy in this country is getting better. So were committed to sustaining the infrastructure that was put in place. We announced several days ago the opening of another detention facility in dilly, texas, that has the capablity to detain adults with their children. Weve announced the closure of artesia last summer on the campus of fletsy in new mexico. That was intended to be temporary. We announced the closure of it. But were building more detention infrastructure. Some people are critical of that. In my view, it is essential that we have this infrastructure in place to guard against additional rises in illegal. Igration ice does it its thing, the. Ast guard does its thing for investigations to support the other two. Ive directed the creation of Border Security metrics that will define publicly how we efine Border Security. I will say this. As the president has said many times, legislative action is always preferable but weve waited now for years for the congress to act and the congress has not acted. In 2013 the Senate Passed a comprehensive bill by a vote of 683. A Bipartisan Coalition in support of Immigration Reform. The house did not act. The house did not act in 2013. House has not acted in 2014. The president has waited. In the meantime weve identified a number of executive actions that we can take within our existing Legal Authority to fix what everyone recognizes is a broken immigration system. And so our reforms will be comprehensive. I am satisfied that our reforms are within our existing legal uthorities and they will address a number of things including Border Security. The president is committed to Border Security. The president is committed to reducing illegal migration in the future. So well be announcing a set of comprehensive reforms all within our existing Legal Authority to fix the broken immigration system. So with that, im happy to answer questions. Thank you. [applause] weve already gotten some questions. Let me start with a couple from me and then well dive into the public questions. , d. H. S. , l, in 2011 john morton, issued something called the morton memo which set new priorities for removal in the u. S. Has it worked . Has it been successful . Are we safer today because of it . Im very familiar with the morton memo. There are actually several morton memos. Yeah. Theres a lot of guidance issued by i. C. E. About priories for removal. And in my view, the guidance ould be clearer. One can remain fully committed to prioritizing threats to national security, Public Safety, Border Security, and at the same time provide clear guidance to the field, to the workers out there who enforce and administer the Immigration Laws. One of the things that im committed to and i learned this from being the Senior Lawyer for the department of the field you know, you can issue policy statements from washington, but the field has to be clear about what it is that is expected of them. D so im committed to making sure that whatever we do is properly explained to the work force, people in the field, people in the field may not always agree with our policies, but in my judgment, if they understand them and they feel as though their views have been heard and reflected in some way, that presents a good equation for success in the implementation of it. So working with working in the department of defense, which is, you know, a very, very Large Organization of three million people, in my experience, if you properly educate and train the work force on the policies that you want to bring about, they have greater chance for success and implementation in a way that seems to be reflected in the policy statements. And so that is a priority for me. I think that the morton memo, the march morton memo that you user to, march, 2011, could some additional clarity. And i know that the i. C. E. Leadership agrees with that. So we should expect that. I didnt say that. The existing policy. Ok. Related to that, what did we learn from daca and what kind of lessons have we learned about he use of pros cue torle discretion, a process that could affect more than a million people, were now in the renewal of it, so were in the second round of daca. What have you taken away in terms of how successful has it been, what can we learn, what can be done better . Weve learned a lot, c. I. S. Has learned a lot about implementation of the program from that experience. Something like over 700,000 people have applied. Were in the renewal phase right now. I think there have been Something Like 600,000 who have been accepted into daca. Very definitely when you start up new program there are Lessons Learned in doing so. And i think from my i wasnt rt of d. H. S. In 2012, but my observation is that while there may have been some bumps in the road in the startup of it like there are in any large government program, the implementation of it is gone relatively gone relatively well. Its obviously made a lot of people happy and provided for a better life for a lot of people. So thats my take on it. Ill just say that weve seen a report thats about to come out any day from an academic in california whos looked at some of the when people applied reapplied, they had to put down some data on their earnings and their income, and the data theres now hes going to be releasing an initial analysis showing a significant increase in the earnings of the Daca Recipients in the first two years, which is what we had hoped. You guys have done a great job. The questions are terrific. Thank you. So weve got some fun ones come up here, mr. Secretary. Adult the dention, adult and child detention. We have a new facility in dilly. Weve got new questions about the propriety of this type of detention for as was written here, that the American ImmigrationLawyers Association yesterday and 130 organizations sent the president a letter asking him to stop the mass of mily detentions of Central Americans fleeing. What are your thoughts on how we go forward here . Before the experience of the 34 ,000 the 32, tention beds that i. C. E. Maintains, Something Like only i for 95 were available family units, for adults who bring their kids across the border. That is a very, very, very small francisco of the total capacity fraction of the total capacity so when we had the situation this summer, rather than just simply apprehending them, processing them, and sending them to the nearest bus station so they can go into the interior, were talking about family units, now, and the numbers of individuals in family units was very similar month to month, day to day as the numbers of unaccompanied kids that were crossing the border over the summer. Rather than just simply sending them to the nearest bus station, we felt it necessary to build additional detention capability in part y units, because it is important to send midst of a in the spike that if you come here and you invest 8,000 paying a coyote to come here, dont assume youre going to get here and be able to stay. So we built ar teach ya on the campus in new mexico. I visited there myself when we opened it. Very definitely there are some things that we should have done and did to improve the ability or attorney clients to communicate. Ar teach ya is in a remote area. I think dilly is, too. Weve done things to improve the ability to communicate. Were still working on that. Maintaining the capacity for the adults who bring their kids across the border is a critical component to Border Security in that we need to continue to have that capacity. Thats my view, and i think that just 95 beds out of 34,000 is not sufficient for that purpose when youre dealing with family units. Wait times on the border. Trade has exploded so rapidly, the infrastructure was really that we had facilitate immigration along the border was really constructed for a trade relationship probably of about one third the current size of what we have now. We know that wait 250eu78s are increasing, slowing down Economic Activity and growth on both sides. What are your thoughts . Wait times at airports . No. The wait times on the southern border for cargo and come into the u. S. Has increased in some cases. Weve made some investments. What are your thoughts about what we can be doing over the next five to 10 years to invest in border infrastructure to help make sure that we can not only keep up with the current levels of trade but anticipate the future level. This is something that president obama is committed to. One of my first my first conference that i attended among the three leaders was in march taluca where the three of them got together to talk about facilitating trade, lawful trade and travel. Frankly, i did not appreciate until i got into the job that a big part of my job is promoting, facilitating lawful trade and travel because we have the customs component within d. H. S. So the leaders have embarked on a number of initiatives to do that. For the caunds we have beyond the border initiative. I was in ottawa in september meeting with my counterparts there to talk about that, how we build on that. We want to continue to build infrastructure within our Budget Constraints to facilitate lawful trade and travel. But we also want to make it more efficient, easier from a bureaucratic standpoint, a single point of entry into our complex system for managing exports and imports, so that somebody who is ex porting or importing goods into or out of this country has a single point of entry into a government agency. Im hoping that minister blaney and i will sign an agreement soon enhancing preclearance capablity in canada in a number of respects. Preclearance has the advantage of both promoting security but also promoting lawful travel, so he and i will be signing an agreement like that very, very soon. And we continue to look with mexico to a number of ways we can build trade there. Its very important to the relationship, so its a my priority for the president. Therefore, its a high priority of mine. Ill reflect that i was lucky enough to be in a meeting with the president and Vice President before they went to mexico in the fall of last year, and i mini in my little two bit, i talked about border he went on at length about Border Construction in a nerdy way. I was really i was blown away by the depth of his understanding of how central this is to our economy. And so i think weve made some strides in recent years. Theres been significant the know gal easy opening which came theres a first rail crossing. I dont know if thats been finished. Our policy makers have a lot of work to do to keep up. Two more and well let you go. I know you have a lot to do in the next few days. I should say, by the way, that there were a series of questions about the timing of the announcement. What i what we know from news reports this morning is the president will be giving a speech in las vegas on friday. One of the Fun Questions was, are you going to be there, mr. Secretary . No. O, ok. You havent checked your schedule yet . Could be a fun week for all of us. Couple more and well let you go. This is a good friend whos been writing with great thoughtfulness about these issues in recent months. Wheres the fox reporter. Vox. Lucas is here. Where are you . Lucas is here. All right. Let me give that lucas, i dont know if you submitted anything but so she asked an interesting questioning going back to mornlte. The morton memos. Currently, we have deprioritized the deportation of people without criminal records in the interior. Theres been significant change in the way weve managed the interior deportation system. N 2014 there were only some this is not something thats well understood. If, lets say the executive ction covers half or so of the undocumented population, what happens in terms of deportation priorities of the rest. . Well, reality is, we have a finite level of resources to enforce our Immigration Laws and so like virtually every other Law Enforcement agency, we have to prioritize. Some people seem to deny the very existence of prosecutorial discretion but it exists in every Law Enforcement agency and you have to prioritize and you dont leave it to the individuals on the ground to figure out the priorities. Policy should be set at a senior level, so we have, in fact, prioritized Border Security, Public Safety, national security, which is why the very High Percentage of those who are convicted of various types of crimes. I think thats a good policy. Think it should be maintained so long as we have a finite number of resources resources, we need to continue to focus on malaysian of Public Safety and the american behalf of Public Safety. Those who threaten national security, and i fully suspect that that policy will continue. Final question. What we are hearing is that whatever executive action comes, it will the family ties will be