and then cost and manpower are issues. >> maybe a briefing from your staff would be helpful to me. >> be happy to provide that. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator sessions. senator, to you. >> thank you. thank you, madame secretary, for your service and for your very steadfast and effective work on behalf of your national security and words earlier on behalf of the secret service. i think we all share your view that they do, to use your word, an excellent job in protecting the president. senator graham began in terms of looking forward the kind of systems, maybe analogizing the secret service to the military that are used in that context. i wonder if you've given any thought to additional steps that can be taken to safeguard against, but also monitor the kinds of abuses that obviously occur or allegedly occurred here. >> we are intent, senator, on doing a thorough examination of how we do it now and what we need to do to improve, to make sure this never happens again. so, all those kinds of options are on the table. >> thank you. switching to a different subject, i was recently approached by a couple, same-sex couple who are married under connecticut law. one of them is a citizen of the united states, the other is not. and i wrote to you. i want to thank you for your assistance in connection with their application for a green card to be held in abeyance. you're probably familiar with the problems that arise in these situations. but we need something like the uniting families in america act that can provide some longer term solution to this problem. but i wonder whether we can establish a policy of not deporting or, in other words, holding green cards for same-sex couples, one of whom is here. the other seeking a green card. >> senator, legal advice we have been given is that unless and until the law is overturned by the court -- and i'm talking as to doma -- which we have -- the department of justice has urged be done. but until that happens, we cannot unilaterally give green cards based on that. what we have done, however, is when we have same-sex couples, if they fall within the other criteria of our priority memo, prosecutorial discretion member memo, that allows us to interseinte intercede with removal. >> i've been approached by other similar couples who have enormous contributions to make to this country and whose families are every bit deserving of the kind of recognition that we accord to heterosexual couples. i hope i can work with you on this area of trying to devise solutions in the meantime that will enable those couples to continue to be families here, as we need and they deserve. thank you. >> yes. absolutely. >> thank you, madame secretary. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator b blumenthal. >> thank you. you've been very patient waiting here. i've been trying to juggle schedules. thank you for your service. i would like to ask you a couple of questions about dream act, as you and i have talked about from time to time. on sb 1070, the controversial arizona law, i talked about seven arizona residents who would qualify for the dream act but also would be the targets of the arizona law. it's beyond reasonable suspicion that they're undocumented. they've stated it publicly. all of them are either attending college or graduates of arizona state university with degrees in engineering, as an example. you were asked by a bipartisan group of senators to suspend deportation of dream act students. in response, you are in the presence of re-establishing this new deportation. serious crimes or a threat to the public while it is a low priority to report individuals that have been in the united states since childhood like those who are eligible for the dream act. last night we received updated statistics i requested on review of deportations that dhs is conducting of your policy. there are currently more than 300,000 pending deportation cases. of these, ice has reviewed 219,554. 7.5% of the cases have been identified as eligible for administrative closure. of these cases, 1.2% have actually been closed. please explain the difference between the 7.5% of deportation cases eligibly be closed and the 1.2% of cases actually closed? when do you expect the percentage of cases being closed to rise or do you expect it to rise as the review progresses and when do you expect the review to be complete? >> right. i think the difference is primarily attributable to time. you know, we have been doing this case by case review. we just started the pilots right after christmas. and we have moved now to go across the country since then. so, that's part of it. and part of it is that as we offer administrative closure, often times the recipient of the offer will ask for time to think about it. i think that will catch up. i think we will be closed with the case review by the end of the calendar year. and then we'll see what the numbers show. >> you and i had another conversation about work authorization. and this is, to me, a very basic issue, which we should discuss in this hearing. historically, by interpretation of the department and under previous president george h.w. bush, in cases where there was deferred action, these individuals were allowed to work, given the work authorization. now under the new policy, these individuals are offered administrative closure. and your department has taken the position that individuals whose cases are administratively closed cannot apply for work authorization. it creates a real problem. you're saying to qualified individuals they will not be deported, but they can't work to support themselves and their families. many will end up in the underground economy, which puts them at risk of exploitation and undercuts the labor market. only a few thousand people have had their deportations halted so far. i can't imagine this will have any significant impact on employment in america. i ask you, then, why we're not at least making certain that if we have deferred action or administrative closure that a person is allowed to work. >> well, first, just to make sure we have a common understanding of the record, we have continued deferred actions and do that before the cases get into the administrative system. the administrative closure are cases that are already on the docket. and most of which are on the nondetained docket but a certain number are on the detained docket. and those are the ones we are going through, in addition to evaluating new cases, as they come in, to see that they meet the priorities that we have set. so, with respect to the work authorization, we are going back now in light of your concerns, and in light of the fact that we now have some numbers to look at, as opposed to when we started this whole process. to see if we should make some adjustments. so, i would be willing to keep you apprised of our efforts in that regard. but i think -- i thought about your concerns after we spoke. and i thought there were concerns and we are exploring how best to address them. >> thank you, madame secretary. you and i both know the president was committed to the dream act, co-sponsored when he served in the united states senate and has made some important decisions to help these dream act students. i hope we can find a way to go further when it gives them an opportunity to work. i asked you about the program created after 9/11. south asian americans face national origin and religious profiling. at least that was what was suggested at a recent hearing i held in the same room two weeks ago. the special registration program targeted arab and muslim visitors, requiring them to promptly register or face deportation. i called for the program to be terminated because there were serious doubts it would help to combat terrorism. wasted homeland security resources and ended up -- more than 13,000 placed in deportation. how many terrorists were identified by special registration? none. so last year dhs terminated all special registration requirements. however, because of special registration, many innocent arabs and muslims face deportation and barred from applying for citizenship. you issued a memo to address the situation with these individuals. it provides the individuals who failed to comply that they wouldn't be penalized if it was involuntary, intentional. will you ensure that the standards for noncompliance with special registration are going to be applied fairly and generously? >> yes, i will. and i will make sure that ice reports to me how that is being implemented. i visited a detention facility in my state. the tri-county dissension center in illinois. i applaud ice for issuing its revised detention standards recently. i'm in the process of looking those over. i'm still concerned about some of the conditions i noted. some of them will take a deep investigation before i can say with any certainty that there are violations that need to be addressed. but there was one thing that was very basic that caught my attention. and that was lack of acticess t the telephone. turns out many of these people who are being detained, not charged with a crime, but being detained, are basically 200 or 300 miles away from family. it may seem like a small issue, but to these immigration detainees, it's not. currently these immigration detainees don't have the right to an appointed attorney. approximately 80% go forward without one. and basically none of them have access to e-mail, unlike federal prisoners. and many of them are in remote facilities, like the one i visited. they repeatedly raised with me their concern of their inability to communicate with their family. it cost up wards of $1 or $2 a minute that they're being charged. these are not wealthy people, you can imagine. they're very poor. we tried to use the phones, local phones, to see how they would work. and they didn't. so, there was service and high cost. large number of county jails with which ice contracts actually profit by taking an exor bchlt ich exorbitant amount of fees charged detainees. my office has been working with your staff to come up with a solution. do you have any report of progress? >> not as i sit here. i will follow up. you are right to raise the concern. so let me follow up with our staff. and i will be happy to get back to you. >> thank you. thanks for appearing today. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator durbin. madame secretary, i have the honor of the last questions of the oversight hearing today. i appreciate your patience and your diligence before the committee today. i was reminded in your opening testimony how challenging your job is, as you say you have a daily threat brief. the challenge that you and your leadership team face strike a balance between security, privacy, commerce. it's a very difficult, delicate balance. i want to start by thanking you for your service. i've known you since you were an attorney general and always have been impressed with your record of service. on the secret service scandal, if i might, first, there's been some speculation in the washington post that this is actually part of a long-standing pattern of practice. in my previous role i had the honor of supervising a local law enforcement agency and i know how devastating to morale and even to operations such incidence can be. this particular incident is very troubling. i know that there is an aggressive and far-reaching investigation under way. but have there been allegations of serious misconduct related to the office of professional responsibility in the past? and what steps, specifically, have you directed secret service director sullivan to take to enthat this particular type of misconduct doesn't occur again? >> to my knowledge, there had been no similar-type incidents reported to the office of professional responsibility. i cannot speak to the inspector general. that's a separate department. but not as to opr. what the director is doing is really reviewing training, supervision, going back, talking to other agents, really trying to fair it out whether this is a systemic problem. if it is, that would be a surprise to me, i must say, as someone who has been the service secretary for 3 1/2 years now. i have found the men and women i work with to be extremely professional. and the men and women i come into contact with to be extremely professional. but we want to make sure that we get to the bottom of this, that we deal strongly with the -- those who committed the misconduct and gave the report. that's already been done with quite a lot of speed. and that we fair it out. any other problems. because, you know, the men and women of the secret service don't deserve to have their reputations besmirched. >> i want to commend you on how swiftly the investigation has proceeded. i want to reassert what we share, which is a conviction that it needs to be not just this incident but a far-reaching investigation that can reassure the american public that this is not somehow an agency where this was revioutinely tolerated or broadly practiced, that this truly is an outlier incident. i want to thank you. the last time you were before us, i asked you a question about k customs and border patrol and allegedly counterfeit materials. you've just implemented a new administration policy that allows agents when they seize goods at the border that are believed to be possibly counterfeit to share that information with the rights holders. i think that's a good and strong advance. i had introduced legislation, but given how swiftly legislation is moving here, i'm glad that the administration has embraced that change in practice and policy. i want to dedicate most of our time to cyber security. i share senator franken's deep concerns about privacy and how we strike an appropriate balance. but also senator whitehouse's grave concerns that if we fail to effectively legislate this field, we leave our critical national infrastructure gravely vulnerable and at risk. i note that in your fy-13 budget, it gets nearly 75% increase in funding while the rest of the department stays overall flat. i with just want to commend that you are, in fact, prioritizing delivering appropriate resources. first, if i could, we talk about partnerships, fusion centers. u.s. cert is an impressive cyber resource. i wondered how you see state and local resources in the law enforcement community, in the national guard as we've discussed before delaware and rhode island have network warfare that i think can and should play a positive role here. what sorts of resource constraints do we have in terms of effectively responding in the law enforcement community, first responder community. my concern about a cyber threat is that it will emerge -- well, a, it's very broad and a very serious threat today. but, second, a critical infrastructure threat will emerge very quickly and require very rapid response. >> i think a couple of things, senator. obviously, i share your concern. working with state and locals who are on the floor at the end kick, 24/7 watch center. but it's helping with training. it's providing lots of information. i think we provided 5,000 actual bulletins last year. cert responded to 106,000 incidents itself. and so training, information sharing -- and then across the country in certain locations, we have centers of excellence, which are helping us refine what we are doing, but also think ahead. what's the next thing that's going to happen in the cyber world? >> i also am familiar with the program which has had some challenges. i think it has been successful successful in promoting sight safety at the sites that deal with chemicals but underperformed in cyber security and just wanted to encourage attention on that particular area that was brought up in previous questioning by senator grassley. given the evolving cyber tech risk to our nation's critical infrastructure and given the debated provisions in different bills, please, just, if you would, explain for us the particular strengths that dhs has to administer potential regulations and protect our infrastructure? are you confident that dhs has the capacity as opposed to nsa or d.o.d. required to handle this critical national threat? >> yes, and, in fact, as you noted, the budget increase has been requested. we've had a multiple additions in the cyber area over the last three years. we already are the department that deals primarily with the private sector and with critical infrastructure and those mechanisms with which to do that are already in place. and so on the civilian side, and on the dotcom side, as it were, dhs already has that systemic protection role. i think general alexander testified to that several times. d.o.d. has, of course, has to the dotmil environment. so the resources are there. the experience is there, meaning at dhs. we do have lessons learned from cfats no doubt, but those lessons have been learned and they give us confidence we can administer this properly. >> last if i could, concerns about privacy and bringing the public into this conversation. i think it was senator lee who previously asked about future attributes, screening technology and its development, something i'd be happy to get a briefing on about its trajectory. recognizing that a lot of what's going on in the dialogue between the administration and congress about the cyber threat, is occurring in secure briefings and that a lot of the information that at least i and i think many other senators have received, it makes it care s is us just how big a threat this is and how much loss there is of intellectual property and how much potential risk there is. most of that critical information is shared with us in a secure setting. my concern is that this committee previously legislated on intellectual property threat through the protect i.p. act and comparable committee and the house legislated, some argue overreached in the piracy act and there was a very broad and unexpectedly strong national response to that by engaged and motivated citizens who were deeply concerned with some legitimacy that there was some real throat their privacy and to the vibrancy of the internet. if we're not sufficiently bringing the public along in striking an appropriate balance here between privacy, security and commerce, we may face a comparable unexpected abrupt national backlash against these legislative efforts, and given how rarely we legislate on issues this critical, i am deeply concerned that we not, then, lose a moment that we not create a moment of real vulnerability when you've worked so hard to craft or structure the works. senator franken asked you previously about how the administration in its proposals, maybe, has done a stronger job of recognizing, validating privacy concerns. any advice about how we can, while recognizing the limitations of information that must be held secure, more effectively engage the public in this dialogue under the balance between security and liberty? >> we have tried to do it by sharing information with the public through a variety of means. ip think it's significant that when there have been briefings in a classified setting you had sitting there the head of the joint chiefs. the head of the nsa. the head of the fbi. the second in charge of the dni. the second in charge of the doj and myself. all saying the same thing. this is a big risk. it's honest. we need some way to protect the nation's core critical infrastructure. we need some way to have information sharing. we need to update and streamline some of the statutes that exist now. in terms of privacy, i think that was built into particularly the collins lieberman bill, the bipartisan bill in this chamber, providing for privacy for independent privacy oversight, limitations on how information can be used and the like. i think we just need to continue to emphasize the differences between that and some of the other approaches. >> i just --