Each year visitors with legal travel visas dont return to their country of origin. On tuesday Homeland Security officials discussed this at a house Homeland Security hearing. This is an hour 1 2. Will come to order. The subcommittees meeting today to study visa over stays and their impact on National Security. Conversations about the best way to secure the Southern Land border have been the principal focus for the last months. Today i want to transition to an equally important but often over looked aspect of our border and National Security. Visa over stays. Yesterday dhs released the official 2016 over stay numbers and this year they expanded the number of categories to include students and other nonimmigrant visa holders. I want to commend them for a more accurate picture. They calculated we have nearly 740,000 people over stay their visas at some point in fiscal year 2016. Even using the more generous numbers who eventually leave, we had 630,000 over stays at the end of last fiscal year. Over more time as more and more left, the number gets smaller and by january of this year we still had 544,000 over stays from fiscal 2016. Still an incredibly large number. To put that in context, we only apprehended 310,000 unique individuals crossing the land border illegally last year. Meaning we had twice as many over stays as people apprehended that land southern border. Its probably time to jettison the conventional reason with visa over stays are a much bigger problem than have been historically. So why does closing this gap matter . There are unidentified National Security and Public Safety risks in a population that large and they have historically been the primary means for terrorist entry into United States the United States. The 9 11 commissions put it this way for terrorists travel documents are as important asweapons end quote. Terrorists have abused the hospitality of the American People to conduct attacks here at home. An egyptian convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing worked illegally in the u. S. As a cab driver after his tourist visa expired. At least four of the hijackers were out of status or missed their visa. And the porous quote outer ring of our Border Security end quote. They passed through a combined total 628 times without arousing suspicion. And marine tried to conduct a Suicide Attack in 2012. He was here on a tourist visa and never left. I do not want the threat to get drowned out by the challenges we face on the southern border. We can chew gum and walk that same time. We have to elicit traffic flow and a growing problem of visa over stays. The department has to first identify those who over stay their visa in the first place. A mandate to electronically track has been in place for more than 20 years and a biometrically based system has been in place for 12 years. They track only marginal progress. There have been a series of pilot projects but no plan to ever implement was seriously considered by the department. Recent executive orders make it clear that finishing the exit system is clear. They will engage in a series of operational demonstrations with a planned rollout of a facial recognition system at some of the nations largest airport. Committed to a fully operational biometric exit system that nati nations highest volume exports. Putting a biometric exit cyst nm to place as the 9 11 commission noted quote an essential investment. Because without that, they can over stay their visas just as four of the 9 11 hijackers were able to do. And once we identify over stays, especially those who present National Security and Public Safety threats, we must pramptly remove those in the country illegally, others with we put those at risk unnecessarily. Officer of inspecter general casts doubt on isis ability to do just that. Multiple i prnp systems and lac training have hampered the work of our ageance. We have a back log of 1. 2 million visa over stays. In one instance an i. C. E. Agent spent 50 hours tracking down a lead that wasnt an over stay at all. In reality theyre still here. We have to do better. Adding a reliable exit system will allow them to focus their efforts on preventing terrorist attacks and only tracking down people still in the country. We recognize the Ranking Member of the subcommittee. I thank chairwoman mcsally for holding this on visa over stays. While the white house focuses its rhetoric on building a wall on the southern border, attention and resources should be paid to issues like over stays. I know first hand the security challenges we face on the border but to keep our focus mainly on wall sz a vulnerabili abilitabi enitself. Those who over stayed in fiscal 2016 is far greater than the 131,000 that were apprehended on the u. S. mexico border. Over the last few years dhs renewed i renewed. And i loong forward to hear about the eventual deployment of that system. Particularly along the mexican border. Unlike canada, mexico currently does not have the entry inf infrastructure necessary to share traveller information with the United States. I look forward to hearing from i. C. E. With limited resources we must first address those who must to us harm. Addressing over stays is no easy task but it is a necessary part of insuring meaningful Border Security. I thank the witnesses for joining us today. Gentleman yields back. Others are reminded that stalts may be submitted for the record. Mr. Michael dougherty previously served in dhs as an ombedsman. With the border and transportation security electorate. And service as legislative counsel on the staff of john kyle and on terrorism, technology and Homeland Security within the Senate Judiciary committee. Mr. Wagner formerly served as passenger programs with logical programs including the trusted travel program, Immigration Advisory Program and the fraujalant document analysis unit. And the assistant director for the National Security Investigations Division within the Homeland Security investigations. He is responsible for Strategic Plan sdwning and the developmen execution. Mr. Settles over sees joint Terrorism Task force and the visa security program. Mr. John roth became the inspector gennel for the department of Homeland Security. He served as director of the office of criminal investigations and he served as section chief for the criminal divisions narcotic and dangerous drug section. The chair now recogsinizes mr. Dougherty to testify. Distinguished members, thank you for the opportunity to appear today to discuss work in progress that department of Homeland Security to address over stays. Some 50 million nonimmigrant visitors enter to study or to vacation here. The United States welcomes these visitors while recognizing that its imperative they departiculadepart the country when their period expires. Our ability to identify individuals is chief among them we need to determine whether they pose a threat and we need protect the integrity of our immigration system by removing those who were present in violation of law. The key way to insure that federal government has means of accurately determining unlawful stays in the United States is by a biometric system that will provide a high level of assurance when the visitor has left the country. It has been a federal objective for many years. It is a priority for this administration in his executive order of march 6th, he expedited the biometric entry tracking system for inscope travelers as recommended by the 9 11 commission. Yesterday they released the fiscal year entry exit over stay report. It contains new data when the 2015 report was issued. The 2016 report has been expanded to include foreign students and numerous other classes of nonimmigrants. Dhss ability results in improvement made by dhs in expanding its Data Collection capabilities. 98. 53 of in scope nonimmigrant visitors departed the United States on time and abided by the terms of their admission. All that is an impressive level of compliance, our data indicates nonimmigrant visitors over stayed. That means 439,788 individuals expengted to leave did not do so. These over stay numbers are a significant concern for secretary kelly and for the department as performed by our inspector general. Dhs is collaborating with the state department and doj to improve vetting standards and procedures so we can better determine the fraudulent stay. Secretary kelly is also committed to increasing the number of i. C. E. Agents to undertake enforcement efforts against law violators. We have a clear commitment by the executive order to prioritize and they acknowledge and appreciate the strong support it is continuously received from congress in favor of implementing sumpch a system. Ongoing work includes an aggressive effort to redesign data handle, to design next generation facial matching capabilities and to build a back end port tool connect with the travel industry and with our security partners. Ultimately the goal of our culaborative efforts is to accurately identify passengers and to deliver a seamless and secure travel experience. While implementation of a robust and effective biometric exit solution will take time and present significant operational challenges, dhs is advancing to a comprehensive exit system. Our strategy is to expand activities underway to include our land borders as well. Dhs will continue to build on the progress made in the 2016 over stay report to identify report and take appropriate action against those who violate the terms of their admissioning to the United States. Chairwoman mcsally, Ranking Member veilau and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to testify today and i look forward to your questions. The chair now recognizes mr. Wagner for five minutes. Ranking member vala, thank you for the opportunity to discuss u. S. Customs and Border Protection progress since last year and implementing a biometric exit system. This years report accounts for 96 of all air and sea nonimmigrant admissions from fiscal year 2016 at air and sea locs. Weve included foreign students, Exchange Visitors and certain worker class vacations. Last fiscal year approximately 54 million through the air and sea locations expected to depart. Dhs calculated a total over stay rate of 1. 47 . Of these about 628,000 remained in the u. S. Were 1. 25 at the end of the fiscal year. Thatn number is currently. 9 . Im happy to discuss that report further. Last year i testified before the subcommittee. I described some of the pilots that they have conducted over the year. I understand your frustration with the pace of this. I also recognize that congress has made a billion dollars av l available for biometric exit and funded a program having a real plan on how to implement. Were out of time and were out of excuses. So the good news is we have developed a feasible solution. Weve had a lot of discussion with private Sector Technology experts and stake holders. For this to be successful, we couldnt implement another stand alone stove piped process. We certainly couldnt rearrange in the near term how armirports are built. So the biggest factor in our strug tool find a solution is relying on that single Magic Technology that would accomplish our needs. Previous efforts didnt take a deem look at how our data systems function. We looked at how to make the inspension process a lot more efficient. We moved the biometrics of the traveller expected to be on a departing flight out of the dhs data base and into its own data base to encounter the person. We can skip reading the pass port first like a lot of the technology weve seen developed. We can go straight to collecting a biometric and collecting against a gallery. This makes the process a lot quick eer and the infrastructur footprint much more manageable. We used facial recognition on a flight in atlanta. We created a preconditioned gallery and a live photograph of the traveller boarding the plane. Weve processed about 28,000 travelers through this atlanta demonstration over the last 10 months ma s matching at high 90 travellers with a photograph available. Coupled with the latest technology and in the operational model of the airline and the airports and its easy for travellers to use. While facial recognition will be used, well continue to collect finger prints from foreign nationals. Both will be fused together in our systems and the fingerprint results can be attached to a Photo Associated with them. This is just a more efficient, convenient and user friendly way of traveller verification without losing any of the security benefits. Beginning this summer we roll out six to 10 biometric air demonstrations at airports. They will occur at select flights at each of the airports and using cameras or self forwarding gates. This will allow our stake holders to work with the new process and one that conformed to their own modernization plans. The land strategy will require of third Country Nationals, noncanadian, nonmexican citizens to self report. Theres very few making a final departure from the u. S. Only a few 00 a day, if that. We will advise travelers of these new requirements. In addition facial recognition tej technology will be at pedestrians at exit. Its expandible to other pedestrian locations. We have a feasible, efficient biometrics. Its about building out the back end services and infrastructure to support this on a National Base while simultaneously incorporating their own automation efforts. So thank you for the opportunity and look forward to your questions. Recognize mr. Settles. Chairwoman mcsally and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear today to discuss how i. C. E. , Homeland Security investigates visa over stays and they have implemented on over stay enforcement. It focuses on identifying and prioritizing its enforcement efforts towards over stays still in the country. Otherwise known as incountry over stays. Who may pose a National Security or Public Safety threat. On a daily basis, hsi agents ingest thousands of atenpotenti over stay leads from adis, from hsi student Information System and other referrals. On four nationals who have over stayed their admission period or otherwise violated the terms of admission to the u. S. When leads are received by the ctceu team they go through an automeated and manual vetting process based on a prioritized risk based framework. They include all available information and instructions on how to adjudicate the leads are sent nation wide for further investigation by local in trained field agents. They reviewed approximately 1. 2 million unvalidated over stay leads. Numerous leads were closed due it subsequent departures from the United States, a change in status or pending immigration benefits. Those that did not meet the direct criteria, were referred for further action. Of the over stay leads remaining in hsis purview, 4,116 lead pack packages were sent for further investigation. From those leads, hsi special agents made 1,261 arrests, 97 indictments and 55 convictions. 1,08084 cases are still under investigation. 1,126 were closed as being in compliance. The remaining leads were cycled back and to Continuous Monitoring as new information is revealed. However, we, at hsi are committed to always doing better and advancing our capabiliti Capabilities Technology is developed and over stays allow. Id like to taep take a moment to highlight a recent pilot program. Push the borders out and our effort to improve data. First, our life cycle pilot is an effort to insure Continuous Monitoring. Hsi is tracking nonimmigrant visitors who file visa applications from it time they apply through the departure of the United States. This allows hrn s hsi the abili take action should derogatory anything be required. And we developed a Biometric Program called bit map to target high risk suspects in route to the u. S. We provide capability to tactically collect biometric data on persons of interest they encounter. If theyre identified as threats to National Security, we work with host nations to take appropriate Law Enforcement action. In addition bit map collects bring individuals at risk to our attention so we can stopped a mission to u. S. At future encounters. One example involves an Eastern European national encountered in south america. He was found to be a match to a no fly record and when confrontd and questioned, he identified himself as a foreign fighter. He was detained and his travel was stopped. This is what hsi is striving to do. Identify such individuals and prevent them from reaching the u. S. Third, hsi has been integral in improving ds systems and identify over stays through lead track andceives, we are advancing dhs information sharing and expediting over stay vetting. A number of initiatives are enabling person centric, rather than specific data. Before concluding, let me emphasize how carefully we take these recommendations. When i was given the last report, i took action immediately in response to concerns about Field Training and over stays. Over stay investigations. I resent the ctceu handbook guidance to all of the field offices and agents. This provides detailed instructions on what systems to use and how to conduct over stay investigations. Because if even one agent is confused on how to investigate a lead, its not acceptable. Thank you for inviting me today to explain hsis critical role. The chair now recognizes mr. Roth for five minutes. Chairwoman, mcsally, Ranking Members, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss our work including our most recent audit report. It reveals dhs Technology Systems do not support tracking semss. First, it requires pulling data from dozens of systems and data bases. This is necessary because four different dhs components as well as numerous entities outside of dhs are involved iauvl olved ine over stay issue. Much of it is not in easily retrievable fields. As the disjointed nature, ice agents need three different passwords for umto 27 different Information Systems. Second realtime access data is hampered by System Access restrictions. Ice personnel are sometimes unable to gain access despite having a need do so. Some data is retained in paper base files which can take considerable time to access. Third, ice personnel do not have the training and guidance they need utilize the systems currentfly visa over stay tracking and theyre not always sure what systems to use. Persons we met expressed concerns they were unaware of all the systems available to them across components and agencies, limiting their effectiveness. And lastly in the absence of a system, they rely on third party departure data which is not always accurate and fails to capture land departure data. These deficiencies have a real world impact, including a back log of 1. 2 million visa over stay case. And a degree to estimate the number actually over staying, which results in a pounderstandg of the problem. And re wasting thousands of leads that could have been eliminated such as individuals that were already left the country and received immigration benefits. We found that hsi agents spent 40 of their case load investigating individuals they should not be investigating, largely because they were in compliance of the law or had not left the country. The department has historically done a poor job which results in fragments and decentralized system. They should provide greater oversight. This is a long standing issue we have repeatedly reported on. Additionally the ice chief Information Officer must provide adequate training to those on the field. Finally they must continue to work on moving forward with the biometric entry system. Until the department properly equips its personnel with the tools and training, timely identification, and ajudeication of visa over stays will not be pa possibility increasing the risk to Public Safety. The department in its components have agree would each of our recommendations and implementing action. We will monitor the progress and report as needed. This concludes my testimony. Id be happy to answer any questions you or members of the committee may have. I recognize myself. Listening to your testimony, its deeply concerning the situation were in, its troubling, frustrating, infuriating. This is a significant issue that we need the will and capability to address, right and from my view i was a fighter pilot. We have two main challenges. Our situation awareness is high and we have good data and once we know whos over stayed, what are we doing about it . How are we using your resources so youre not waisting time and prioritizing in order to address the issue for enforcement being the highest priority of those National Security risks. Weve had significant failures and chal lenges that bring us t this. We have shown the will in congress, we have funded money for a program without a plan. We are now anxiously awaiting for the will and capabilities to increase in these areas. Mr. Wagner, i want to start with you. Some of the challenges in the past when weve had Biographical Data its still relying on the private industry to give information to what many believe is an inherently governmental responsibility. Talk about the facial recognition and what is the government doing and how is it impacting u. S. Travellers . Are we gelting ourficial recognition collectd and brought somewhere to a gufrmovernment d base . On the manifest issue with the third party data, we find its very accurate. This is collected fwby the airle when you check in. Its verified boo ia tsa officer when you go through the check point. And its the basis we do all of our National Security checks against including all your domestic travel. Our work found that data is very accurate. But sure the vulnerability remains of an imposter departing the United States under someone elses Biographical Data. That doesnt mean that data were using is inaccurate. This is the bioographeniic data caught the times square bomber getting out on. We might not catch that unless someone looks at it very closely. So that the facial recognition will lock that dounl. Weve already got pictures on everyone from your arrival records. When the airline provides that manifest is well pull all of the faces we have in the dhs data base and put it in its own securedate abase so its as simple as just taking their picture and kwquerying it. Its as simple as putting a camera at the departure area to do this. U. S. Citizens are included in that because we have to determine they are a u. S. Citizen. We can have an officer or airline person comparing the document manually or we can use the algurhythm to make that match. Once we determine theyre a u. S. Citizen, we discard the data. But we have the we need to determine. Manually or automatically . Automatically with the facial recognition soft ware. We compare your photograph, your pass port photo we have with the department of state and if you match against that, we discard the data. So the plan for this year is to build out the back end services and build out the ability to take all of the manifests in, populate the galleries and build the data base space to store these and wer work on the infrastructure to match that. So you need the space to store the data, build the services to retrieve the photos. Stage them and create that gallery per flight. Then youve got to secure the matchers from the private sector and Technology Companies that build these and then you have to build the protocol between the camera that gate and getting into the gallery to match and have a response back. That will take thus rest of this fe fiscal calendar year to build that out. Were working with them on their own monitorization plans. Theyre looking at facial recognition for boarding passes, self tagging checked bags. We want to combine with them so theres not this gauntlet of cameras and its one single photograph that will be able to taken care of several perurpose at once. The finger prints run in the background. Instead of actually reading the passport. So the plan is to combine what were doing with what the airlines and the airports want to do and build that out over the course of this year and into next year so we can provide the platform, we can provide the service. Once we build the service out, its a matter of buying cameras and plugging them in. Our plans include looking at tsa and the check point and possibilities of helping them with some of their work. Looking at other Services Within that airport, provided we can work through the privacy requirements of doing so. But you should be able to match against that pass port or visa photo all through the airport. Im almost out of my time. Theres no additional funds for this project in the budget request that came out. So do you have the funds already from what weve allocated . We have enough money this year and next year to get the platform built and get started. Well be looking at up to a dozen sites to show the stake holders how it works and work on their own modernization plans to fit. Well be building out that back end and secure the algorithms to do the matching. We think theres enough this yearner to next year. Land border is a different challenge. Well circle back. But i want to know the full timeline for air and sea for this to roll out. Mr. Roth, i want to make sure i understand your testimony and im curious as to what the departments feelings are about it because before you began your testimony i assumed that 739,000er figure we had for 2016 would be precise but as i understand your testimony, youre suggesting thats not likely so. Is that right . Thats correct and i can explain why. Theres a couple areas in which inaccuracies get injected in the system. I think the airlines do an okay job with regard to providing passenger manifests but we found that accuracy was somewhere between 92 and 95 . Seems pretty good except if youre talking about 50 million people, thats still a significant number of people. The other thing the report and it acknowledges the fact it does not include the land border, which is a significant issue. This year of course they included students, which they hadnt last year. So we commend them for gradually increasing the accuracy. But when were talking about this level of numbers of travellers, there is going to be inaccuracies here. What we found is the cases that got shipped to Homeland Security investigations for over stays, these twhwere the high priority casess. They had either left the country once they got investigated, they werent over stays. So theres going to be a significant amount of inaccuracy in these kinds of numbers. So are you saying that figure is probably about 90 accurate or . Thats the problem is we cant tell exactly how accurate it is and thats the whole nature of the problem. As i said once we took a look at the accuracy of numbers we got from the airline, we saw that was somewhere in the low 90 accuracy rate but thats an estimate. We cant estimate what kind of volume at the Southern Land border or the Northern Land border excluding canadians who will not share that information. Theres a lot we dont know. So i would exercise some caution believing the accurae specific accuracies to these numbers. What are your thoughts on this . So the report didnt include the airline manifest data or how it was accounted for or received from the airline. So i dont know how the 90 figure was calculated. That really wasnt in the report. What i did see in the report was some i. C. E. Agent case data but there was no indication of how old or steal that data was. So its hard really to say about the accuracies of that data without having the analysis of what actual data was received and how it was actually calculated, other than anecdoted statements about how complicated it was. So theres a lot of sumries, judgments made baesed on anecdotal information. I didnt see the Data Analysis behind it. As far as the land border goes, sure 250 million land border travellers last year but once you take out the mexican s citizens and the canadian sit zrngsz it znz, its small. Just over 400,000 were nonmexican citizens, nonamerican citizens. On the northern border, out of 60 million, 1. 1 million noncanadian, nonu. S. Travelingers. So we think this is a manageable subset to start with. We think theres manual reporting requirements we can put in if they depart the land border. As their final depafrture from the United States. These include the people that cross back and forth. Well call them third Country Nationals. So we think its a manageable subset. Its a lot of as you know, its the commuting traffic and local Community Going back and forth who wouldnt be subject to biometric exit anyway. Thank you. Chair recognizes. Thank you. For years ive been calling for the congress and eded aman stra to complete a biometric exit screening system which they called an essential investment in our security. As noted, four of the 9 11 hijackers violated their visas or were over stayed and weve seen this pattern continue in other terrorist plots. It means collecting biometrics at land, air and sea. One gaping hole in plans we have heard about today is land ports of of intry where 2 3 of travellers pass through. Can you speak to that and why arent we verifying the arrival of land arrivals biometrically . Theyre collected biometricly when someone leaves that border zone. Canadians are not subject. On the southern border, its any mexican citizen that wants to proceed past the border zone and any third Country Nationals that would come in. I gave you the numbers on the third Country Nationals on the mexican border. For mexican citizens its just over 15 million last year. But all of them come in, have their biometrics verified. Theyve already been taken by state department. So the plans on departure would be start with the third Country Nationals. Set up a manual reporting requirement. Have them come in and get their biometrics. The technology in the vehicle lanes. Were testing cameras through facial recognition. We havent seen anything commercially available yet. But i think we can do that using the same system we built for airports. Its good to see a visa over stay report which was more complete than the one issued last year. As noted this report does not cover all foreign visitors to the United States such as those who enter through the land ports of intry and doesnt provide the instay population here now. Its a snap shot of time of those foreign visitors expected to depart in fiscal year 2016 and those who did not do so. How do you plan to use the new over stay report and what do you think is the most effective way to address the problem with over stays . I personally think that a better means of communicating with people here on visas should be explored. I think were doing that now. I think theyre looking towards pushing something out on your phone that says hey, youre almost done. I think it would be nice if the sending countries would do the same thing. I know if i was on travel and the host country was telling me it was time to go to and my own government was telling me the same, that would motivate me to get going. I think that entuin terms of compliance, if their intention is to come and over stay, we need do a better job of understanding whether thats their intention on the front end. If were going to be doing screening and vetting in more robust fashion, how does that translate to real life . I think part of it is increasing training for those individuals who actually do interview people intending to come to the United States to better understand their intent. That is. As i mention in my opening statement, the inneragencies looking at whether we can do a better job of determining intent and perhaps denying admission to those who would intend to over stay. Youve got in a sense a little bit of a a carat with notifying people. Youre almost done. But then theres the stick. Which is we cant let you in because i cannot determine becaused on the callic we were hearing that you dont intend to over stay. Thank you. The chair now recognizes mrs. Demings from florida. Thank you so much, madam chair. Mr. Waggingner, you talked about the operational model in atlanta and plans for further build out at 6 to 10 additional airports. At what point are the airports, the airlines willing to own and what portions will be cdps . Cdp will receive the manifest information like we do today. We will build a gallery based on peoples arrival information where we took their picture. We will stage that in a secure Computer Data base and procure a matching algurhythm to match it against that gallery. Now who owns that front end camera and takes that picture, the government could do that or the airline could do that. What about cost . The cost of the camera would be the inexpensive part of this. So cdp has to staff each of the 5,000 departure gates or look at restricting to only those we could staff. How many additional officers would you need to implement nationally . That would be thousands of officers to do that or pull them from the inbound lanes and creating additional delays there. If theyre verifying passports manually because wherever theyre going that country holds them to bord the right person. If we can confirm their identity based on our records, it helps the airlines with their resources. So we want to build a platform that if an airline is looking at modernizing and doing facial recognition which were in talks with an airline right now about doing flat a boarding pass, why not link them up and have one camera, one picture of the traveller that provides both benefits. The traveller wouldnt have to go through two cameras and having the airline person doing what theyre doing. Should the airlines choose to do that, we want to build a platform that would allow them to do that. If not, the government could procure that but the cost will go up but the resources and the man power would be astronomical. Thank you. Mr. Tron no, ma astronomical. Maam, i would defer a portion of that to my colleagues within ice to answer. I do want to address one thing if i could regarding secretary kellys interest in bringing on many new ice officers, as a former marine general. Hes very interested in the ground troops. Hes very interested in the quality of their life, equipment that they get and in the training that they get as well. His objective is adding as many folks as we can while keeping a high quality in recruit. The number has been placed down in public of 10,000 people overtime. His intention there would be to ensure they were very, very well trained. He believes in professionalism and it is a strong characteristics of his personality. The remainder of your question if i could, i would defer to mr. Subtles. Yes, thank you. From looking at the reporters kind of the twopart question. One is training in the system and other part is training on how to conduct the investigations. I know that there is main dhs and cio came forward with the plan on the System Training thats supposed to be implemented by april 30th of 2018 and it was concurred with by oig. On the other side like i mentioned, when i took over this job and i saw there were some agents out there. Again, i know there maybe new agents, these are difficult cases. The people dont want to be found especially if they came here to hurt us, National Security or Public Safety concerns or if they just ended up over stating their visas, theyre not going to make it easier for us. Some of them we can adjudicate for a few hours and some of them takes for a long time. As far as the number of systems, we do have work to do. There is no doubt about it. We have come a long way from the days i can remember of the systems that i use when i was a field agent and how you type in these long strain of codes in order to be able to search things like criminal records. We are moving in our lead track which is the we have been moving to be on a single sign on. It allows us to look at everything that the person did and not just the event or the visa that they file. But, you know we are going to we have sent out th the there were at least one agent that did not understand how to do these, handbook and detailing information. The leads we sent out of the report of the investigation, says it is about 130 employees there that i have here and National Capitol regions ingesting these leads of 1. 2 million leads and after awe mated screening, they go through and checking all the systems manually. Part of the system they do that, the system is only as good as the information put into it. Part of that is to amplify the information better and make it better that technology cannot do it. Right now you are going to have to log onto a different system in other words to be able to do that because there is concerns of third agency and privacy and other things. There is always going to be a lot of systems. I think thats why these guys and gals get paid. Thank you so much. Thank you madame chair. Mir. Rurtherford for five minutes thank you,. 4 of the state were arrested. Thats 3,402. Thats obviously a pretty small number. Following up to where you are at, i want to ask a couple of questions. Do they log into look at these other states being in jail through other country sns. Yes, sir, they do. There is a program that goes around the jails and you know puts detainers or individuals within the jail. When mr. Wagner builds out the facial recognition program, is there a way for 287 g agencies actually tap into that and let you know, because if you check in ncic, they may not be in there. They may be in there tomorrow. Unless you continue checking, you really miss the boat. If we have those agencies out there, helping you hit a database of voters, then we identify for you and tell you to come pick them up. That way, we have thousands of officers all over the country helping to capture this population. My question is when this database becomes available. Well, you have to be 287 g agency to get in the database or could some other structure be or the Fusion Center be Something Like that. I dont know the answer to that because we are not there yet. I think it is a great idea. It is helpful for us of the department that want to work with us to be able to run that information and send it back to us. It is helpful when Technology Comes out to where it continually search and you dont have to go in there and rerun the name and put it in there once and it is out there looking. That exists today. We collected prints and photographs and every non citizens that arrived to the United States with exceptions of canadian citizens. Thats already there. When the Airlines Tell Us who to expect to fly, that database is 2 million identities and a billion photographs. It is difficult just to send a picture in and say who is this or send in your fingerprints and say who is this. You go t to read the passport first to find. The database is too big. Well get the airlines manifest and well pull it out in stages and see in small files and you are searching again. What i found in the file and we start over and start to look at okay, who is this person. A lot of those capabilities run fingerprints and photographs into that main database which is run by dhs office to do that. Again, same question with mr. Settles, if the officers are not accessing those database everyday, those are changing everyday. As far as arrests, who are in our jails and do local jails have access to that database . Well run a lot of reoccurring vetting or perpetual vetting against the database that we have. Every day we run that against new information and we take the visa away of travelers and we run that all the time against new piece of information. If the terrorism watch list gets a new entry, we get that. Do we know this person . Does the u. S. Government have any info. On this or do they have a visa . When we receive that information at our national targeting center, we look to see how they travel to the u. S. And are they here . If they are here, we are passing it off to i. C. E. Well Call State Department to have their visas cancelled. Let me ask you another question because sometimes the numbers are not included or ones that are. The. 4 , those ever do you have a clearance number for your agents, mr. Settles, i think who even though they only arrest point. 4 , how many do th actually clear, you know exceptionally clear because they find out theyre out of the country or you know they passed away or whatever the exceptions are. Yeah, i mean again, so when they come into us, we are looking for that derogatory information for National Security Public Safety. The ones that dont need our criteria and we send it. Of the leads, it comes into us. We do the manual vetting and we close about 350,000. Again, we talk about this, this is a snapshot of time. People are coming and going everyday. Gentlemen, it is time up. Thank you, mr. Rutherford, i want to go back to you of this issue of whether the numbers we have are accurate or not. Can you tell us the number that is we are given, what is the basis on you saying theyre not accurate . Excuse me. We do this audit and we talk to cdp. The numbers that i gave you are cited in our report. Those are numbers of cdp themselves gave us, of the low 90 to 94 accuracy rate of passenger manifest they get. Cdp says between 94 or 90 accurate. We believe thats one accurate number of people who are either under reported, meaning they have not left even though the airline record shows that they have left or over reported meaning that the airlines failed to show that they left. Either way it is a problem for every stayed issue. We talk to the i. C. E agents, theyre doing the work and they found that a lot of their cases, in fact, where people who left the country, it is like 17 of their case loads. We have it both ways. Both from ccp data, as well as from, you know antidotely, the data that you give us are bad. Thats how we can tell. There is no fault of i. C. E or dhs when this happens. This is the law of numbers when you are talking about 50 million people. These errors will happen. Thank you, do we know how long, you said that there are times where you go to investigators and they start to investigate and they realize there is no over stay, do we know how long, how aurchg thoft happens or how much time we wasted or how far along in the process that we find it out . We look at that in our audit report and for fiscal 15 which is the year that our audit looked at. It was a 40 rate. About 25 were individuals who have received some sort of immigration benefits. They were not over staying. And the remainder were out of the country by the time our agents received that. Mr. Settles, do you know the timing, when i. C. E would get this report that there is an over state . Does it takes weeks or months or a year . It used to take weeks and now we reduce it down to three to five days cht its got to come in of an automated process and Intelligence Holdings and quite a few databases currently. We package it up and send it out to the field. We cut it down to two to three week os or three to five days. It has been a significant achievement. My concern has been, you hear the report of 9 11 attackers and people who over stayed their visas, this is an incredible issue that we need to invest dollars in as oppose to a wall per se. Once you get that list, i imagine there is a lot of people on that list. How are you going to determine whos the priority. Do you look at people coming into certain countries or do you look at you know how long theyll over state their visa and whs and what is the process . We share this with our advisory board, and that had other Law Enforcement agencies and Intelligent Community and they help us attend priorities matrix that we bounce it off. Tear one of the people that we know of some type of National Security are derogatary information. Maybe looking at countries adding in with a high rate of over stay as another factor. We bounce it off of those and that gives us a prioritize list and thats what we send out first. If you dont mind me saying, that really is, it is a resource issue. Our agents are doing other things. Theyre investigating Child Exploitation where there is a victim and we have to prioritize that and we get information in. I am not saying that we knew that over state, we had anything to do with National Security or something that was more important, you know, but if it is a fraud case that we have and over stay, and the agent, you know, is needing to go out and rescue a child victim, well prioritize that. Thats kind of the different layers of prioritizing. What i can tell you is we sent out more leads this year than last year because that system because we are no longer excluding any classes of aliens. We are looking at all ten tiers again. Thank you very much, i yield back. Mr. Settles, we know in 2016, more illegal aliens stayed in the u. S. Over stays to the southern border. Is it just informant disdraw on them, what is making it happen . Thats a hard question for me to answer. I got to be giving you my opinion. Thats what i am looking for. Hopefully, informed. Well, i would get back to you on that. I would work on my team and give you an informed answer. Okay. When you collect when these individuals are called or removed or interviews done, will they be briefed . That does occur especially if there is somebody thats self concerned. Thats what criminal investigators do. We hope that somebody whos over states and removing, well ask them a few questions before we send them about. Absolutely, thats apart of presenting the case. Well have to interview them and produce evidence and if it is an administration arrest. [ inaudible [ inaudible ] what current and legal magnesium that you have in ircpp that can reduce the appeal of the state. And you talk a while ago of the interviews that you can do on the front end, what Legal Mechanism do you have to shield their enthusiasm. I will touch on it briefly. Depending on how long they over stay, that makes it eligible for applying the visa again. It can be three years or ten years or limits their abili ability and they face detention, you know, removal. Not in this country, they have not been. My recollection is from about 10 or 11 years ago when folks come here on these visas and typically of work visas or student work visas, they are issued on visa cards, is that still correct . That happens in some cases and people are able to get security cards. It is individual. I think it has to do with i would rather get back to you on that. My recollection is that we require it if they are going to be as a student or working, they would have to get a Social Security id number. If you would check on that and get back to me on that. Yes, sir. I am recognizing mr. Corey from california. I ha i am asking questions that have not been asked before. People coming in on temporary visas from mexico. When you return, you are not required to collect them at the border, is that correct . Or, is it a process to collect those . Theyre provided of the paper of if they cross through the landlord. Theyre supposed to hand it back in at the end of their stay. It is multiple entries. How do you account in terms of they maybe handed in verses not handed internally and exiting the country. With the land order, what we look at and calling subsequent arrivals. If someone has a border you know 85 of those travelers across the border again within 30 days. If you push that out to six months, 95 of them crossing again within 180 days. Right now thats the best indicator that we have of 1 maybe over stays. So you got guesstimate of how many folks and how many are not. True, we do not have the exit collection. Any thoughts on the collection process . I guess and even more important question is, how important is it to have that collection process . I say that because i have had many, i get the permit and coming over and there is nobody really there to take the card. Other than my terminal, lets find somebody to give this card to otherwise, you may be accused of over staying our time here. The question is, is it an issue of number two orb are we going to move for ward of a greater process to collect these cards. We dont have the infrastructure or the person to do that to the extent of in bound. There is not facility built or design to control departures or we can do enforcement work or targeted of examination of people. Do do it oen a wholesale process, we are not equip or build to do that. There is some work of the government that we can do of exchanging the information that we are discussing with the Mexican Government about potentially looking at pedestrians and exchanging some of the information, similar to what we have done with canada that entry of canada conserves of a departure record from the u. S. We are exchanging non canadian data with that right now so with country that are nationals. There is possibilities to help mexico to build out infrastructure to do that or the u. S. Government can build it on our side. Again, there is no infrastructure there now or personnel to do that. Thank you. I am going to say that, thats an excellent idea given the cost of the infrastructure and the fact that both sides of the border, you are having a lot of structure being built right now and i believe occasionally, we do cross the border through mexico, mexican authorities do check you out to see who you are and what you got in your card so on and so forth. I encourage you to continue and seek some and similar relationships, cooperations as we have with canada, mexico, i think thats a winwin strategy, thank you very much. I yield p the remainder of my time. Well start the second round. I want to follow up on the carrots and sticks related to change the behavior here. When we look at the penalties that can be a potential deturnt, if you can stay 364 days and that only means once you are told to leave or leave on your own, you cannot come back for a few years. If you stay a little bit longer, coming over the land border illegally the second time is a felony. Do you see, mr. Wagner, the penalties are appropriate to deter and as i look at some of these charts, i think of carats a carats carrots and sticks of countries. Lets see and some of them are in the high 20s and 40s and 56. 86 for afghanistan. 67 for liberia. If 77 of the individuals that are given visas are over staying. Are we coordinated with the state department to have some countries specific sticks in order to deter continuing behavior like this. It is obviously not working. We provided the over state department to the department of state. We had the discussion which i know they shared it with their posts. We shared that with our field locations that these are the countries with high over state rates. Scrutinize and travelers with those passports and a little closer with that in mind with my over state rates. But, i mean obviously, the state department is not here, there needs to be other tools from my view of like hey country x, get your act together or you are no longer going to be granted visas. If you have a 70 plus over state rates, there is got to be some sort of cour how about individual penalties . What do you think of the individual penalty sns. We enforce them as the legislation permits. I am just asking, if you think of appropriate deter or anybody got any thoughts on that . Perhaps you are laooking at tha here. I want to talk about resources. How many agents are there total and how many are focused on visa over stays . Thank you. The numbers changed and we are trying to hire. We have about 65 agents. For the last few years, we dedicated, some where between 600,000 hours or 700,000 hours of enforcement. Sthast how we measure. How is that . I am trying to get a percentage of effort. I think it is around 3 . Okay. So do you i am hearing that you feel you need additional agents and resources to be able to adequately enforces and prioritizes. Yes, maam, with more we can do more. I would say that we are currently going through, you know a big hiring push which is very good for us and thats something we are working on. Wa we have a task force and doing a super one stops. You call up for the draft and you go through each phase and doing physical fit task and that moves us quicker. We are doing that throughout the country thanks. Anybody else . I would like to go back to mr. Settles. You said you are now looking at all ten tiers. Give me an example of whats at the tenth tier . I dont have it specifically in front of me. It is maybe it is an individual from a country that when it has some level of concerns but not as high because of travel patterns. We identified that people have traveled for foreign fighters. Okay. And other criterias like age. Does that mean there is no longer priority sets in the department or expanded . Why are you now looking at all ten tiers . Yes, maam, thats correct. We are no longer excluding classes or individuals. That priority is making it harder. Last year is a good thing. I would say the year before that we spent out twice as many lead and subsequent year as well. So it creates a resource issue and we are hiring more people but, ls a i think that whole ten tiers is working in coordinations with other agencies and fbi and Intelligent Community and figuring out people and the travel patterns that would be most likely to be of concern to us. How do we know then if you are looking at all ten tiers thats working on somebody thats in the ninth tier. Somebody in the first tier may not be addressed because basically somebody is sp everyday we are prioritizing and triaging and moving and prioritize before we get. Well get to 3,000 leads a day. We have about 130 agents doing as fast as they can. Do we know how many of those will be allocated over seas . I do not have any most of our priorities, we have quite a few. No, they dont move back and forth depending on whatever the threat is. Okay, there was also my understanding that the oig report that some investigators were not properly trained to access the system. Why is that they were not properly trained . Well, i guess what i would say is like i mention ds in my testimony, thats a concern to me as well. Even one agent feels that way. Thats not acceptable. We are taking steps to change that. I never had that dplants from ma from they did sometimes feel like, you know rightfully so. I think we all feel like we have a lot of passwords and we have a lot of systems that we have to navigate and if you dont do them everyday if you are somebody that works for Child Exploitation or drug smuggling or weapon smuggling and you are taking up some leads in this area and there are some datab e databases and used only a couple times a year. We would love the technology to get a single sign on across the board, you know . And fed raerated churches. Does that answer your question . Yes, mr. Wagner, if i may, what is cp doing to ensure the servers and the data is not compromised under cyber attack . I have to defer to our it step. The data house within the ccp syst ccp cbp system, well do what is called it takes your pictures and thats being put in the cloud space and if somebody to hack that, theyll get a bunch of numbers. When the match is made, the data comes back to the cbp database and where it is secured. Thank you, i yield back. One last question. Mr. Wagner, you said you have enough funding for what you planned to do, do we have a sense of what the total cost of the facial recognition to be rolled out, aired and sea ports and the time line and should we expect to gate plan on how it is all going to happen . We believe we have funding of facial recognitions. At all . All. Depending of the final depending goes and stake holders taking on and providing what our government provides if cbp have to provide, if we can work with tsa and consolidate some of the ju patches, decentralize place. Thats an easier to do it. It brings the staffing causing way down. There is still a lot of work to do on that on how it is deployed. Well have to follow up with you as this progresses to see what the fund it will cover. The idea is, of course, spend as little as the funding is possible. It makes it my work. Great, thank you. I want to thank you the witnesses for your valuable testimony. It is an important topic. I want to thank the members for their questions. Members of the committee, may i have additional questions. The hearing record will be opened ten days. Without objections, the committee is adjourned. Sunday night on afterwards, msnbc host, chris hayes, explaining the criminal Justice System is dividing the country of his book of a colony in a nation. Hes interviewed by author elizabeth hinton. I am wondering how your experience and kind of illuminating and how growing up in the bronx. If you grow up in the city and you have this conception of city in cities you have bad and good neighbors, all kinds of loaded ways in which Police Community is differently and neighborhoods setting on top of each other and sort of over lapping sand paper frictions. All of that to me was tied. I lived in dc and all these things per paining. The thing that blew my mind of ferguson is just municipality of 20,000 people. It is anywhere usa. Between northern st. Louis and the suburbs. You just drive through it. It looks like anywhere. It is just it is just parking lots and houses and the idea that what i experience there. The level of policing, the intensity of humiliatio humiliation watch afterwards sunday night at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan 2 tv. Cspan where history unfolds daily. 234979, cspan was created by Public Service by ble televisio. It is brought to you today by your cable or satellite providers. For fiscal 2018, the Trump Administration is asking for 575 billion in Defense Department spending. On tuesday, the pentagon held a series of news briefings to discuss thop
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