The problems by i. Itself. We have responsibilities to do what we can. Hillary clintons latest book is called hard choices about her time of secretary of state. Friday live on cspan 2. Watch booktv coverage of secretary clinton. Followed saturday morning with a book signing in arlington, virginia. Both events reairing saturday night starting at 8 30. Booktv television for serious readers. Every weekend on cspan 2. The Iowa State Republican Party holding their convention in des moines. U. S. Customs and Border Protections officials testify next on Border Security and the current pay structure for agents. Homeland Security Committee hears from the labor union. Chaired by senator tom carper of delaware. This hearing is an hour and 45 e minute minutes. Welcome, everyone. A pretty short n statement here and turn it to dr. Coburn and senator tester, d if you would like to make a an statement. Senator kuhn is tied up in transportation . Okay. All right. Is he going to come in at all . Do you expect him at all . Tn esseno. Fair enough. My thanks to our colleagues and our witnesses for working with our staffs to put this hearing y together fairly quickly. The purpose, as you know, of this hearing is to exam the act merit of s 1691 the border aget payment act of 2014 introduced b by senatorad mccain the bill woo make badly needed reforms which is currently too nt to complicated and difficult to w manage. Before we get into the bill, i g want to the talk about what is happening currently along our borders. Overd the past few years weve seen a surge in unauthorized migration from Central America,e which is nearing record highs. And unprecedented number of unao people we aremp apprehending a e the border are a unaccompanied a children. Some as young as 10 years of age. The laws require that the children be treated differently than other myerre grants. Ices a they must bend transferred to Tc Department of health and Human Services and there are strict rules about their care. Task f secretary last weekor announcede hes creating an inner Agency Task Force and devoting. Since i became chairman of the e committee some 18 months ago, cn visited the southernd border of mexico and arizona and texasth a number of indications. Ive seen firsthand the crowdeda conditions a the the tollla stations in the rio grand valley and visited mexico and hope to spend time in hhonduras. What happens along the border ig only a symptom of the problem. W its not the underlying cause. Ng the hearing will focus on how we can better address the symptoms. The bill were examining today will save, we believe, we hope, taxpayers anmoney. Hope flay good deal of it. And increase our ability to il patrol and secure our borders. What ive seen it shows the bill would add 1400 agents to the border. Thats a lot. Givn the challenges on the border which have w been be a underscored by recent events. Moving the bill serves to be a s no brainer. I fully sport moving forward with theant bill as soon as possible. While wet need to treat the op tropical stormle symptoms. We cant stop there. Ix based on what ive seen in my trips to so the cause they are a lack of economic opportunity. Bad guys go south and end up inr the three central countries. Ed a theyre creating may heim. Nearly one ago the Senate Passed bipartisan Immigration Reform e measure that addresses many of the root causes of undocumented immigration. While the bill is imperfect. Its a significant improvement otherop the status quo and provides our nation with an to important opportunity. It grows our nation by 1 trillion. In order to become law, we neede our colleagues in the house to a act. Do a better job of helping Central American countries improve their prospect dhoez young people and not so young by helping provided them with the jobs that are secure communities and a future so they stay and build their ow. Countries instead of trying to get to ours. E on june 19th ill be convening a round table to multilateral banks as well as private institutions to discuss howt we continue to improve the prospects of young people and not so young people in the Central American countries. I urge and invite our colleagues in the committee to join us for this round table. Dr. Coburn, please. To first of all, thank you, mr. T chairman. Thanks to senator tester and senator mccain as well as they h senator portman. E that they held an important hearing on this in january. Im the one that asked for the i hearing because two points ii would make. S one,pa my goal is not take hav anything away from our boarder patrol agents. We have, i think about 900 or o that aul is no longer authorizea for. Nd the goal should be to adequate way for the risk and effort they put in. G in t but im really concerned about t what were doing here in terms of setting up a system that could become government wide and the question i ask as both accountant and former Business Manager is if in fact we need to have about 28,000 above or we 29,000 above a gs 12 maxed out the way were going to do this. Why wouldnt we change the baseh pay . Why wouldnt we just change the base pay system rather than having this overtime system . The other questions that i have associated with what were doing is things change. And what were doing is were m talking about putting a Payment System into statute that guarantees a certain amount of overtime every pay period that is not part of contractual obligations. This is statute. Fac so im a little concerned about that as well. Risk if, in fact, the border more met difficult l acquiring greater rk and expertise, were going somewhat limited by how weve done this. Im looking forward to asking the questions to try to get settled in my mind. Co how do we compensate our Border Patrol agents at the level they have been being compensated and make sure theyre skuecure in t future. I dont want to take anybodys pay away. Thats not our intent. Our intent is make sure it doesnt go away. The other point i would make is there are a lot of positions within the Border Patrol that dont have to do the write up ay the end of the day. Ve dont have to travel back from a position assignment, were including those in this that shouldnt have an aul payment. In other words, their job shouldnt require it. The characteristics of the mix is important to me as well. W t so what toild do is get answers to critical questions today. I have a statement that has written for the record and m not again, my hat i want to fix this. Im notmy trying to stop it froi getting fixed. Of my understanding is very limites number of people noon longer ha aul as a comparison of the totad hork force. I want to make sureus we fix it right. We also fix it in the way that the house is going to aside to so we solve the problem. I appreciate really senator stio tester ak we essence on and pledge my support to get the Problem Solved when i get my questions answered. Tester. Ir good to see you. Thank you, chairman, rankinge member coburn. I think i can answer your to ans questions wenow. I think it would be better leftu to the expert panel to answer the questions about things are e changing. Because youre right. Beca things change. Thats why were here today is things have changed. Senator mccain i introduced the legislation a little over a year ago, and we did have a hearing back in january. Since our initial introduction, weve worked closely with the cbp, Border Patrol union, department of Homeland Security and others to make the bill stronger. We. Worked together something that is fairly uncommon in the senate these days. Itk it is cosponsored by ayotte and convening bill is in the house e sponsored byp a host of others s both democrats and republicans. The bill is supported by both at the cbp and the Border Patrol union, which represents 16,500 s agents in the field. T it saves money. And it creates more stability for ot Border Agents an their family and increases manpower along the so ier so the security is increased and the agents are better equipped to dot jobs that are very important to all of us. A reform of the Border Patrol 0r pay system is long overdue. The operation leaves from 40 years ago are different from the criminal obligations we have seen today. We have waited long enough. We need to move forward with this bill because it ensures stability for our Border Patrol agents and makes sure that our borders are properly manned. In the end, i appreciate the opportunity to have a full Committee Hearing on this bill. I can tell you that as i look at this bill, it increases enforcement, it saves money, and i think it makes it allows for our borders to be common on both north and southern pp borders. With that, i appreciate the opportunity to hear from our witnesses and be able to ask them questions about this important issue, and hopefully been able to get this bill out of this committee and off the floor of the senate and over to the house. Thank you, mr. Chairman. You l bet. Thank you very much, senator tester. Let me take a minute to welcome our panel. Responsible for the daily operation Border Patrol pl routinely assists in planning and nationwide enforcement and nationwide operations. Deputy chief vitiello is one of the contributors to the u. S. Epm custom anden Border Protection d the creation of the department of Homeland Security. Is that true . [ inaudible ] okay. Good. Thank you. Good to see you. Second witness is brandon judd. A he has more than 15 years of experience as Border Patrol agent. Serves as president as nationalr Border Patrol council representing 17,000 agents and b support staff. He spent much of his career on the southwest border and Central California and tucson, arizona sector. In the past hes been stationed as a Field Training officer and canine officers in naco, rder p arizona. From 2001 to 2002 as an instructor at the Border Patrol academy. Welcome. Mr. Judd, nice to see you. Next witness is paul the Deputy Assistant commissioner of the office of internal affairs for u. S. Customs and Border Protection. A post hes held since 2012. E i understand mr. Hendrick beca our witness this morning. This morning due to changes announced by the commissioner today. Not much warning but thank you for joining us. S has g we appreciate mr. Hendricks serving as a witness given the Extensive Knowledge of the issue were going discuss today. He joined the Custom Service in 1986, is that right as a special agent. Has been with the office of tic. Internal Affairs Since 2007. Thank you for joining on a shor notice. Final witness is adam miles. Hes the director of policy and Congressional Affairs at the oin u. S. G office of special counci. Prior to joining, he was on ther staff of the House Committee and oversight reform. Ted we thank you for your service. We thank you for your service and testimony today. Minu if you want to give us your testimony roughly five minutes. N thats fine. If you went a little over. Thats okay. If you go way over well have to reign you in. Y dont we look forward to hearing you. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, chairman, Ranking Member, distinguished members oe the committee. R thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to f address the need for Border Patrol agent pay reform. Requir we look forward to finding on solutions with you. They require properly paying our Border Security personnel and pay system. Our application of overtime er uncontrollable overtime needs stretches back man oy years. Thisting authorities no longer meet thee needs of a modern that Border Patrol. The Border Patrol agent pay reform act would replace it with a system that and maximizes agent capability for critical Law Enforcement and Border Security responsibility. If enacted it would ensure itsg scheduled to continue work and meet Mission Requirements beyonde the eighth hour of the shift while providing predibltble rotations. Re they would receive compensationr for any work over 8 hours per day and remain eligible for scheduled overtime when n to i emergenciesnc occur or special mission sets require it. In addition to increasing the capacity by over 2. 5 million hour it is would reduce overall costs. It would eliminate fair labor t standard act pay compensation for most agent assignments. Which total 10 a 5 million in d 2013. Based on the cost estimate, it u would save 38 to 76 million ut annually. It has a business practice in Leadership Development requirement that relies onen agents rotating into and out of headquarters assignment. This maintains up to date field. Experience in the positions. Itke o prepares leaders as the advance like other federal Law Enforcement agencies it is e fil portable pay for the employees that cycle through. Schedul the cost to train and maintain g an agent is considerable and scheduling overtime is more Cost Effective than getting the equivalent number of how hours o via agents. Ings. They provide strict tlesh hold i which will ensure cost saving t and mission capability. Without relief legislatively omd effectness would suffer. Morale is like to take a downward return. We command the commitment to e modernizing the pay structure and proposing to administrate a cost efficient system that pao meet the needs of a 21 st on century Border Patrol. We look forward to continuing to work with congress on the endeavor. Chairman carper, Ranking Membern coburn, members of the committee, i lack forward to this opportunity and answering your questions. Okay. Thank you. Please proceed. Senator, chairman. On behalf of the Border Patrol t agents that are represented. I would like to thank you for s9 having the hearing today to discuss s 1691. Would i would like to thank you for introducing the important t, i legislation. Instead of reading a prepared statement, ive given that to m you last thursday. T i would like to speak with you. Gem looking forward to more answering your questions than te giving a prepared statement that you already have. But there are a couple of things i would like key issues that i would like to point out. D the first issue is were no uggn longer dealing with mom and pop organizations on the border. We are dealing with sophisticated criminal cartels. Theyng control all traffic thato happening that comes into the United States and that goes intn mexico. They also control the illegal activity that happens on the northern border and the coastal border. Approximately a year ago, all ur Border Patrol agents were to notified that their hours for two week pay period would be cut from 100 plus to approximately 95. Since that time, weve seen almost an immediate increase of smuggling across the border. An in fact, on the map up here, not only are we seeing an increase in the rgb sector. We know about that tidal wave se that is happening. We have seen an increase in important corridors like el ionl paso, texas, san diego, california. These were considered operationally controlled areas. They have increased in arrests s 15 the last year since weve cut the hours by nearly 15 . Weve also seen, senator tester, in your neck of the woods, in er montana, weve seen an increase in arrest since the hours were cut by nearly 50 percent. Thats a huge increase. We have seen an increase on the coastal border in miami, florida. Weve seen an increase by almost 30 on the coastal border. These cartels know what we do, how we do it, and when we do ite they know when were vulnerable and right now due to the hours that have been cut, we are vulnerable. 50 in montana. Thats huge. Dress the second point i would like td address is the retention. In senator mcccains neck of th woods, the busiest station in the tucson sector, in the than y nation, i believe it currently seizesseen more drugs than any Border Patrol station in the nation. Weve seen a 5 weve seen 5t of the work force leave in the last year due to the number of a hours that havet been cut and the pay reduction that were ng experiencing. We also have another 15 at thio station alone that have pendingn applications in for other 20 agencies. We cant afford to lose 20 of the station especially a statiou that is so important to the tucson sector. On but thats what is happening ou under the economic climate. The last point that i would like to make, i would like to read rr this statement. Four years ago, when i came into the im sorry back in 1997 when i came intored the Border Patrol the recruitment that i was offered was 25 administrative overtime for theo rest of my career. Thats what we were told we were going to get. Thats now been cut. We no longer have that. And theres two reasons. Roac budgetary issues and legal issues. We approached congress four years ago, and we tried to get thet powers