feats by john f. kennedy, dick nixon, gerry for ronald reagan and biden, grge h.w. bush's flair for baseball at yale, reagan and kennedy's swimming heroics, barack obama's jump shot and more writes "wall street journal" reviewer edward cozzer in. he cites -- besides the -- the author's focus is on how these politicians use used srt to polish their public image. as always, you can look for these books and authors in the near future on c-span's booktv. >> and you've been watching booktv. every sunday on c-span2 watch nonfiction authors discuss their books. television for serious readers. and watch them all online anytime at booktv.org. you could also find us on twitter, facebook and youtube @booktv. ..

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon. today, the subcommittee on homeland security is having a hearing entitled combating transnational criminal organizations and related trafficking. i'm officially calling this

meeting to order. i'll make some quick opening remarks and then we'll turn it over to our witnesses. listen, i don't need to tello people here fentanyl is a nightmare like nothing that this country has ever seen before. i think every member of this subcommittee has family members or met with family members inside their communities that have lost a loved one to fentanyl. and the fact of the matter is, a this is a product that is being trafficked into the united states by criminal organizations that have their roots in mexico and other places south of our southern border. we've faced a lot of drug epidemics over the years, but this one is different, and it requires a different, more focused approach from this congress. today, we're going to have the opportunity for a detailed discussion with officials from the department of homeland security who play a critical role in interrupting the flow of fentanyl into the united states. specifically, we're going to be talking about the cartels and the gangs that deal in death and the trafficking of humans,

firearms, and drugs. these cartels bring in chemicals mostly from china, produce fentanyl or products laced with fentanyl, this largely happens in mexico, and then transport those pills into the united states and sell them here. i think this subcommittee and the appropriations committee writ large has the opportunity this year to make a major investment in the capacities that you are going to talk about here today. and let me just pose a few suggestions. i released a set of suggestions yesterday that i hope we'll talk about today. first, there is no reason that we can't detect and seize more fentanyl at the ports of entry and international mail facilities. the more funding we provide, the more drugs get taken off the market, the higher the price gets, the harder it becomes for the cartels and the sellers to do their business. today, [dhs is funded to inspect] 40% of the vehicles that enter the united states.in

there's just no reason why we can't jump that number to 60, 65, 70% in the next fiscal year. second, we've got these hsi task forces like fast in san diego, we'll talk about them today. they're bringing together effectively state, local, federal partners to go after these cartels, go after this trade. we should fund more of them. third, we've got to understand this is a two way street. drugs come into this country,t but cash and guns, they cross into mexico. the united states rightly complains to mexico they're not doing enough to stop the drugs from coming into the united states. but mexico rightly complains to us that we're not doing enough to stop the guns and the cash, the profits that move back into mexico. and so we have the ability to increase the amount of outbound inspections that we are doing to make sure that we're catching more of those illicit profits and firearms before they make their way into the hands of ther cartels. and then lastly, we could t allocate more resources to help

mexico stop the precursor chemicals from getting to mexico in the first place. a bipartisan group of us went to meet with president lópez obrador last month.ro he committed to us to partner with us in that work. the last two things to say are these, and i'll turn it over senator britt for opening comments. all of this investment in stopping fentanyl from getting to the united states would be impossible under last week's house republican vote. under their plan, fy24 funding for the department of homeland security would be cut by 22%. we're not talking about a singld expansion of our fight against fentanyl. the budget proposal from the house would drastically cut funding at the border, would drastically cut funding for the very capacities that right now are trying to fight fentanyl from coming into the united states. and the final thing to say is this.

if you watch some folks on cable news, you come to the conclusion that every immigrant in united states, every asylum seeker is potentially a risk. and while there is certainly an amount of fentanyl that's comini into the united states in between our ports of entry, 90 to 95% of it is coming in through the ports of entry. and so we need to have a conversation about how weco comprehensively reform our immigration system, and i think that involves tough conversation about asylum reform and about putting more resources at thee border. that's absolutely an element of this conversation. but the fact of the matter is, it is by and large not the t individuals who are sneaking in in between the ports of entry or presenting themselves for asylum in between the ports of entry that are bringing in the fentanyl. it is actually vehicles and individuals that are crossing at the ports of entry. we can do a much better job of stopping that traffic.

so, again, grateful to have a pretty full committee attendance today. i think that's a signal of how interested we are as a body on both sides of the aisle on having this conversation with you. and with that lovely turn it over to senator britt for opening comments. >> thank you, mr. chairman for holding this hearing, at thank you to theri witnesses for your willingness toth be a part of ts conversation. the cartels and transnational criminal organizations that bring fentanyl and to america at engage in human trafficking, including that of children, must be stopped. the department of homeland security with its broad authorities dedicated workforce plays an important part in these efforts, and particular customs and border protections office of field operations and immigration and customs enforcement homeland security investigations. i would like to first address the issueio of fentanyl as wells every member of this subcommittee, we all know that

the fentanyl is devastating our communities across this great nation. it is now the leading cause of death for o americans under the age of 45. more than 150 people die each day from an overdose related to fentanyl. atat the crime rate more americs will die in the next decade from fentanyl van combat deaths in all thef wars since america's founding. yet most of the fentanyl killing americans is coming from abroad starting as precursor chemicals in china before being turned into the deadly drug by the mexican cartels and then obtained from internet sources ship via mail or smuggled across the border into the united states. today's witnesses are subject matter experts on the interdiction of drugs and combating criminal organizations. like the thousands of their c colleagues, officers, agents and analysts who show up every day to work on the front lines, i to say thank you.

this ultimately is an appropriations hearing so as ranking member of this subcommittee i would be remiss if i did not note the president biden's budget proposal for fiscal year 2024 for dhs lacks a coherent strategy and request woefully under funds and insufficiently resources both with manpower and otherswo to ds to be able to effectively fight this fight and particularly look at the amount of dangerous drugs that are entering this country on a daily basis. in fy 2022 cbp's office of field operations interdicted 12,500 pounds of fentanyl at the ports of entry, just halfway through fy '23 that level of interdiction has already been surpassed. but president biden's budget proposal on the request to add 150 new officers to the already overworked and findleyer stressd 25,000 officers who staff the ports of entry each day.

and while the president's budget requests funding for additional inspection equipment at the borders, given how quickly the transnational criminal organizations adapt, the deployment of this technology and other that the types y being used, it has to be strategic. to be thoughtful. it has to be coherent. while the bulk of fentanyl is largely being brought through the ports of entry, the amount being ceased between the ports of s entry it's also alarming. in all of fy '22, 2200 pounds were seized by border patrol agents in between the ports of entry. that is enough to kill every single person in america. they have i already sees 1400 pounds through march of fy '23, including 264 pounds in january, 381 pounds in february, 531 pounds in march.ch this is 531 pounds in march. this is 85% of the total amount seized in just the last three months. similar to the great work done by cbp, we've seen time and time

again that hsi's work is critical t to our nation's effos to interdict drugs including the 21,000 pounds of fentanyl its east and fy '22. but we have already surpassed that amount by nearly 10% halfway through fiscal year 2023. this begs the question, what happens in eight days when title 42 goes away and the 5800 daily encounters that an average by border patrol agents by this old administration submissions will likely double? the answer is, we're likely to see morese fentanyl being brougt in which only two more american deaths but also more deaths of migrants trying to buy the way into the united states by smuggling forth the drug cartels. thee reality is is that presidet biden you this when he formulated his budget proposal for fy '24. '24. his administration notified congress on gender 26 of the public health emergency title 42 usage would end on may 11. yet on march 9 the president released a budget request the proposed cutting the department

of homeland security-based budget by 1%. that budget proposal and adequately funds efforts to combat fentanyl, secure the border, strongly enforce our nation's existing immigration laws. this is deeply irresponsible and is a a direct disservice to the incredible men and women on the ground working to protect and serve our nationn each and every day. this hearing though it's not just about fentanyl. it is also about the transnational criminal organizations which traffic noto just drugs but in people, vulnerable men, women, and children who often pay with their lives active 53 migrants who died after being stuffed in a tractor-trailer just last year. smuggling people across the border nets thet cartels $13 billion a year. hsi works to bring down the transnational criminal organizations, and these cartels need to be brought to justice.

yet fy '24 president's budget for hsi calls for just 22 new positions, an increase increase less than one half of 1% to combat human trafficking, child exploitation, counterfeit note, and investigate cyber crimes. similar to the worsening conditions we're likely to confront with fentanyl once title 42 goes way, i am sure the cartels are already busy planning on heading to get vantage of what is sure to be an even more chaotic situation and continue to profit from human trafficking. the cartels are ruthless. they operate with near impunity in mexico. they are well-financed, well organized and well connected. while there are certainly differences among this committee on how to handle the crisis at the border, there is surely an agreement that something must be done to stop them from enslaving one more man, assaulting one more woman or sexually trafficking one more child, or killing one more person. cbp and i.c.e. to great work but

there is no doubt that more work needs to be done to stop the illegal flow of drugs and people across our borders to take on the criminal organizations to profit from these activities. as ranking member of the subcommittee i want to ensure cbp and i.c.e. that you will be properly funded effectively deploying asset at our board is critical. where there is a crisis even if this administration refuses to admit that. thank you again, mr. chairman and to the witnesses. i look forward to a robust discussion today. >> thank you very much, senator britt. let me introduce her witnesses and ask you to provide testament in the order of introduction. first is jameso mandryck and ws the deputy assistant commissioner of intelligence and analysis at cbp. then diane sabatino the deputy executive assistant commissioner for the office of field operations at cbp. and finally marc mulholland who is the assistant director for counting transnational organized crime at theio homeland security investigations team.

welcome to all three of you. we will ask that you give your testimony in five minutes or less. your full statements will be committed for the record. >> sherman murphy, vice chair called, ranking member brett to see which norms of the subcommittee p thank you for the opportunity to testify today of the dangers of criminal organizations the types of activities involved and then attacked the cbp mission every day. illicit activities groups include smuggling of narcotics, weapons, cubans and financial crimes pose a significant ever-growing threat to our nation and the direct impact these groups operate across the world, based out of mexico some i will briefly discuss today. posing a direct danger such as the cbp mission. mexico -based tco's and follow the control of drugs in the u.s. oversee well-established logistical supply chains and maintain partnerships of criminal organizations in the u.s. to allow for product dissemination. in fiscal year 2020 more than

500,000 pounds of hard narcotics more than $76 million in illicit currency joint to activity. there are number of tco's operating throughout mexico behind those seizures, groups are able to exploit the lucrative smuggling corridors throughout the country. while it is nearly impossible to break out the exact proceeds in criminal activity, the scale of illicit activities conducted by this group easily yields tens of billions of dollars each year. the most profitable activity for these is narcotics sales, they become more diversified over the past decade into other illegal operations such as human smuggling intertwined themselves legitimate businesses to write additional revenue streams. found a novel ways for every aspect of daily life including sectors often overlooked in agriculture, theft, timber harvesting the fishing industry. it is important to note they are not one-way operators and heavily reliant on their ability to move goods from the u.s. into mexico specifically firearms,

from illicit activity. the two largest and mexico been dominant in these spaces for the past two years is similar cartel and new generation cj ng. still cartels one of the largest and oldest most established in mexico but they are believed to have operational strongholds two thirds of all mexican states with a heavy presence along the u.s. border in baja california cartel is a higher central hierarchy with fourth educational structure of the vertical hierarchy directed by form of mexican police officer from control the groups activities. targeting security services, rapidly expanding since its emergence in 2010 strongholds over two thirds of mexican states is singers just south of

texas. both of these groups profit significant sales of agriculture hair wet and cocaine both unable to adapt into new market such as synthetic narcotics like methamphetamine and fentanyl but both groups of proven quite successful sectors to increase their profit margins and offset potential losses and changes in customer demand. despite the removal some leadership control over large territories in mexico expanding into smuggling corridors along the u.s. border. an inside mexico access to narcotics in precursors but evolution has been a key to success for the tc is in mexico. as mentioned previously mexican -based have drastically increased human smuggling from the initial stages collection for a few parts per migrant to get more involved full-scale migrant facilitation sector worth billions of dollars each year. these have all shown their

ability to rapidly evolve alongside technology from the use of secure communication platforms, to the use of drones for surveillance drug smuggling attack purposes in mexico to the use of crypto currency for many movements to first money laundering. most notably is the group's ability to rapidly respond to changes in the drug environment such as legalization of marijuana decrease demand for heroin in the u.s. marketplace. mexico have been able to quickly pivot from agricultural base drugs to synthetics narcotics to maximize profit margins. the focus on synthetics allow these groups to produce narcotics without needing to control large swaths of territory in mexico they are no longer subject to weather conditions they are allowed to produce year-round industrial level production. further highlight the resume to these groups that quickly they adapted to enforcement changes remove access to pencil in 2019 put almost immediately began acquiring this i think sentinel themselves effectively allowing

them to on the supply chain without interruption. the evolution of these groups are required to become more proactive technology data intelligence driven organizations utilizing professionals to secure our borders drive operational outcomes break your competence of collection mechanism counter network analysis and exploitation of geospatial intelligence maximize operational outcomes and officer safety praise become more forwardly each day. i thank you for your time here so your investment intelligence both rational some unfortunate questions you may have. >> sherman murphy, vice chair collins ranking member members of the subcommittee thank you for the opportunity to appear to discuss u.s. captains and border protection efforts to combat the dynamic threat of transnational criminal organizations, and prevent the entry of dangerous illicit drugs including benton

alternations ports of entry. i'm really proud to represent 30,000 dedicated frontline personnel cbp's office of field operations commonly referred to as o fo. who worked tirelessly everyday to protect our border, our homeland and our communities. i appreciate the subcommittee's unwavering support of our mission and for ensuring we have the personal, the technology of the resources needed to conduct our complex and challenging border security responsibilities. sentinels are ports of entry top 13000 pounds. through this fiscal year for just last month fentanyl seizures for the entire previous fiscal year of 2022 were exceeded. however efforts and actions to encounter drugs do not begin or end up ports of entry. multilayered and targeted our efforts are driven by intelligence and analysis. intelligence specialists national targeting center or local analytical teams advance information, intelligence and predictive analytics of

potential high-risk shipments, cargo and travelers before they reach our borders. or building or interdiction capabilities we continue to focus also on modernizing and automating our processes to legitimate travel and trade is that will allow our resources to focus on the threats as they evolve. relieving our frontline personnel of administrative work such as manual data entry or paper-based transaction, gives them the opportunity to do what they do best which is to talk to people and determine an increase situational awareness. the technology cbp officers use imports of entries imperative for operation. with the support of congress we continued to deploy nonintrusive's inspection systems that can reliably and quickly detect suspect anomalies hidden in commercial and private conveyances. a critical tool for officially learning officers further scrutiny is needed. also provide an viable capabilities. as a first law enforcement

agency to develop with k-9 units. all field operations team and narcotics detection canine teens are trained to detect the odor of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues. we are currently scoping missions to support other countries of developing this capability. beyond detection introduction officers also use field testing devices and work with both on-site and remote scientists to rapidly screen and identify suspected controlled substances but all information from drug seizures and laboratory analysis sent back into intelligence network and shared with our investigator partners. when it comes to dismantling we must not only interdict what is coming into the country but also what is going out. thanks his committee support additional funding in the fy 23 appropriations we have expanded our outbound operations to stop the self and flow of weapons and cash that fueled his criminal networks. in fiscal year 22 our outbound operations of the southwest

border result in the seizure of more than 7 million in currency imported 15 weapons. we surpassed lester's weapon seizure at just the six months this fiscal year. joint efforts to leverage our capabilities alongside those of our partners amplifies our accomplishments. for example through operation blue loaded cbp and her homeland security investigation partners are surging intelligence analysis enforcement capabilities to knowledge target and seek illicit fentanyl but also pursue investigations and takedown criminal networks. the operations implementation just six weeks ago we made 88 arrests in more than 70 seizures of fentanyl totaling over 4000 pounds. this collaborative approach along to continued investments in frontline officers, intelligence research specialist and advanced technologies will be key in disrupting the dynamic threat and intercepting the illicit drugs across our borders. thank you for the opportunity to testify today and i look forward to your questions.

>> good afternoon interment murphy, ranking member brett, distinguished members of the committee. thank you for the opportunity to appear before before homeland security investigations to disrupt and dismantle transnational criminal organizations. also known as tco's. the threat posed by transnational criminal organizations is pervasive. criminal organizations do not limit themselves to a single criminal enterprise. these criminal organizations have expanded beyond narcotics smuggling and have morphed into public criminal tco's associate crimes of weapons, trafficking, human smuggling, cyber crime, fraud money laundering and other crimes. all of which eight ssi investigates tco evolve beyond insular and seek partnerships with competing tco's and further other criminal activity. for example, illicit collaboration between chinese tco's and mexican cartels have created eight complex criminal

ecosystem that's funneling narcotics traveling. develop sophisticated networks in the u.s., mexico, china, and throughout asia to facilitate money laundering schemes. these organizations use a vast global infrastructure to clean illicit proceeds from various criminal organizations including mexican cartels. mexican cartels have taken over our fentanyl production operate on an industrial scale. they are procuring precursor from china synthesizing these chemicals in mexico to produce fentanyl part x converts out smugly fentanyl into the u.s. either powder or pill form for easy distribution. chinese criminal organizations facilitate the trafficking and description of fentanyl pills for the sale of industrial pill press equipment to mexican cartels. then turn powdered fentanyl into the pill form. actively disrupting the pill press supply chain and to date

has seized over 1200 pill process in part used to make deadly conventional laced pills in october of 2022. as an investigative component of the department upon security hsi combats tco's of criminal enforcement. knowing this hsi target narcotics smuggling activity, but also targets a wider array of illegal activities tco's employ to fuel the criminal organizations such as human trafficking, human snug in the financial networks used to launder proceeds and profit from this and the firearms activities. to combat begin abroad. hsi is the largest international investigative presence within dhs comprised of hundreds of hsi special agents. strategically assigned to 93 offices in 56 countries. hsi and our counterparts in other countries disrupt sources

of illicit drugs, smuggling networks and money laundering operations. these efforts enable ssi and partners to have dangerous narcotics and other goods from reaching our borders to stop illicit outbound flows of a legally drive currency and weapons. our international counter narcotics effort is significantly enhanced by hsi's transnational investigative unit, tci view. the tci use comprised of vetted for law enforcement and prosecutors that work jointly with hsi to disrupt and dismantle tco's by leveraging countries legal system include mutually beneficial investigations and prosecution. domestically border security taskforces represent where the agency's premier tools for turning borders seizures and to top leading investigations. hsi best partnerships among state and local law enforcement task force officers are integral to success in countering tco's

through traffic in narcotics and firearms and threaten the public safety of the united states. the primate mission is to combat existing and emerging by employing the full range of federal, state, local, tribal, and international law enforcement resources. there are currently 88 best comprised of thousands of law enforcement officers and personnel representing more than 200 agencies and national guard units. in addition each 253 offices located in all 50 states and multiple u.s. territories dedicate assets to combat tco's. hsi uses its authority domestically to target procurement networks responsible for smuggling u.s. origin weapons into mexico. this includes operation without a trace, the unique dhs operation with atf and other law enforcement partners in mexico to fight the illegal trafficking of firearms and ammunition from the united states into mexico.

despite these efforts hsi recognizes their significant work to be done on all fronts to disrupt and dismantle. thank you again for the opportunity to be here before you today. your continued support of hsi and our enduring efforts to combat domestically and internationally other torture questions. >> thank you all for your testimony. will begin around a five minute questions and i will begin. first, let me make a small amendment to my opening statement barely had the conversation today about the supply side the piece of this equation. we should all be sober about the fact our supply side approach in the past have not worked tremendously well. unless they are matched with a demand side approach for our committee is to stop the supply we have to understand this is one piece of a much bigger picture. let me start with you. tender britt noted the

president's budget requested 1% reduction in funding for the department of homeland security but i have shared concerns about what that mean about the department. but the republican health response to that was a 22% cut in funding for the department of homeland security. which is seemingly catastrophic. let me just ask you a simple question. can you effectively fight the flow of fentanyl, detect the flow, sees a fentanyl into the united states if your budget is cut by 22%? cork simply had to contemplate making that significant of a cut to our budget we would look to nonpaid resources first. given what are salary percentages are that we them pretty quickly for non- pay and have to look at potential adverse personnel actions which would result in limiting our ability to affect operations,

beaten nimble and adapt quickly to evolving threats. that could cascade into collapsing operations and staffing in our airports. and at a time we are looking to expand hours of operations honored northern border border that would be incredibly challenging to do that. question listed about 30 seconds a pretty stunning list of impacts. closures of ports of imminent entry or limitation on hours, personnel being let go. the inability to continue investigations at a current pace. this is a really important discussion of many to continue pretty do not want to use all my time on it. but the impacts are pretty grave. just to share with us about where this product is coming in? i use the statistic i've heard repeatedly in my opening testimony that 90 -- 95% is coming to ports of entry. obviously we do not have all the information to know.

but, as that number about rights? do we contemplate the lion share's coming into our ports of entry versus coming in through individuals that are crossing in between the ports of entry? >> guesser that is a fair assessment based off seizure data. seizure data is not indicative of flow between the best predictors of flow but preferably 90 -- 95% or parts ports of entry. what's really important for where we make investments if 90% the products coming at the ports of entry it makes sense to be focusing 90% of our resources at the ports of entry. to talk to you a little bit about how we best allocate resources. i appreciate the success you've had in shutting down presses and manufacturing facilities. but man that sounds like a tough job. especially when it manufacturing facilities could fit in the corner of this room it's like finding a needle in hand haystack. is it more effective are just

effective to look at the precursors? part of the reason we went down to meet the commitment to work with us in china to interrupt the flow. china knows everything that leaves that country. it appears to me we could have a bigger impact by trying to stop the precursor to getting into the hands of the cartels in the first place i was ahead of serving all of hsi operations mexico for four years before i came here which is our largest and busiest side the fentanyl crisis i can lay that out for you. the precursor chemicals are synthesized at smuggler southwest border it is sold within the united states poisoning our public the

proceeds is increasingly laundered outside of our country by chinese money laundering organizations. it used to be an industry dominated by colombians illicit funds is now controlled by the chinese charging one -- 2% to launder money outside the u.s. at this same time the pill presses used to press that finish fentanyl into pills or coming in from china exclusively? this begins and ends she just pointed out we received over 3 million pounds precursor chemicals update western seaports of mexico in the last three years with our fantastic partners in mexico. >> of the upsides of eight italian state very little happens in china that does not

happen under the control and direction of the change, and his party. we have inability to jim the demands of applied a change in policy stops that equipment for moving to mexico in the united states. thank you for giving us the sense of what has been done to stop the flow of cash and weapons out of the united states for its unlimited the part of that has been expended. to be had if we continue to stand on that investment. ask thank you, mr. chairman and all whole government, everybody working together. my question really is, how are you all communicating? under the department of human security each has her individual

lane. how are we ensuring to actually take down these cartels. who is responsible who looks at what os o is doing and hsi nose and connecting those dots >> thank you for the question, senator. hsi's relationship with cbp runs very deep. we are communicating daily on these types of issues. we have over 7000 7000 special agents within the united states. we respond to every single seizure made by cbp at the port of entry whether that land sea or air. so we inherit have a lot of overlap in the things we do and -- >> is their person that oversees this that connects the dots between the two ors adjust on case-by-case basis and working -- >> i can sort the address that. we have to look at it at

different levels of the organization. certainly at a port levels, port directors are spot support showing the relationships and representative green relationship with hsi investigations. again having him respond to seizures but also sharing information and intelligence, post seizure analysis and feeding that into ournf intelligence cycle. at our regional levels certainly are directors feel operations engage with their counterparts, the special agents in charge of the divisions out in the field but i think an important piece for us at the national of is the cooperation we have at our national targeting center where hsi is co-located with us and works also not just within the interagency and all of the information bring in the intel, the information, but also our foreign partner. >> are there challenges you have been working together collaboratively? any roadblocks? it's interesting we g created te department of homeland security to ensure that we broke down those things. just want to t make sure that's

not occurring here. >> i'm not aware of any significant challenges.re more communication is better and we are very engaged in that. >> i appreciate that. the amount of fentanyl that has been seized and is actually astonishing, and want to commend you for the work that you continue to do, i am concerned about what's not being seized and want to dig a little bit to that. we are seeing it show up in our streets, in our schools, in our communities and it has killed more than a a quarter of a min americans since 2018. can you give us some idea about the networks within the united states that are helping to give fentanyl and opioids into these american communities? we'ree talking about the chines. obviously we've said this begins and ends with china. but can you tell me a little bit more drug cartels and get search of the risk of what's happening once he gets her to the u.s.? >> my colleagues talked a little bit about the two largest cartels in mexico, the senna low

the jalisco cartels. they have tentacles into every single city in this country. >> in this country? >> in this country. that's how they sell the drugs and are not subject to our citizens. >> how to define these people? are the migrants? are they kingsway fear? how does it work? >> there's transactional criminal organizations are s country to sell narcotics to thoset that are looking for narcotics. yes son his gangsta salvos beginning sewer to work through extortion. they don't randomly just sell drugs that there's all sorts of criminal organizations operate without that are selling this. >> tell me are they gaining foothold? by the mexican drug cartels gaining foothold here in our country? >> they definitely have a big influence here in our country. a >> do you see that trend of where that more and more influence? >> i don't know that they're more and more influence. i know we are committing more and more resources towards it

with hsi every single year. we have our border enforcement security task forces of which with over 4000 state and local officers that serve as a force multiplier for hsi to work narcotics investigations, to work human trafficking organizations come to work human smuggling networks as well. we have our fentanyl suppression teams which senator murphy talked about earlier that attracting those overdose deaths. they're taking thatt pill, tracking that pill that was used in that overdose all the way back to mexico all the way back to the precursor chemicals used to makei' it. >> how do you effort differ here domestically versus what you doing internationally? >> we have 7000 special agents at hsi. we have a huge overseas presence. we look at this as a worldwide issue. partnership our main focus not only domesticallyy through our border enforcement 60 taskforces, through our partnerships with cbp but also internationally. it starts internationally.

i spoke about by the time having a mexico offices. that's one of 90 overseas offices we haveof it would takea lot of pride in one partnerships that we develop. we have our transnational criminal investigative units in 14io countries overseas where there's local investigators, local police officers that are assigned by the country that the work in that we bet, we trained, we fund and work investigations of joint interest with them not only inn their own country but n hours. that's what differentiates the way we do things overseas. >> thank you. appreciate it. >> senator murray. >> thank you very much, chairman murphy, and ranking member britt. britt. this hearing willie is anha important reminder to all of us that the strength of our economy and the safety of our communities is directly related to our ability to keep goods flowing at airports and borders and keep our doors open to immigrants and refugees while stopping transnational criminal activities, especially fentanyl that is devastating all of our communities. i appreciate senator murphy

these focus on this crisis and hope we can join him in pushing to provide more resources to fight it. instead of putting a wrecking ball the dhs in a fight against fentanyl, like resolve the house republican vote last week that really has a decimating effect to our budget. i visited the border in arizona a few weeks ago and i met with border officials and families thatic are seeking asylum in america. i heard directly about the challenges we are facing when it comes to combating human trafficking and drug trafficking and other criminal activity, and getting kids and refugees and asylum-seekers to care and support they need. it's important for us to understand that many of these families that are showing up at her border are victims and survivors. they are fleeing the violence in the same transnational criminal organizations the u.s. government is fighting. those criminalti organizations e the root cause of a lot of suffering from the fentanyl and

the drugs that are flooding our streets to the persecution and violenceru and torture that leas so many refugees to flee their homes in their own countries to the misinformation and manipulation that is fueling these atrocious trafficking operations. so if we want to protect our communities from illegal opioids and stop the dangerous human trafficking across our border and healthy families are fleeing persecution, we have got to work toto shut down these cartels and the other transnational criminal organizations that are really driving so much of this devastation. and we cannot do that if we are slashing the resources we desperately need to protect our communities and stop this trafficking at our border. which is what i for the republicans voted for last week in the house. i want to remind everybody keeping our family safe means that we find these agencies in a way that allows us to protect our families across the border. i appreciate both of you working on this. i want to follow up on senator

murphy is question. he asked you, ms. sabatino, with the impact of a 22% cut is. mr. mandryck and would ask you the same thing. how would that affect your agency and your ability to collect and analyze intelligence? >> thank you for the question. i would have significant effect on our capability both from a manpower and are functioning. we would not be able to support assembly we doo things like operation blue lotus that was mentioned that it would impact our geospatial analysis. so full-motion video, one of those as we combined come work for close with hsi and the pole came analysis, one of the things that are human w intelligence capability and program would suffer for many setbacks of a funding standpoint as well as the training, development, delivery for intelligence professionals and law enforcement professionals across agency. >> mr. millhollin, how will that bill affect your ability to investigate transactional

tcos? >> thank you for the question. hsi's job is growing increasingly complicated over the last several years. we're having to commit additional resources towards training, towards recruiting, into these fields, that includes cyber and financial crimes. we need to continue to invest in our workforce. any hindrance of that, any pullback of resources on that with significantly hamper our ability to after transnational criminal organization. >> thank you. let me ask you as well, you talk about china being where it starts. my assumption was india was part of that as p well, , correct? >> we see a small amount of precursor chemicals that are coming into mexico from india but our diplomatic relations and our law enforcement relations there are pretty starts without a lot of success with them stopping that. >> how do you work with other agencies and international

parties to stop the flow of these precursor chemicals before they come in? >> our main resource outside the united states are strong partnerships with foreign governments, with law enforcement in those countries. we have about 14 transnational criminal investigative units around the world. we are trying to expand the program as a go forward. these are embedded to law enforcementan officers from that host country that we train at the federal law enforcement transcendent in the united states and they go back to the country with hsi agents in that country. the thing that makes him the most unique his t work investigations with joint interests. we don't justnt ask them to find someone whoon may have worn in e train to extradite back to the united states. we are fine if the prosecutor and their home country over prosecutor in the united states. this is a way we build partnership for the future. >> really quickly, i'm glad you rolled up his nonintrusive inspection tools so we can identify some of this contraband

at opportunity. do you have the resources to scale back up? >> hsi is closely tracking cbp's rollout of nonintrusive inspections. as we respond to every single seizure made atus a port of enty that cbpbp makes him ahead of te follow-up investigation from that seizure, as the rollout and nonintrusive inspection we canll only assume that seizures will go up, which means they will take additional response from hsi to handle those investigations and will require additional resources. >> thank you very much. >> thanks chairman lee. senator hyde-smith. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and i've also join you in welcoming these panelists here, and certainly appreciate what you do every single day. in january i visited the southernng border ranking member britt, and the stories we were told down there and hurt of human trafficking was just

totally incredible. today, i would to discuss publicly available information and how it is used to create relevant and timely open-source intelligence that addresses evolving threats to our national security. mr. mccaul in, you testified last march for the homeland security governmentar affairs emerging threats and spending oversight committees that hsi worked closely with the custom and border protection national targeting center to examine large volumes which he used to successfully intercept the shipment of fentanyl w precursos being sent directly from china to the united states via commercial air and maritime shipping. in may 2019 at the request of the united states, china placed all fentanyl related substances of international control the

number of seizures dropped significantly, almost to zero i understand. this force china's traffickers to send fentanyl and fentanyl precursorsna to mexico as we discussed where it is manufactured by drug cartels and smuggled into the united states using traditional smuggling techniques. in mississippi we have researchers who work closely with our national security agencies to analyze publicly available information and apply day decides methods to gain insight and provide actionable intelligence and problems, on problems just like this. so my question to all the witnesses, how has your agencies open-source intelligence operations adapted to this change in strategy by these traffickers? >> thank you for the question. so we are in the early stages of

really fine-tuning our open source intelligence capabilities focus on publicly available information. so nothing that's encrypted is available to anybody following the intelligence community privacy diversity requirements. what we're doing is finding them from a few different angles. we do not have an investigative authority so ours is kind of an indications and warnings function. that indication of emerging trends patterns potential individuals who may be marketing this in an open manner and provided that your folks who do have investigative authorities across the entire usg. we are in the indications warning early testing part is how we are exploiting the available information. >> thank you for that. >> thank you for the question and i think we as the operators in cbp at the ports port e the ones who did benefit from working office of intelligence is doing in the space and taking that information, turning it into tactical actionable information for officers to use

inab decision-making but also in sharing information with our partners that engage with onbu a daily basis. thank you. >> its reseller for hsi, senator. we have a very large intelligence unit that crunches criminal investigative intelligence that our investigators are getting every day from not only judicially obtainot information but by our vast network of sources throughout the world and they get that two investigators on the front lines of action. >> thank you. i have little time left and a really want to ask this to everyone. cooperation with the private sector, universities and existing research centers is critical to ensuring the department is producing new solutions to evolving threats to our nation's homeland security. can you share with the subcommittee potential areas for enhancement collaboration with these entities to further refine the technologies for the specific use of cbp and hsi?

>> again, thank you for the question. we have a very robust student volunteer program, the equivalent internship program within cbp. we have approximately 30 individuals from a wide range of universities and local schools that spend their summer months working with our intelligence professionals. m mostli of these folks are either focusol on national security law enforcement or something in the big data space. they bring to bear a lot of unique skills andot capabilities we often don't have such as data analytics, data scientists, allowing us to take the big data that hasn't been available and help us put a new lens on it. most of the folks who come work in intelligent space have quite a well switching to look at things with one lens. so bring in a new generation of folks with different expenses different education. it really helped us ship to understand what the threats are. >> thank you for that answer. >> certainly we would welcome partnership with vendors,

industry, academia to enhance our efforts and builder capabilities out on the border. certainly good example of the projecthi within dhs the officef science and technology that helps as part of a specific industries or research groups to look at new ways are technologies that we can leverage in combating the threats. c >> senator, public-private partnership has grown increasingly important for hsi as we go forward. we recently established a cross-border financial crimes center that is a partnership model amongst federal law enforcement butrc private industry, banking institutions and others so we can share as much intelligence as possible to focus on investigations going forward. >> thank you. and i'm sorry i i ran over my type. >> that's all right. senator tester has deferred to senator baldwin so we will go to senator baldwin next. >> thank you. i need to reside at three so i appreciate that thoughtfulness. so great to have you here.

thank you for your service. while wisconsin is not a border state, the work that customs and border protection and homeland security doel at our southern border is essential to keeping our families safe. and i am eager to discuss why the funding for your work is so important to our safety and our national security. i'm not going to ask a question on this because of time but want to associate myself with the comments by chair murray and chairmanh murphy about the impat of the recent house republican passed legislation that could well result in massive cuts of up to 22% in this budget at a time when i think uniformly we are all things you need to meet more resources to meet the challenge of the day. i just wanted to make that quick association.

in wisconsin between 2019 and 2021, fentanyl overdose deaths grew by a staggering 97% in just a a couple your period. and in no small part due to the synthetic fentanyl and counterfeit pills that are made to look just like prescription namebrand opioids, stimulants and anxiety medications. you talked already a little bit about how cpb and hsi work individually and in partnership to address the flow of counterfeit pharmaceuticals at our southwest border. i'm interested to know more about your partnerships with state and local law enforcement. and if you would support additional resources or coordination, resources at the state and local level for this purpose. also since you, mr. millhollin, discussed it, you talked about your work with mexican partners

and the need for that to be there for seizure of these pill presses and shutting down of operations. and the last thing i would note in this question, it's a big one, is when i was recently at the border in texas, wish you a map of sort of who, the perception, and i think was i, of who controls order purposes, the land adjacent to the u.s. and mexico. and it seemed like such a long stretch of the border was, the day-to-day control was the cartels, not the mexican government. so maybe you can add a little bit about that challenge when ask you that they question. why don't you start, mr. millhollin. >> no problem. thank you to the question. to your first question, to all of your questions, partnerships are the main way that we get

things done in law enforcement. not only state and local partnerships with police departments come with state authorities, with our federal partners who were here at te with us and others in doj, also overseas. we take a lot of pride in the partnerships that we make. we do a lot of this to our task forces and these are 4000 task force officers assigned hsi throughout the country who would use as a force multiplier on investigations that we conduct we do the same thing overseas in places like mexico, throughout central come south america fdasia with our transnational criminal investigative units. i canan tell you we are very strong partnerships and mexico at the working level. there's a lot of trust between us. there's a lot of intelligence that is being shared and a lot of seizures and prosecutions that's coming from that. i reference the 3,000,000 pounds precursor chemicals we been able to seize ate mexican ports of entry in the last three years. that's directly resulting from the partnerships we built over

the last couple of years. >> from a cbp perspective, we foster a of government approach to tackling no, we can't do it our own and that's at the federal local and state level. certainly at a port of entry relationships with our state and local partners are critical to the successar we have and to all extent possible share information we develop consort of from seizures to ensure that the visibility of what the threats are and we receive that information back, and partner with them and task forces along with homeland security investigations. from an international perspective i think the ongoing communication just at our land borders with canada and mexico is a daily occurrence in sicily were to with dementia information to the extent possible and also our investments overseas. obviously we pre-currents that precludes locations come to plymouth across the globe as well as her immigration advisory program but we also invest quite a bit in capacity building and building out those resources anb

educating our partners overseas asca well. >> and very similar to what's been mentioned. it is a partnerships. we are very focus on the deployment of our personal tooc the field where we send them whether it's the state fusion centers, he just puts out or the high intensity drug trafficking areas throughout the country. our deployment of personnel internationally with a different task forces that are out there and the sharing of our intelligence. >> thank you. thank you for differing, and y p submit an additional question for thede record. >> thank you. senator tester. >> i'll yield. >> are you sure? >> i didn't want to bump your outline to you. peter's maybe but -- >> letting people walk all over you. >> exactlyve right. this is for mr. millhollin. you talk about hsi knowing targets trucks operations but targets financial networks and resources to fund these illegal activities. ..

with the ranking member britton and bipartisan of centrist increased treasuries ability to sanction organization and traffic fentanyl. the question is this. doesn't dhs and hsi need additional 30s or can it work with have this criminal organization where it hurts? which is in their wallets. picks up so i can repeat the end >> can you impact the money? >> i think this is one of the main things that hsi does. a strong money laundering investigation and i talked about the chinese influence in the united states now, bringing out illicit proceeds of all fentanyl sales, stood up a cross-border financial crime center to do exactly what you're talking about. >> can you explain how the money from drug trafficking is getting back to the cartels and criminal operations. if you have an opportunity to stop that, how are you doing

it? >> several different ways, money laundering is several different ways, cash money going across the money, and chinese are doing it trade-based and difficult to track and we have ways to track that. mirroring, and it's difficult to track, but we have the resources to do that and success. >> how much is transferred via crypto. >> a lot of transfers are happening via crypto, specifically on the dark net. >> okay. a lot of focus right now is placed on combatting the mexican drug cartels, i think most people understand that we need to hold china accountable as much as mexican drug cartels for the fentanyl trafficking. what is dhs doing to stop chinese criminal organizations. >> chinese criminal organizations? >> what are you doing to stop

them? >> i referred back to my answer on how we're stopping precursor chemicals coming into mexico and we have officers in china had a have a little bit of law enforcement contact there-- >> any success on having the officers in china work with you and actually stop garbage from coming in here, poison? >> it's pretty difficult, sir. >> okay. dhs is applying title 42 next week and i don't think any of the title 42 makes sense about you concerned about the administration's preparation or lack of it with respect to the surge of migrants at that come to the border. i spent a good portion of the weekend listening to the radio and this is on all the time, talking about there's a bunch of folks lined up to come in because they think the border is open. and criminal organizations take

advantage of weakness at the border to do their drug thing. yesterday dhs asked for 1500 additional active duty military and that's going to happen. the question for anybody who wants to answer it on the panel, with the 1500 additional active duty military folks, is there any plan to reassign agents from other-- the northern border or ports or anywhere to the southern border or those 1500 active duty troops secure the border? >> i'll take that one. >> go ahead. >> we're not currently anticipation drawing down any more resources to supplement the tdy's that we've had there for an exend itted period of time. that being said, any evolving threat, we're always prepared to look across our operations. >> okay. for right now the 1500 active duty military, i think there's 2500 guardsmen, too, that are already down there already, is that not correct?

>> i'd have to deter to the border patrol. 1500 are supporting border prove operations for administrative duties. >> all right, so, i'm not saying this is a negative. can anybody answer how long the 1500 active duty military are down there? >> i'll take that as a get-back. >> sounds good. that's it, thank you, mr. chair. >> thanks, senator. senator shaheen. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you all for being here and for what you do every day. new hampshire, my home state, has had some of the highest numbers of overdose deaths on a per capita basis of any state in the country. 2022 was the worst year for overdose deaths since 2017 and obviously, what we're seeing from fentanyl is that it's a huge contributor to that. about 70% of those deaths are fentanyl related. so, but i want to follow up on senator tester's question about

the northern border because in 2022, cvp reported 302% increase in activity over the year before along the northern border. and early figures from this year showing that there's an even higher year over year increase in places along the u.s.-canada border, the swan sector, which affects new hampshire and vermont, actually stretches from new york to new hampshire, but cvp has not returned all the personnel who have been pulled to address the southern border. i know you mentioned the northern border. i know that 25 agents have been sent back to the swanton sector, but will the 1500 soldiers that are on the southern border affect our ability to return the remaining officers to the northern border, to the swanton sector? >> with respect to the 1500 in

supporting the border patrol operations, they will be doing administrative functions and i would have to get back for you from the border patrol what that would mean. in terms the exist tdy's, we determine the least potential impacts to the environments to support those tdy's. we're not anticipating releasing any of the those in the near term, but always something we're continually assessing. again with any threat as it evolves, whether it diminishes or increases, we work closely with our port stake holders to advise them of any potential impacts we're going to have. >> is there any sense from cvp whether that are tco's responsible for the increased activity at the northern border? >> so, in terms of the

increased activity of migration coming from canada south down, we do not see any correlation to the tco's. historically we've seen the crossing fees, the plazas, mentioned earlier and we've seen them move more into a full scale facilitation, but those remain focused on moving individuals from the southwest border not to the northwest border, ma'am. >> you don't think there's any benefit in designating the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations? does that give you any more authorities to do what you need to do to address their activities? >> well, for any designation we would defer to the department of state for any designation we're fairly comfortable-- >> i'm not asking whether that should happen. i'm asking whether that give you any additional authorities to intercept the activity for cartels? >> with the 14059 we have what

we believe are the authorities to combat tco activity. >> and do the rest of you agree with that? >> i don't believe that would really change our methodology and techniques trying to tackle these or enhance, there are certainly other agencies that may benefit from that. >> i'd agree. we have the criminal authorities we need, chief amongst our concerns with that, would be maintaining our strong relationships with our foreign partners, so we wouldn't want to do anything to jeopardize that. >> i was in south america a couple of weeks ago with a group of senators and one of the things that i was surprised to hear, we visited panama, colombia, argentina and brazil, they're not seeing fentanyl in south america and, in fact, when we were in brazil they told us that they'd had their first death from fentanyl in the country that had just been reported the week before we got there. do we expect to see fentanyl moving into those other

countries in south america? >> from what we've seen from the movement, the two synthetics, it does appear to be a bit after delay. when methamphetamine worked into the u.s. market, and then into australia, new zealand. we didn't see a big population explosion in central and south america. while there likely will be increased fentanyl use, it does not appear it's going to be an emerging trend the level we're seeing here. >> everybody agree with that? can i ask one more question, mr. chairman, i know the chairman said we're focused on the-- we're not focused on the demand side here, but obviously, the only way we're really going to address what's happening with illegal substances is to deal with the prevention of that. if you all could fund one initiative that you think is

really important for prevention, what would you increase to fund? >> i think based off the trends and patterns we're seeing is the growing utilization of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, oxycodone, the individuals are taking pharmaceuticals and more dangers on the counterfeits. >> i would agree. the messaging and information to the communities, ultimately what the impact is, i know there's quite a bit out there and again, looking for targeted groups for that messaging. >> i agree with my counterparts. we're continually conducting outrich to schools as well and we need to continue that and get better at that and commit more resources. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> senator peterson. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thanks for our three witnesses, appreciate the work you do each

and every day. this is going to be a question to all three of you. in march, the department of homeland security stood up operation blue lotus. a cvp and hsi coordinated surge operation. in only a month led to the seizure over 4,000 pounds of fentanyl at our ports of entry. so my question is what led to the success of operation blue lotus and is there something congress could do to help you with these types of operations? we can start here. >> yes, senator. thank you for that question. over the course of the last several months we've surgeded several hundred special agents from interior office to the border to assist cvp after a seizure is made, specifically of fentanyl and those seizures have obviously increased a lot over the last couple of months. we're handle up follow-up investigations from the seizures and surging as many resources towards those

follow-up investigations as possible. you mentioned 4,000 pounds of fentanyl in a couple of months, led to about 135 arrests as well. we look at that as the first phase. we're illuminating the networks that are bringing the fentanyl into the united states we're illuminating that out of the united states and we anticipate much further investigative activities and indictments and prosecutions down the line and welcome any additional resources, of course. >> i think equally as important as interdicting the narcotics as well and preventing them from entering the community is the investment and developing out of those seizures and making sure with blue lotus and the cvp and other federal and state partners, which really align that kind ever intelligence strategy and that tactical information back and forth so that we can make those interdictions and i mentioned in my opening statement that the seizures begin before the ports of entry, so the best

information that we can get before that continued investigation in our intel frame work and resources could be beneficial to sustaining or the ability to gain from these types of operations and the pulse and surge operations are important. not necessarily something that we have to maintain in the manner which which they're effective. i think we have a number of examples where certain operations we gain information, remine and conduct additional operations as tco's enforce our methodologist and move around us, but the investment is critical for us. >> i believe the last part is probably the most significant we've seen. the initial stage was a strong intelligence operations and the times and locations to surge. if they become aware of what's happening, conveyance,

location, so having the follow-on so it's not just pushing somewhere else, it's being prepared for that as well. >> very good. >> there's significant bipartisan support for increasing nonintrusive inspection capacity to aid cvp and interdicting drugs like fentanyl before they reach the communities. as you mentioned, it's critical. while congress has increasingly provided resources for the system, there are no current requirements in place for scanning rates. in the coming weeks, i'm going to be introducing legislation that require cvp to use the systems that congress has funded to scan 40% of passenger vehicles and at least 90% of commercial vehicles entering our land ports of entry, so the deputy executive and commissioner, why has there been a delay in increasing implementation and scanning machine?

what do you expect we'll be able to publish? >> we greatly appreciate that, and the across the border, from 2020, to pre cur high energy rail systems. and those deployments that we have several that have been completed. about six of them we've had eight construction kickoff meetings for additional ports of entry and will continue for the year and the deployment is through fiscal year '26 with the full deployment of that expect and expect 40% for passenger vehicles and around 70% for commercial vehicles and we've seen those at brownsville. and hand in hand is the

artificial intelligence and learning. and they've anticipated deployments expected by the beginning of the new fiscal year. end of the fiscal year, beginning of the new fiscal year. >> if i just may ask a follow-up, i understand the ai is critically important, that hasn't been deployed yet. and what has taken so long to deploy some of that technology because that enhances nii considerably. >> absolutely, i think it was not an off the shelf type product. this is something that had to develop and essentially our first endeavor into this and integrating this into our system. so, certainly, gaining the knowledge, the education, working with the industry, certainly our partners and dhi signs and technology and leveraging the opportunity to get the right process and methodology down to affect it. we had our first rfi released in do you know of '22 and an

rfp that was released on april 14th of this year. we're currently assessing the submissions from that rfp and we'll be working to down select those vendors over the next couple of weeks. >> how confident are you you're going to achieve your goal? >> very optimistic. >> what time again? >> looking for the initial deployments. again, the deployment of the technology goes hand in hand with the intercation and i should say the end of the fiscal year and i should say the beginning of the next fiscal year and that algorithm deployment means now it starts to learn as it's deployed. >> right, right, thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator peters. just a follow-up. we are going to ask a few final questions and then we'll close out the hearing. you've been generous with your time. >> and a follow-up on the question. we have been to the ports of entry and space is really tight

and the president's budgets, i believe, includes some significant funding to the retrofits you need in order to be able to deploy this new nii technology. obviously, if you're stopping 20, 30% more vehicles, you've got to have room to do that. so, am i right about that, that you've got some-- you've got some hard scaping to do in order to get the nii maximally effective at your ports of entry? >> we do. and i did fail to mention the variables and the risks, with the civil works in the deployments and significant investments. i believe the 201 million is for specifically for the president's work. >> i want to go back to this question of precursor from china, and thank you for being straight with us. i think you said it's tough, it's hard work. i met with the now chinese foreign minister a few months

ago, and he repeated a claim that i think the government, the chinese government has made publicly, which is that our decision to sanction to chinese narcotics agencies caused the chinese government to pull back from our cooperation and coordination with them on narcotics enforcement matters. i take everything that the chinese say to me with a grain of salt. but we did used to have a more functional relationship with them on this question of fentanyl and that resulted in a decision by the chinese to stop the finished product from coming into the united states, at least at the rate that it was five to 10 years ago. is there any reason to believe that some of our sanctions policy right now, which is really about other things, is

standing in the way of having a more functional dialog with them about stopping precursor from being sent into mexico or stopping presses from being sent into the united states? >> the short answer, senator, is i don't know. law enforcement contact with the chinese has ebbed and flowed over the years. we've had good relationships and then we've had poor relationships, as you stated at the beginning of your question, that they were shipping almost all the finished fentanyl into the united states at one point in time and a little bit of diplomatic pressure and law enforcement pressure stopped that. i think that's a positive. not only did we see precursor chemicals, only used for fentanyl coming into the port. and new we have pre-precursors and difficult to regulate.

the way forward building that relationship stronger. >> and we should prioritize fennel fentanyl with china, if there's a movement to stop the precursor into mexico and even to raise the price here. and i want to prioritize the policy at that gets less of this product going to mexico and ending in the united states. i appreciate your candor. senator, questions? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to talk a little about the dark web. it seems like every day we're seeing a news article or someone being arrested that has used the dark web or encrypted messaging or payment services to sell or buy fentanyl. in fact, yesterday, we saw nearly 300 people that were

arrested for breaking international drug enforcement operations. it was a record-breaking day to see what happened and obviously, this was targeted at these people selling fentanyl and other opioids on the dark web. my question is, what are we doing? can you tell me a little about the efforts between hsi and cvp to target the traffickers online and specifically on the dark web? >> yeah, any of you. >> so from our perspective. what we're looking to do is that initial identification of potential individuals who are moving these goods. in many cases the dark web purchases are for personal use not necessarily for distribution size and interdiction is a key part of that and once the individuals have been identified, whether it's an individual or some type of selector data and we share that across the enterprise and our investigative partners to

take that for the full investigations. >> senator, thank you for mentioning that case yesterday which hsi played a very strong role in. i think the rise that you're seeing in the online marketplaces correlates to the society that we're seeing where people are less likely to want to do a face-to-face transaction with someone, they can buy their narcotics on the web instead of having to pay in person for something they can use cryptocurrency to buy those things. we're committing more and more people every year to cyber enabled investigations and we're having to train them, equip them in different ways than we ever have before and really, the ground level place where we're doing that is at our cyber crime center here in the capital region where everything happens in those types of investigations and i have an open invitation for anybody on the committee to please visit and see what we're doing. >> absolutely, i'd love to visit. do you feel like you have the

resources to keep up with the technological advances that you're seeing. and when i say resources, i mean funding and people? >> i think it's difficult. i think the people that we're having to hire or come from a different walk of life than what we hired traditional law enforcement agents from before. we're having to recruit people with strong backgrounds in cyber crimes or even the financial sector which takes more resources. the training that goes into making sure that they have knowledge they need to make the cases in the prosecution is much greater than in the past and we welcome working with you and your staff for additional resources. >> thank you. does anyone else have anything to add on dark web? >> last question, ms. sab tino, i want to ask you. time and time again whether it's smuggling people, weapons, drugs, the cartels are able to adapt their methodology and make sure to take whatever system we put in place and they

seem to find a way to be two steps made of us. what trends are you seeing how drugs are brought in particularly when it comes to our ports of entry, so personal vehicles. we know that the chair referenced less than 40% of them are currently being scanned and it's my understanding even in the 40% scanned, it's not the entirety of the vehicle that's scanned every time so one, is that correct? and then, two, the trends you're seeing with entry. >> currently, with our scan rates we're at 1 to 2% to passenger vehicles, 15 to 17% for commercial conveyances. 40% of passenger vehicles and 70% of commercial vehicles. with respect to trends, again, vast majority is coming through the southwest border. >> quick so i understand, even when you're scanning these vehicles, 1 to 2% and to 17%, personal versus commercial, are

you scanning the entirety of the vehicle? >> those will be drive-thru scans of the vehicles, multi-energy portals for commercial and low energy for passenger. >> it's the top and the bottom of the vehicle. >> we can get you a more fulsome briefing, i'm not going to be able to explain technically, but-- >> just making sure they can't get ahead of us we're only scanning one portion of the vehicles and drug cartels put things in other place, that will be great information. >> i think what's important, also, it's one tool of many that we have. our k-9 teams certainly intelligence and analysis and, you know, our skilled cvp officers, all of the resources we commit to the screenings of these result in the interdictions. >> absolutely. and then the trends that you're seeing, have you seen any shift or how they're coming over through our ports of enter. >> i can defer to jim on the

trends. >> and as you mentioned they're quickly able to adapt to any changes we put in place. some in the recent months, the conveyance hasn't changed, but the vehicles, low boy trailers and low section and heavy equipment and hiding narcotics in those and loads attached to an unwitting person's vehicle, magnetic attachment at the bottom of the gps and able to pop the trunk from underneath and concealed. and the person crosses over and they show no signs of it to the officer because they don't know it's there. and the groups have evolved. >> do you have the proper technology to detect this?

i know this was asked previously, but follow up on that. >> we appreciate what congress has made with respect to the technology and look to build out our capabilities. certainly working with the industry on new technology, our nonintrusive, the large scale drive-thru system and the small hand held devices are incredibly valuable as well as the technology quickly to determine what we're encountering. and we have a number of forward deployed labs at our port of entry that make quick analysis and decisions on that for both ourselves and our investigative partners. all of these things combined. again, the resources and the training for our customs and border protection officers is what is absolutely critical and tennant tantamount for those. >> and having visited several of the ports of entry and the

images look totally inconclusive to me, so it speaks to the skill and experience that our personnel have on the border that we're able to catch as much as we do. i know ultimately ai may help, but we've got a lot of brave and capable professionals protecting this country, so, let me just end there, to thank you all for your testimony and for all that is served with you and underneath you, engaged in the fight to protect our country from the scourge of addiction. we are going to keep the record open until may 10th to get your questions in. with that, our subcommittee stands adjourned. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government funded by these television companies and more including comcast. >> you think this is just a community center? no, it's way more than that. comcast is partnering with a thousand community centers for wi-fi enabled, and the families

and students can have the tools r anyone. comcast is a public service along with these television providers giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> on this monday morning, we take you live now to a discussion with state government and election officials on way to improve voting systems. this is an all day event and we'll hear from georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger and secretary of states from rhode island, minnesota and new mexico. this is hosted by the center for election innovation and research. live coverage here on c-span2. [inaudible conversations]

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>> we're waiting here for the start of a day long discussion on election policy and ways to improve voting systems. beginning with remarks from georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger and then later on the secretary of states from rhode island, minnesota and new mexico, hosted by the center for election innovation and research and should get underway shortly. live coverage here on c-span2. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] >> we're waiting here for the start of a day long discussion on election policy and ways to improve voting systems. it will begin with remarks from georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger and secretary of states from rhode island, minnesota and new mexico, and for the innovation and research, it should get underway shortly. live coverage here on c-span2. [inaudible conversations]

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