committee on foreign affairs will come to order. for purpose of this hearing is to examine prior successful policies aimed at addressing the international migration crisis at the southern border and the effect of the biden administration's decision to terminate those policies. i know recognize myself for an opening statement. in my 20 years in congress, including when i was chairman of the homeland security committee, and as a former federal prosecutor in texas, test with securing our border, i have never seen our border this chaotic. recently put the border is broken what we are witnessing today is unprecedented, and total since president biden took office we

have had more than 7.5 million encounters at the southern border. this is the population of nine states combined. this includes 7000 special interest aliens and nearly 300 apprehensions of individuals on the terror watch list, compared to 14 under the previous administration. the security risks to our country israel. and are adversaries are capitalizing on our open border policies. it only took 19 terrorists to perpetrate 9/11 as the fbi testified before the homeland security just two weeks ago. this crisis is a self-inflicted wound and a direct result of this administration's policies. upon taking office, the biden administration rescinded the migrant protection protocols also known as remain in mexico. under mpp, migrants were

removed to mexico while they were adjudicated in the united states. now, without mpp, they are released into the interior under a failed catch and release program. this graph shows the ports of entry in which mpp was instituted. with one stroke of the pen, it ended that. it ended mpp. one of the first days of office is with the buttered administrators did was to resend this policy that was working. and it allowed the chaos that we see now at the byard -- border to reach historic levels as someone who was both federal prosecutor, this port of entry was covered under this program. one stroke of the pen ended the

successful program and allowed this chaos at the border to reach these levels. historic levels. in my many meetings with border patrol and ages at the border him and i have been there many times, they tell me very bluntly, was there a cause and effect, they say yes, sir, yes mr. chairman, they tell me very bluntly the rescission of this policy had a direct cause-and- effect on the chaos at the border. the sad thing is, we had the policies that were working. i spent over 25 years on this and i never thought we would actually see it fixed. the sad thing is we had it fixed and now it is absolutely devastating. we need to turn off the poll factor, the magnet driving this that will also shutdown the cartels. mpp did that.

under mpp, u.s. apprehensions at the southwest border fell by 62% from may 2019 to august 2019. imagine that. a 62% decrease from just may to august in one year. that also importantly, financially crippled and brought to their knees the cartels that were profiting off of human trafficking and other illicit activity, that we know now are making upwards of billions of dollars. additionally, asylum agreements were integral to stemming the tide of illegal aliens. they required asylum-seekers to apply for asylum upon arrival in the first safe country. by allowing aliens to enter the interior of this country freely , we are signaling to them, come on in, we are open for business. the border is wide open.

we all know when they get in, we don't have the space and guess what? the very first bill i introduced in congress was to end catch and release. here we are today, 20 years later, back to the policies that have failed our country and the american people. catch and release. what will happen to these 7.5 million encounters? many of whom are in this country now with no legal status , living in the shadows. i will tell you what will happen. the young girls will be trafficked, the young males will go to ms-13, they will be paying the cartels off, they will be involved in drug trafficking, and we have already seen this. they will be forced into gangs and labor rings. over 2000 migrants and counting have died trying to make the dangerous journey across the border in the last three fiscal years.

35% are women and children who are sexually abused throughout their journey at the hands of these brutal cartel members. it was just reported that there are tents in the gap that leads into from south america to mexico. 400 women and children have been brutalized and . and again when they get here, what happens? we see 30 children being sent to the same house, sponsors, family members sponsoring 30 children to the same house. that cannot be a familial thing. they are brought there for one purpose, for money, for human trafficking and to exploit them sexually. sadly, they have not even been vetted in many cases because

our secretary lifted those restrictions. this is turning into a major human trafficking event, the biggest i have seen in my lifetime. it is right here in the united states and it is only going to get worse if we don't change the policies back to what worked. this administration has created a criminal enterprise right now in the united states of america that will have ramifications for years to come. tragically, most tragically, over the last two years, nearly 150,000 people have died from fentanyl poisoning. i've had five children, just in their high school alone they have been to five funerals. five funerals. tell that to the parents who thought they just

took a.d.d. medication and they never woke up. that is nearly triple the number of american deaths due to the entire duration of the entire vietnam war. we only expect these deaths to continue , to get worse. i always said the borders are our last line of defense. as we look at this national security bill we are working on and i agree with that, what are the major threats? there is putin, ayatollah, middle east, what he is doing with hamas and israel, guess what, the last line of defense is our southern border. we have no defense. i have always said we need to push our borders out. push the borders out. stop playing defense. one-yard from our goal line. push it out to their end zone and that is what mpp did.

that's what remain in mexico did. regrettably, i believe this administration has been derelict in its duty, responsibility to protect the american people. put simply, the resident secretary is aiding and abetting this crisis at our southern border and i told him so at our hearing at the homeland security committee aiding and abetting under the federal statute, human trafficking, hundreds of thousands of deaths, fentanyl poisoning. as i said i have been dealing with this issue for almost three decades. i thought we had it solved. i really did. i could go home finally to my constituents and say, we got it done. guess what, this administration , by abandoning the policies that worked have royally messed

it up. and in my -- and my emotional about this? you are darn right. when i go home to texas and i talked to my constituents, they are angry and i am their only voice appear, but my voice reflects their voice of their anger about what is happening. my state has been the brunt, borne the brunt of this. billions of dollars of cost of the people that stay in texas and my state legislature appropriate all this money was really a federal responsibly. i think it is well past time to get back to what worked. i don't care -- i don't care what you call this. i know you are doing this because of the prior administration, but you know what, it worked. let's get back to what works. for the sake of the american people. i hope that in this national security package we are working

on, we finally have a chance to get border security back front and center and i hope that we can get it done. i talked to the ranking member, he is open. i talked to secretary of state, i think, i believe they are finally opening their eyes to maybe getting back to what worked so well. as reagan said, trust and verify. we will see. we will see. elections have consequences. this one had a really great consequence -- and i believe that if we don't get this thing back on track, we are going to have another consequence in the next election because the american people are fed up with this, sick and tired of having a border that is not secure and it is within the jurisdiction of this committee, this committee has jurisdiction over the principle that worked the

greatest, and that is the migrant protection protocols and remain in mexico. that's why we mark that up out of this committee. we passed it at a committee and we put that provision in hr to which was the house republicans border security bill that now we are trying to get on the national security aid package as i talked to the senators on the other side of the congress to work to get this in and when i talked to him, please put this provision in because this is the driving thing. this is the thing that really made the difference. we can put up all the stuff we want down there, barbed wire and all that stuff, but if we don't change the asylum policies like this, we are not going to get to the root cause of the problem. i want to thank the witnesses were being here today. particularly, jean hamilton, if you don't know was the architect of this program. he worked at department of

homeland security and he worked at doj where i worked for many years. chad wolf is a former secretary of homeland security who implement this policy and adam, thank you for being here to give -- i appreciate the human rights perspective here. we have some ideas as how to deal with that as well. i know the tent city was an issue i'm about -- the tension space is one consideration we should be looking at. i want to thank the members for being here. i hope we have a vigorous debate on this and and honest debate about what is best for the american people and again i want to thank the witnesses and i would normally turn to the ranking member. he is on the floor with my $6 billion being sanctioned from going into iran. he's a little busy right now, but with that, i will now turn to the witnesses for their testimony.

one mr. meek shows up we will give him a moment to give an opening statement, but mr. chad wolf is active secretary, chief strategy officer and chair of america first policy institute. mr. gene hamilton served as counselor to the attorney general, senior counsel to the secretary of homeland and is currently vice president and general counsel of america first legal and mr. adam adkisson is director of defense oversight at washington at the washington office on latin american. i want to thank all three of you for being here and i will now recognize mr. wolf for his testimony. >> chairman mccall, thank you for the opportunity to testify before the is about the ongoing security crisis at our southern border. as someone who previously the department of homeland security i can say without any doubt or equivocation that the security and the integrity of our southern border is the worse that we have seen since 9/11

and it is the direct result of intentional and ineffective a border strategy by the biden administration. is no coincidence that the three fiscal years that correspond with this administration are the three worst fiscal years of illegal alien order apprehensions ever recorded today there are no deterrence policies in place and no consequences for violating our immigration laws. this administration has spent three years prioritizing the processing of illegal aliens and releasing them into american communities and has refused time and time again to change their strategy as a result of proximally 9.6 million illegal aliens have entered the u.s. in the last several years. population that would make it the 11th largest state. the security concerns with this level of unchecked illegal immigration cannot be overstated. we know of a record number of known and suspected terrorists, special interest aliens and other public safety and national security threats attempting to cross the border daily. those are the ones we know

about. there is another one .8 million known got a ways that should concern every member of this committee and every american. today's border security system is unrecognizable from the america first border security policies of the trump administration. in all candor, the biden administration is the first administration in my lifetime of either political party to take steps to diminish the security along our southern border. one such example is the termination of the highly successful migrant protection protocols remain in mexico. in 2008 and 2000 18 and 2019 the trump administration was confronted with caravans of illegal aliens approaching the border including family units from the triangle country surging to the border and making fraudulent asylum claims at the hopes they would be released into american communities. misguided court rulings a limited the time we could detain those family units even though we knew across the board close to 90% apprehended at the

border were making fraudulent claims. unwilling to perpetuate the destructive catch and release policy, dhs worked in tandem with the department of justice, state and the white house to find solutions that were grounded in the roll of law. what we found was usually untapped legal authority in the immigration and naturalization act that allows the u.s. to require legal aliens who make asylum claims at the border to wait in mexico for the duration of the immigration court proceedings. establishing mpp was not easy but with president trump's leadership the mexican government worked with us to get the program started in january of 2019 at three locations across the border and subsequently agreed to implement mpp to the full authorized under u.s. law. the goals of the program were simple, provide asylum protection quickly to those who truly qualified. quickly retune aliens who lack the violent claim and discourage future asylum fraud. the results speak for themselves.

aliens enrolled in mpp who qualified for asylum received those protections in a matter of months instead of years. over the course of mpp around 70,000 aliens were returned to mexico. those whose claims were denied returned home and many others abandoned their fraudulent claims. by the end of fy 19 there was an 80% reduction in border apprehensions of northern triangle family units which was the main driver of the 2018 border crisis. mpp was a recognition also of mexico's joint responsibility over illegal immigration in the region. while mexican officials were not enthusiastic about the program initially, they quickly realized and recognized the benefits of reducing the illegal flow through mexico. in addition to mpp we worked with mexican officials to deploy over 20,000 mexican soldiers and national guard at their southern and northern borders to curb the flow and push them to severely curtail the use of freight trains by migrants to come to the

southern border. in stark contrast with you border in catos in crisis because this administration refuses to impose consequences and does not demand the same level of cooperation from the government of mexico. this administration consistently points out that major u.s. immigration law has not changed since the mid-1990s. they are correct that the laws have not change between administrations, just a refusal of the current want to follow their legal obligations. the mpp authority is just one of many examples of enforcement tools on the books that the court administrator and refuses to use. today's historic border crisis is a policy crisis, not a funding crisis. urban about the policy espoused by career border patrol officials are not being lamented and it is by design. simply throwing more funding at the problem will never solve the issue. rather, we should use common sense and return to policies and programs like mpp that have proven successful and legal to secure the border. i look forward to answering questions. >> mr. hamilton for his opening

statement. >> thank you, chairman mccall. thank you for having this important hearing. the biden administration knows that using tools like mpp and asylum cooperative agreement and other effective uses of the laws that congress has provided would end the crisis at the border. they know it because it has been done before. they did under the leadership of president trump but they do not appear to desire an end to the self inflicted crisis for a variety of reasons. including their failure to acknowledge the basic fact that releasing illegal aliens into the united states result in more illegal aliens coming. sadly for the american people and our republic, divided administrations intentional sabotage of our immigration system and a summation of our borders is not just some

experiment in ivory tower with no consequences. we cannot capture the true extent of the long-term effects of the biden administration's decisions with presently available data. by all available measures, they can be described in two words, catastrophic failure. indeed, southwest border encounters are at record highs. there have been more than 6.5 million encounters at the southwest border during the biden administration. there are no signs of it stopping. in fact, internal dhs sources indicate that the number of encounters this month in november will exceed 240,000. those numbers do not, of course, include the number of got a ways which are in the millions over the last three years. dhs is releasing the

overwhelming majority of the illegal aliens at the southwest border. as of march 2023, there were at least 2.4 million illegal aliens that dhs had released during the biden administration who were still here today. nationwide encounters are at record highs. there have been roughly 7.86 million nationwide encounters since february of 2021. most significantly, that number includes the biden administration's abuse of the parole power through programs like the ch envy which brings in an additional 30,000 aliens into the united states every single month. the abuse of the parole power is essentially a shell game which allows the administration to claim that his reducing the number of illegal crossings at the border when in actuality their policies are making it worse. this shell game is apparent

throughout the policies, across administration as reflected in their accounting of cases they terminate or dismiss as completed cases at the oir. deportations are statistically non-existent. at the same time that cpp is releasing illegal aliens into the united states, ice is not deporting anyone. in short, there is no credible threat of deportation for these millions of illegal aliens that the biden administration is releasing into the united states . the consequences of these radical policies are significant. the united states cannot possibly that and screen these millions of illegal aliens pouring across our borders into the united states. anyone who tells you otherwise is lying or they sincerely believe wrongly that the absence of derogatory information, in our databases,

is the equivalent of a determination an individual does not threaten the safety and security of the american people. as a practical, factual, and legal impossibility. aside from the harmful consequences this situation creates for the american people, our adversaries are undoubtedly taking advantage of this situation. further, and particularly timely, given saturday marking the 200th anniversary of the announcement of the munro doctrine, these policies exacerbate existing international problems. they create increasing regional and global instability. so long as the young people and prime working age populations of countries believe they can illegally enter and be released into the united states to work, with or without formal authorization, they will continue to attempt to do so. consequently, they will not be in their home countries to create businesses, create economic and political stability

, and improve conditions in their home countries. instead, their home countries can and will increasingly rely on predatory lending and investment from china for economic development, which further bolsters authoritarian governments and destabilizes local populations. this perpetuates an endless cycle of economic and political failure that nefarious state and nonstate actors can't and will exploit. if we desire increased stability and influence over the western hemisphere, we should start by enforcing our immigration laws. the situation is dire and the consequences are significant. the only question is what we do about it. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. hamilton. chernow recognizes mr. isacson for his opening statement. >> chairman mccaul, ranking member meeks, thank you for holding the steering and for inviting me to participate. you are holding it at an important time.

we are seeing the most migration since world war ii, not just here but in the whole hemisphere. the one reverend you there are more than 22 million people on the move and of those, maybe 3 million tried to come to the united states in 2023 and many of them were deported. the united states is actually getting less than 1/7 of the regional total. many people are seeking asylum. the population started increasing 10 years ago. we have been seeing this for a while. neither have adjusted to it. that's why so much migration does look chaotic right now. adjusting to and managing asylum seeker flows is an administrative problem that is solvable. it is about throughput and due process. but we don't solve it by abandoning a core value about preserving human life. this value solidified after world war ii. it is in our laws and says if someone on our soil says they fear for their life or freedom then you at least have to give them due process

before deporting them. and allow them to stay if they prove that fear is real. due process in. if we improve it we would see fewer asylum- seekers than we do now because they wouldn't be here so long due process means not having to wait years for immigration court hearings to start but that is the case right now because we have 659 immigration courts struggling to hear 2.2 million cases. many of them asylum cases the weight and said the united states becomes its own factor but we can fix that but we don't fix it through deterrence. people who fear for their lives aren't going to stop coming here. you have seen the video of people crawling through the barbed wire. they are not going to stop coming because the experience misery. if you look at the data over the last 20 years, it shows that. instead, there's not much to type about a but we need more processing on the line too. if we had more processing coordinator's, rates would be less, there would be greater efficiencies and we would have freed up a lot more border patrol agents and officers.

asylum should be at the center here. it's pretty terrible that people need to travel hundreds of thousands of miles to set foot on u.s. soil and ask for protection. this year i spent two weeks in honduras and columbia. i have seen entire families with tiny kids getting on both to walk through the gap. i found myself talking to people from pakistan fleeing religious persecution and dusty border towns of the honduras nicaragua order. i see people from china fling authoritarianism across from ecuador into columbia with no idea what awaits them. that is awful. asylum really should be a last resort for people who need protection and we have to make the journey unnecessary. there needs to be other pathways until we can change our 1990s laws the presidential humanitarian parole authority is not ideal but it's one of the handful of existing options. u.s. diplomacy and programs need to work with latin america and the caribbean to make people who need to migrate feel welcome and prosper in other countries throughout the region.

that the key element of the 2022 los angeles declaration on immigration and protection and a key element of a lot of u.s. aid since 2021. some aid has gone to talk at the root causes of why people are migrating today. that is security, education, poverty reduction but especially fostering democracy and getting squarely on the side of people fighting corruption and defending human rights. people don't flee countries that have responsive, accountable governments. when i talk about helping other countries to -- isn't that making them remain in mexico? no, it is not. instead of letting people assimilate and start a new life in a safer part of mexico, remain in mexico sent the most violent cities, homeless separated from their support networks, more than 1500 of them that we know him were kidnapped, killed, assaulted and the monitoring stopped after the covid pandemic began. when i visited tijuana during

the second half of 2019, i talked to families stuck in shelters that were not set up for month-long family stays. the shelters were always on the edges of town where criminal groups operated freely and intimidated them. aid workers showed me the areas near the entry gate working numbers were waiting many days for the mpp arrivals to come so they could grab them. still, people persisted with their u.s. asylum cases because they had genuine fear. it re-victimized them and we can't go back to doing the. even if we try to, is not clear whether mexico would go along with it. even during the trump years remain in mexico was 70,000 people, that is a fraction of the flow today. ultimately, we have to remember title 42 started in march of 2020 before remain in mexico had been around for a year and remain in mexico certainly made asylum harder to reach. but that was literally compared to what title 42. the numbers went up during title 42 years. enclosing i know we disagree on

policies like remain in mexico and some of our disagreements are philosophical but we agreed the current system is feeling badly. thank you, i look forward to discussing more. >> i agree with you, the current system is not working and i appreciate your candor on that and i agree with mr. hamilton that, it would have been to the monroe doctrine? as he stated, with all --. when i was growing up, it was coming from mexico, primarily. now, when i chaired homeland, even if there were a handful of special interest aliens or a handful on the terror watch list, that was a big event. remember secretary jeh johnson and i talking about it, who are these people? now you have 7000 special interest aliens and almost 300 on the terror watch list. those numbers alarmed me and concerned me. to mr. hamilton, you are the

one, the legal architect for the migrant protection protocol program, remain in mexico working both at the apartment of homeland security and then later the alma mater department of justice. what i was interested in, this was not some new law. a lot of people think this is some novel approach by the trump administration when in fact, the law had been on the books for nearly 30 years, and that is under the ina 235 section b 2 c the federal statute. can you explain to the members? you are taking a 30-year-old federal statute and implementing that statute to achieve security at the border. can you explain how you did that? >> thank you, mr. chairman. it's an important point because

precisely that, that authorizes the program that we know as remain in mexico/mpp. that was part of a broader package of enforcement tools that congress provided in 1996 in ira ira. there was a whole host of tools that congress provided in that statute including another one called ex-pat removal. the administrations didn't use expedited removal or any kind of meaningful sense until the bush administration. even then they only did it for a limited abolition and limited timeframe. what the whole thinking here is, when you use a program like mpp, is to take the tools that congress provides you and you respect the laws that congress has said they have created, and you use those tools to create security and to create a situation that works for the united states, and the whole point here as i said in my opening statement, the whole

goal of anyone crossing the border, very few of them are actually true asylum seekers most people are opportunists and that's how it is but folks are coming here to seek a better life. they are not actually seeking asylum. you can put their claim, where the rubber meets the road, is when you say if you want to pursue your claim you will do it but by waiting outside of the united states. a lot of folks abandon their claims pick. the folks who are truly oppressed and truly persecuted were the ones who stuck it out and had their claims adjudicated. >> imagine that. enforcing the laws that congress has passed. that's simply what this is. a 30-year-old statute. and it worked. in three months you had a 62% decrease and we were on the path to finally securing this border until the new administration came in. secretary wolf, you saw this under your watch. now we have 7.5 million.

god knows what we will do with them in the united states. 300 special interest aliens, 300 terror watch list, hundreds of thousands of fentanyl deaths my human trafficking. is both the federal prosecutor and chairman of homeland, do believe there's a direct cause and effect between the rescission of this program and what we currently see today? i associate myself with mr. hamilton's words, they know better. secretary mallorca knows better and that goes to intent. they know better and they don't care. >> without a doubt. i would say absolutely there is a causation and it's not just mpp. all of the other programs that were torn down whether the asylum cooperative agreements and a number of regulations. during the trump administration they all worked together as a system. somewhere more effective than others but it was a patchwork of policy programs and

regulations that helped secure that border and as each one was taking down starting with mpp but others were taken down as well we started seeing the unraveling of the border. you can say, maybe they just didn't know better. that's not true. we briefed them during the transition we told them what would happen if they started tearing down these you would run out of border patrol he would run out of processing. everything that we see today, we talk to them, this is what is going to occur and of course it happened anyway. >> my time is running out. if the administration did not change and this may get to mr. isacson's point about the tension space and infrastructure on the border, what would have implementing mpp had the administration stayed in power, what was the plan? >> obviously, we had handful of months. that would be a program that started so we would

continue to improve it and see more facilities along the border that we were hearing mpp cases. you would have seen better facilities there that both ice, attorneys, immigration judges, you would have seen conditions in northern mexico, we were working with the government of mexico to improve those conditions but i think overall what you would have seen is the program continually progress to get better and better over time. we implemented at the very beginning. >> mr. hamilton? >> mr. chairman, i completely agree with mr. wolf. one of the things that is missing at our ports of entry in terms of physical infrastructure are spaces for immigration courts. that's one area in which we could have made massive improvements. i think likely with the work of working with folks in congress here, that could have been an actual possibility. in fact creating an actual immigration court facility at every single port of entry

along the northern and southern borders, you would have had a much more streamlined situation . on top of all of the things that --. >> i couldn't agree with you more. mr. isacson, what you think about that approach if we have the courts at the ports of entry? >> if you have the courts of the ports of entry, people would not have time to prepare their cases they would not be able to get the evidence they needed. they would not be able to find counsel. it takes --. >> if it's in the united states was of entry, due process would have to attach and apply because it's under the constitution of the united states. my time is expired but i respectfully disagree. i know you are in and out number situation. i will recognize mr. --. >> i'm sir mr. hamilton isn't suggesting we need a immigration court at every northern port of entry. i don't know that many canadians who are claiming asylum as they cross from the north. they are moving south

but from the north. but i do agree that we do need more immigration judges. where they would be housed is a detail i don't have an opinion on. america needs immigrants. if we don't have immigration our population starts to decline in 2038. this is a country that is typically had two, 3% population growth per year. our population start to decline. we have the problems of italy and japan. even with immigration, our population will start to decline in 2081. that's because for all of these talks of giant numbers of people coming into our country, currently net migration, documented and undocumented is only 875,000 people. that is according to the census and that takes into account the fact that hundreds of thousands of people, some american-born,

some who were born elsewhere but leave the united states, and so are net migration is 875,000. as to fentanyl, i think it is simply wrong to blame immigrants. the fentanyl comes in vehicles. we have thousands and hundreds of thousands of containers coming in from mexico, but we don't inspect but i believe a quarter of them. mr. isacson, do i have that right? can you think of a reason why we shouldn't charge the importers to have every container inspected, except if perhaps we were worried about walmarts profits? >> it would make sense to have the equipment to their to inspect the there is some logistical stuff that has to happen but, 90% of the fentanyl

--. >> is the vast majority asking for asylum the first person they talk to his border patrol. does border patrol look inside the backpack when the people turned themselves in? >> border patrol confiscates the majority of people's belongings. >> sound like a really bad way to bring in fentanyl. now, there is this idea that terrorists are going to come into our country. we have a system designed to -- that is dealing with a lot of people who aspire to come to the united states and work for minimum wage. we all encounter undocumented immigrants in this country. none of them impressed me as being james bond. they are hard-working people who want, who aspire to move up

the ladder, but they start at the bottom. do we really think that foreign intelligence agents could be deterred? how difficult would it be for them to get a tourist visa? simply by claiming to be tourists, claiming that all you have to do is steal a norwegian passport. can you think of a system that would be successful in preventing iranian or question agents from sneaking into the united states, perhaps with a visa? >> i mean, it is something that we have to worry about. you are right. in our airports and other ports of entry and at the border. it is something we always have to be vigilant about at the border. but it is -- at the border there are many other things to be concerned about and i suspect if we could ever get our hands on the list of the countries of those 300

nationalities of those 300 people who are on the terrorist watch list, we would find they are mostly from columbia. people who have demobilized from the armed conflict but that's only what we know. >> you have a lot of people just with a similar name. we have $485 million humanitarian aid assistance program identified by president biden to help lighten america. you described help millions and millions of people in latin america are on the move. will that $485 million help create stable economic conditions that reduce the number of people leaving their home countries in latin america? >> it will. especially if it is going after corruption and human rights abuse. the results want to be felt immediately. that is not a short-term fix but a permanent long-term fix. >> i yield back. >> chair recognizes mr. smith. >> thank you for calling this important hearing and welcome to this -- and thank you for your testimony speak one of the

many shocking but predictable consequences of nonenforcement of u.s. immigration laws is the cruelty imposed on victims of human and labor trafficking. i'm the author of the protection act of 2000 and for subsequent trafficking laws i created the tip efforts and everything else that is bipartisan effort. but that said, i have been shocked by the lack of seeming lack of concern when it comes to how many people are being forced into trafficking. were provided the predators to victims especially children and at a charity hearing, i asked ambassador dyer i created a deposition in 2003 and i told her before hand i'm going to ask about the 85,000 unaccompanied minors that we lost contact with. how many of them have been forced into trafficking and she says to homeland security.

i deeply respect her but she did not have an answer. i still don't have an answer and i wonder if any of you might have some insight into that. i have a bill called the secure act. it's called safeguarding endangered children unaccompanied and at risk of exploitation act. it will penalize the various agencies if they do not do welfare whereabouts and get to the bottom of this because those children we believe are at grave risk of labor trafficking or both and your thoughts. >> mr. wolf? >> i'm certainly concerned during the biden administration there has been about 500,000 unaccompanied alien children that i've come across that border unaccompanied means they come across with no adult, no parent of any kind and almost all of them are trafficked. all of them are trafficked. they stay in border patrol custody for a very short period of time. usually hours. 72 hours or below. they are transferred to hhs and o.r. are where they are then processed and placed with

sponsors. unfortunately, what we have seen from this administration is a loosening of the sponsor requirements. because their facilities were backing up and you had so many children coming in, early on in this administration, they stopped the full betting and background checking procedures of sponsors and all household members in that sponsors household. they also did away with fingerprints. they did away with rapid dna testing along the border and we use that border patrol, they use that to establish that familia relationship because of it didn't occur, we were going to separate and rescue that child from that trafficking situation that was occurring. rapid dna testing is no longer occurring along the border and i have no idea why. there is no valid reason to stop that. it goes to the heart of making sure that these children are safe and the fact that we now have had three years of this

policy that have outlined in one manner or another and it has not changed. it is unfathomable. >> thank you. the issue of the cartels and everyone else who are exploiting these people, one of the presidents told me that 80% of the women and young girls are sexually abused somewhere along the line during their trip and some it becomes more permanent and put into a trafficking ring. your sense of that, -- and he was speaking how upset he was about it all when i talked to him but they couldn't stop it. that are looking to us to try to mitigate that harm by having a border protection. >> absolutely. what i would say and i will let others address as well, i think most of our partners to the south of us whether mexico or central america --

themselves in the hands of cartels. the most humane policy i would say is to prevent that type of transit and transportation and the flow to begin with.

flow to begin with. >> the gentleman yields. >> thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony. during your time in the trump administration at ds such -- dhs, you oversaw the implementation of the family separation policy tearing kids away from their families and many of whom are yet to be reunited with their parents and here are some examples of those kids that you ripped from their families. you suppressed a dhs report about the dangers of white supremacy and your tenure was marred with significant ethical and legal concerns and your communications during january 6 mysteriously disappeared. and there are serious ethical questions about the relationship with a lobbying firm. you explicitly defied congressional subpoenas to testify in front of the then democratic congress but today you showed up voluntarily and feel comfortable testifying

here today. federal courts ruled your tenure as acting secretary at dhs was a legal and in your testimony, you describe many of president biden's efforts as quote unquote illegal and i find it ironic that we should trust you what is unlawful given your extensive disregard for american law. let's discuss one of those egregious policies you implemented that was eventually struck down by american courts. you are one of the key architects of the trump administration's efforts to separate families at the border and children as young as four months old were taken away from their parents with almost thousand children still not reunited with their families years later even though the biden administration set up a task force to reunite them. i am a father of three children and a nine-year-old daughter and a seven-year-old son and an

18-month-old daughter and you have kids? >> i do. >> what you did is unimaginable and inhumane and despicable. and, quite frankly, i am surprise the chairman invited you to be here today and earlier this week when you asked about revisiting family separations you said that all options need to be on the table and as we know we are having an important debate about immigration and the congress and in the presidency so i would like to ask you something important. i would like a yes or no answer and a straight shooter. and you are from texas after all. would you advise this or a future administration to once again separate families as the trump administration did? >> i will stand by my statement that all options should be on the table but i would say that there are a number of effective programs that i'm sure we will talk about that address this situation and the car -- crisis

we face in 2018 that we face today so -- >> that thing -- means you think it should be consider or possibly used? >> that was my response. >> for the record i will remind you that what you did is inhumane and i will be requesting that the biden administration release all documents related to family separation policy and we will settle it once or for all in your involvement in that policy and i want to ask you another important question it's often the case that folks who serve and what administration that they will often serve again and that is true for democrats to

-- and republicans and there is a chance that of president trump's elected office that you may be considered to serve in the administration again regardless of what my opinion or the opinion of others may be of you. so, mr. wolf, do you or your organization support the use of military force in mexico even without the consent of the mexican government as many leading republican officials have called for? >> i have been on record as supporting all hands at all options on the table. >> that is yes? so you may say yes. >> i think all options should be considered in this idea for taking options off the table, issues that we have -- >> thank you for your time. >> all of the things you leveled against me -- >> listen, your policy institute is closely related with president trump and i have one final question for you and your colleague if you wish to answer, what happens to the

american policy -- america first policy institute of president trump goes to prison? >> it would continue to be around for hundreds of years. >> thank you. >> the gentleman yields. >> thank you very much and we appreciate the witnesses being here today and especially i want to thank secretary wolf and you made a difference on behalf of our country detecting american families. the more you are attacked, the clearer your success has been so thank you for the inadvertent attack on you which does really prove that you are making a difference to protect american families, which is the main thing we should be doing here to avoid future attacks on our country. i am grateful for the leadership of john mccall and he is obviously passionate about his concern and holding the hearing today and about the security threat of the biden open border and, in fact, i agree with the alabama senator

tommy turberville who said it a few days ago that america will be subject to 9/11 attacks imminent, quote unquote every few days across america due to biden's open border of terrorists and i would take it a step further that each one of our congressional offices, we have a rallying point that if there is a requirement for safety because of an attack for our personal. i would urge every american family that they should have a rallying point and with the open borders we have, every american family is subject to risk. they should have a rallying point where they come to be safely protected and if communications are interrupted, which it will be by the sophisticated terrorists in our country, that they should have a place to come so you will have accountability for your family and america has a long tradition of welcoming legal immigrants and those with legal

asylum claims to seek the american dream and escape oppression legally and what we see today is anna saying -- insane flooding of trafficking and deadly drugs enriching the cartels and when i visited the southern border, i was told that they couldn't tell me how many people had crossed on the terrorist website and we now know with fiscal year 2023 that customs and border patrol have identified 151 persons or terrorists who have come into our country and these are highly educated, well-paid, hard-working, skilled mass murderers. we don't of -- we know the president himself said all it takes is one lone wolf and we know the new york post has reported that the american family who are at greater risk

today than they ever have been since 9/11. the thought that we would have people here are not understanding this is inconceivable and a different planet from where we sadly are today and we do know that putin and the chinese communist party and the iranian regime have increased their presence in central america and the iranian regime works with the cartels to traffic drugs and as president donald trump has rightly stated, fuel the fires of that violence and secretary wolf, we are at a high risk of a terrorist attack in america and what is your view of addressing the influence and network of the dictators, putin and the communist party and the regime in iran to protect american families? >> the security starts overseas with all of the instances you just said and dhs works with the departments of state, defense, and others to help protect americans here at home by first making sure the threat

ever reaches the homeland. you have to address all of the above and more but at the end of the day you need to have some sovereignty over your borders and understand who is coming into the country. >> the largest number of secret police agents in the world are in mexico and putin's fellow kgb agent and fellow spy establish an outpost in cuba, venezuela, colombia nicaragua, mexico providing the weapons to dictators and what should we do to stop putin's efforts in latin america? >> really, it is a good effort with intelligence and making sure that those arms sales don't go on responded to and at the border, you do have a lot of russian people coming and we

have to sword out merely -- nearly all of them. >> i agree. i do need to conclude but i was told that a large number of russians and chinese are coming and in my era that and defectors and that is not what it means today. i yield back. >> we recognize phyllis mccormick. >> i do have a line of questions. in your testimony to i believe it was mr. hamilton and mr. wolf, hamilton said most of the people coming to the border were opportunists and is that correct? >> absolutely correct. >> i would like to talk to about the parole program also and this situation being one of the only haitian americans in congress and in addition to that i wanted to give you some description of the people you call opportunists. we had a hearing in september

where we had people from haiti talk about their circumstances and there was a mother there who talked about as she was taking her daughter to school she saw 50 people hanging from trees who were lynched and she wanted to come to the united states andy sheehan opportunist? >> yes. >> she is an opportunist fleeing from destruction and terrorism in her country. you consider her a terrorist? >> unless you describe a person targeted by the government of haiti she is not being persecuted -- >> excuse me. i am claiming my time. are you aware of the state of the government in haiti that the really is no government right now and gangs are actually taking over the country? >> i am quite aware. >> thank you. there is also a father whose family was kidnapped and he watched his daughter and wife get attacked and raped repeatedly by 50 men and i they opportunists?

>> yes. >> under your circumstance, they are opportunists? >> yes. >> when my parents were fleeing a dictator, on her way to school she saw children being hung and was my mother who fleet a dictator an opportunist? >> that is the difference because in that description you just said your mother was fleeing a dictator. no. your mother wasn't an opportunist. >> right now -- >> i am trying to give you an answer. >> i am claiming my time. thank you very much. i want to explain to you that right now with the state of haiti and how it is right now with no government and the gangs running the country, there is no difference between a dictator and what they are suffering now. i wanted to make sure that these assumptions you make and trying to say that they are opportunists and the biden ministration is abusing its humanitarian parole privileges are false and the fact that you can't see that these people actually need help and they do

deserve humanitarian parole shows a cruelty of your heart and you're not understanding what our strength is as americans. i wanted to go back to another question also. i was looking at your background and can you talk about your diplomacy experience you have had. in our committee we actually have jurisdiction when it comes to diplomacy and i would like to hear about your experience so we could talk about how we could treat the root causes, because your testimony is focused on opportunists and negative ideas and i even wanted to also ask you that do believe these people coming in, not just haiti but if we look at venezuela or nicaragua or cuba they do have similar situations where they can't exist in these countries. i wanted to know what your diplomatic experience was because you mentioned something interesting and that is what is

leading the economy to lean on china so from a diplomatic standpoint it does not make sense. i wanted you to go into full detail of your diplomatic experience. >> well, i would say over the course of four years doing the trump administration, was engaged in many discussions with many foreign partners including international travel to several of these countries that we are talking about today including haiti. i don't know what kind of experience you think i need to have. i was testifying about american laws. >> once again i wanted to make sure that your testimony and the affectations you make about diplomacy, and say these are the root causes, it doesn't make sense so i wanted to get back to my last question which will be for mr. isaacson. can we talk about what would happen with the removal of the parole program? >> if the parole program was

removed, you would see 30,000 more people who don't qualify for it and a large number of them are in some danger and will try to seek asylum by coming from the us-mexico border. >> do you believe removal of that program will exacerbate what is at the border or preclude people from coming to the border? >> when it went into effect, the number of people from haiti and nicaragua and cuba plummeted and you would see a reversal of that. >> thank you. i yield back. >> the chair recognizes mr. perry. >> secretary was, do you know how many children have been lost in the united states in the last three years by the biden administration? >> i can go by a number that i believe is reported in the new york times with a talked about losing over 85,000 unaccompanied children. >> lost by this administration.

do you think that is humane or inhumane? >> inhumane. >> do you think any of them were placed with sex trafficking in this country, 85,000 unaccompanied minors that came across illegally? >> i don't have data, but my experience tells me that yes, they have been and it is inhumane. >> do the cartels ever separate children from their families? >> every day. inhumane. >> little girls who are being raped on their way from mexico to the border and little boys as well and sold into sex slavery . humane or inhumane? >> inhumane. >> it these are all the policies of the current administration. do you know what they are doing to find these 100,000 children they have lost? >> i don't. they don't obviously talk to me. but i would assume that once these children are released to sponsors and out of custody,

they are gone. or are doesn't track where they go and they know which household they go to but they are not required to stay in that state or city so they can go anywhere in the country or elsewhere. >> do you know of any other civilized country whose government is part of a human trafficking scheme of that scale? >> i know of no other country that treats their border and polys to use -- policies and the way we do. >> i would agree with you, secretary. it is staggering to us to hear these statistics and no our tax dollars pay for the sex trafficking of children in our country. it is my understanding that america is number 1 or 2 on the planet for child sex trafficking

and we have a wide open border offered by this administration and this president and the party that supports him. mr. isaacson, you talk about folks coming from pakistan, china, and russia. i agree with you. i have been on the border and i have seen people from pakistan, china, and russia when i have been there. would you say all of them are fearing their lives or fearing from their lives and that is why they are here? >> these are authoritarian countries and many are. >> many or all? >> pretty much all. >> let me ask you this, pakistan and russia, china, are there any countries between here and there that are more safe than pakistan, china, or russia? >> there are some and there are some that are not. >> which ones are not? >> i would say el salvador, honduras. they all take a pass through

equity. >> is there any country between those countries in this country that would be safer than the country they fleet according to you, every single one of them fearing for their lives? >> i don't understand the question like in the ocean somewhere? >> there is no island in the pacific ocean. there is no place on the planet that they can get to before crossing the pacific ocean to get to the united states of america. >> many wouldn't want to but ecuador -- >> many wouldn't want to. why? >> they would rather be someplace that has more culture. >> that is awesome. but is there any reason at all that you should think of that country should have a border? >> yes. countries have different legal systems and ways of governing. >> so just to have a different legal system, but other than that there should be a border in any country around the globe? like people in mexico or russia or china for that matter could elect up the president of the

united states? and there is a different legal system but is there any other purpose for having a border? >> is there another purpose for having a country? >> i think it is a great question. >> it's a people who is shares values. >> so people who are not abiding by the law from another country come illegally to this country, and that is a country and has a different set of laws, you're good with that? >> if it is asylum, they are not coming illegally. >> you said it is all asylum. >> they have to decide that. >> mr. chairman, i yield. >> the chair recognizes mr. --

ms. dean. >> i think you are having the same experience i am having and i feel a little out of body and this conversation and i don't blame you. i have a brother, jimmy dean and i am trying to lighten the mood and i am looking around this room and, honest to god, didn't every single one of us come here as an immigrant somewhere in our past? is in it possible that every single one of us has an immigrant past? and yet we have a conversation from two of this panel who like to talk about illegal aliens. they are human beings seeking refuge and very very very often. the numbers are staggering and we can agree on that. but if we want to solve a problem, why don't we tell the truth about it instead of

demonizing those who do seek refuge in this country? let's stop the lie about fentanyl and the illegal aliens bringing it . again, it is a serious problem in this country and the cartels are bringing it in and we know the precursors are coming in from china to the cartels and we will deal with that seriously but they are not coming in and the backpacks and hand facts of migrants desperately fleeing persecution and economic deprivation, starvation and other things. i ask you, gentlemen, in particular, the two who served in the previous administration, speak with humanity. mr. was, nothing is off the table and the separation of children under the previous administration that you are a primary architect of is not off the table in the future? >> what i would say, again --

>> not off the table. >> what i said earlier is i think there are a number of different policies -- >> i am asking you about one policy. >> we put it in place after 2018. >> i get those folks want to happen about four weeks. >> i own the time and answer the question is posed. >> all options should be on the table when you try to find solutions. >> you just call the separation of children inhumane. >> i would say a number of other policies -- >> excuse me, mr. chairman, would you please restore that? >> order. let's have order. >> i ask for restoration of 20 seconds. >> i will restore your 20 seconds. you may continue. >> are you in the previous members of the administration doing everything in your power to get those 1000 children separated from their parents years ago back to their families? >> we are doing everything in

our power. to address the current situation where we have had over 500,000 children. >> i am moving on now. thank you. when i said i was moving on, i meant it. i am surprised that you are the two who are testifying here today. i will go on to mr. isaacson. i wholeheartedly agree with your assertion that asylum is necessary and it is an american value that is important and can you get quickly to the root causes of why we see such a spike in numbers? this isn't a problem that is under one administration. we have seen high numbers over the years but certainly over the last three years we have higher numbers and what are the root causes? >> often when you talk to

somebody, they will give you more than one reason but they are authoritarianism, violence that is targeted or those that the government can't protect people from and sometimes it is discrimination and sometimes it is sexual or violence based and sometimes it's natural disasters caused by climate change. >> and what countries and after all we are the foreign affairs committee. >> about one quarter coming from mexico and another one third or so come from central america and another one third are so come from south america. and about 15% and growing are coming from outside of this hemisphere. >> could you talk to that issue? >> sure the opening of the gap route it has been impossible for people to come by land and they are coming from countries that have looser visa restrictions and then they make this incredibly long journey to the border to ask for asylum. >> i think you for that.

mr. chairman, i am dismayed and this is a very serious problem and the border is a serious problem and we have to put more resources there, but we need to do with humanity and understanding of what people are seeking and what rights they actually have and everybody crossing the border is not an illegal nor is he or she and alien. i yield back. >> ms. wagner is recognized. >> i think the witnesses for their expertise. i find some of this conversation absurd also. and i'm talking about 1000 children or a period of time of 3 to 4 weeks and the last administration was working out protocols to keep families together yet we have an administration now that has lost 85,000 children to cartels and trafficking and gangs and

sex exploitation. it is incompatible to me. i do agree, secretary was and i will reiterate and i am sorry that you are politically and personally attacked and one of my colleagues have the nerve to even bring your children into it and i apologize to you, sir. >> thank you. >> i agree that this crisis isn't a funding problem but a policy problem and it's a huge national security risk and a huge humanitarian atrocity. earlier this year this committee advanced legislation to codify the previous administrations migrant program and cooperative agreements of these policies work to because they required migrants and asylum-seekers to follow the law and remain in mexico for

the first safe country while the claims were pending. do you believe that codifying aca and npp and law as opposed to the executive order use before could make a significant impact in addressing illegal migration? >> yes. codifying them is a good step forward and npp is already a lossy can mandate it because it is an option right now i do think both of those together very important. >> to that point, per the website, believe it or not, the current administration is still using npp and listen to this and it's a much smaller scale but the data shows that 147 migrants were returned to mexico last month and are you surprise that the data indicates the continued use of that? why would the administration

keep quiet about their use of that program and not expanded as we did in the last administration? we are talking about 7.5 million encounters at the border and 1.8 million got aways and can you explain that? >> they are mandated to remain in mexico but they are doing it in such small numbers that it virtually is ineffective and it is an effective program because you have to do it across the board because the cartels know where you are doing it and they will adjust their procedures accordingly and i think to take a few seconds here, this idea that we are somehow against immigrants is a falsity. we are the most welcoming -- >> 1 million a year come here

legally as my ancestors did. >> we are the most welcoming nation and we continue to be and this is about illegal activity and of certain members want to excuse illegal activity, i guess i would say i won't be a part of that. >> i will just go on and we obviously have a full-blown humanitarian crisis that has unfolded here resulting in an explosion in deadly fentanyl trafficking and it is coming in via cartels and those being trafficked through our borders and rampant violence against women and children in the biden administration's policy blunders are responsible for this out-of-control situation and i recently read a report in which the regional director for latin america from the international coalition of trafficking women set up to 60% of latin american children attempting to cross the southern border are caught by cartels and exploited in child pornography and this is

heartbreaking and utterly unacceptable and based on your experience leading the department of homeland security, can you speak of the dangers of sexual violence particularly children? >> they are subjected to any number of abuse, murder and the journey they embark on is one that is incomprehensible. so the idea that during the trump administration and i think most americans would agree with his let's not subject those children or individuals or adults or really anyone to that dangerous journey and let's make sure we give them the protections they needed closest to home. >> i think you for your service and sacrifice of your families and others and for saving others here in america as my friend mr. wilson said earlier. >> thank you.

mr. isaacson, i want you to speak into that microphone and we want to hear you as loudly as the two gentlemen on your right have been. mr. wolf -- i am sorry. mr. isaacson, why do people come here illegally? why not just go through the system like apparently ms. wagner's relatives did and be right with the lord and everything is hunky-dory? why do people come here illegally? >> for a few reasons and if you're coming illegally, which means you are not even asking for asylum but you want to come here and start working, that is probably it, poverty and it is likely the laws from the 1990s haven't changed to make residency or citizenship or work permits more available to you. >> so one of the programs that was created to deal with the

border situation was to remain in mexico. is that right? >> apparently. yes. >> and if you are seeking asylum, which is a special category and immigration? is in it? >> yes. >> and historically it receives a certain respect and protocols are triggered when somebody appeals for asylum? >> correct and you get to process. >> you are in a special category. so people who were subjected to remain in mexico seeking asylum, what percentage of those people were adjudicated? in that program? seeking asylum? >> roughly half got to court and only 2%, which is far less than the regular, but only 2% were able to get protection. >> did you say 2%? that doesn't sound successful. >> certainly not to the asylum- seekers it wasn't. >> in whose administration? >> it was the middle of 2019 and donald trump administration.

>> so we have a failure on her hands with the trump administration. let's pick one that was successful. if you remember the 2016 campaign and that said individual became president and we recognize election results on the side of the aisle and he promised two things. we will build a wall and who will pay for it. >> mexico. >> he would even get audiences to answer that question. so how much -- we have this border and how much of the wall that built? do you know? >> all told i would say about 600 miles of fencing. >> who paid for that? >> the united states taxpayer did. >> not mexico?'s >> not a peso. >> another failure and remind me what administration? >> the trump administration.

>> so mr. wolf has said with respect to addressing the border and did you hear him say that? >> yes and i saw the quote in the media. >> we actually had some republican candidates running for president who included in that category, at least for them and i don't know if he would include it and i am not asking him because i have little time but let's invade mexico and we can do something about cartels or do something about crime or legal immigration and do you think that would be a wise policy to invade mexico? >> absolutely not. >> it would go against the will of the sovereign country. and i guess it would be on the table but i don't know what the purpose of it would be. >> what about putting kids in cages? how about that? >> that has not proven to deter

kids from coming and it is cool. >> but presumably, if we have everything on the table, like we did in which administration? >> the trump administration. >> another success story. but if we put everything on the table, -- >> you are right. >> should that be on the table? >> i don't think it ever would be. >> why? >> we are not a country that sees itself to put children and prisons. >> so you're actually telling us that we have values that we should be honoring as we deal with any kind of situation on the border? >> it is what makes us a democratic nation. >> i think you and i yield back. >> we recognize mr. mast. >> i -- >> i am not here for your

pleasure and enjoyment and i have a schedule to keep. >> you rarely offer me enjoyment and pleasure. >> the feeling is mutual. >> should i understand that any mile not built you consider a failure? >> would you repeat the question? do you want me to answer? i would be glad to >> i will give you time to answer but i will ask again. based upon the way i heard you asked the question, any mile of wall not built, would you consider that a failure? >> i consider the fact the presidential candidate can't handle the issue of i will build a wall that covers the entire border and the mexicans would pay for and they had rallies to answer that and i would consider that an abject failure and i consider -- >> i do consider it a con job on the american people. >> do you think we should build

every single mile of wall? >> i don't think it is practical and i don't think it will work. >> i think it shows how little you know about physical security. >> i don't think it is your business to speculate on what i know. >> why don't you stick to what you know as opposed to what i know. >> i can speak to what you know or peers to be what you know. >> you are good at throwing insults and i have seen it with mr. meeks. >> mr. chairman, i thought i was being asked questions and being able to answer them. >> does the gentleman from florida yield? >> i did but i will move back to the panel that i thought was interesting or maybe it was a point of agreement that any mile of wall not yet built is a failure and we should get to every single mile being built because physical security matters and does it means somebody won't try to jump in or cut through it or go around

it? sure. somebody will try, but it is somebody who has been on a wall in afghanistan and other places, it makes a good amount of difference that the wall is there and how tall it is, how much of an area it encompasses, you name it and it makes a huge difference. i thought it could've been a bipartisan this. your testimony and everybody else's was interesting but this isn't the border situation that the united states prepared for is what you said and expand on that. >> in the 90s and after 9/11 we built up a border infrastructure designed for mexican males who were potential terrorists and now two thirds coming are asking for asylum and are often families and children. >> i think the numbers bear that out and i don't think you are saying something that isn't

true and i think the other panelists have said that it does work very well to say we do have a situation that was not prepared for that we going to follow the law or not? do words have meaning or not? are we going to say that somebody is granted asylum because we won't define the words humane or inhumane and maybe you just said if there were mean this in the country you are allowed in or if there were poverty in your country that that constitutes a credible threat to life, so you will be allowed in or if they used intimidation and in earlier questioning that was mentioned but does that constitute a credible threat to life? the fact of the matter is that the situation at the border isn't what we are prepared for because we are allowing people in under definitions that don't meet what we prepared for. we prepared for an actual credible threat to life.

we have moved to a situation where everybody makes a complaint about the country is unwilling to look at a different city in their country or different territory and an adjacent country to them because they are unwilling to look at that threat to life and i will give the last word to the other panelists to talk about what you see in terms of the lack of truly looking at the word of the law and the word of the law we must follow as the united states government. >> thank you for that important question. this congress has the ability to change the laws if they don't like them or the grounds that somebody can be granted asylum and they can be changed. doing so, i think, would be a serious problem to cover all of those areas because we can't become the place where everybody across the world to

come to this one country and there are a lot of good places. we can't be the only person in the world where every person wants more money or better protection from crime comes to the united states to be saved. i would say that one of the things that is critically important about the situation is, factually speaking, right now, at the border, the vast majority, the overwhelming majority of aliens crossing the border are not even being subjected or assessed for credible screenings. they are just issuing court papers and letting them go and i think yesterday there was something like 9400 crossings at the border and reporting said 5200 of them were given paperwork to show up in court on a day and this is a problem and they are not even assessing these people for these claims

and letting them happen. >> we have a vote coming up. i will have to limit these. i am apologizing because this is a great discussion and the gentleman is recognized >> the american first policy institute sounds pretty good to me and you are the executive director? i have two minutes. please. >> yes. >> chief strategy officer. would that be you? so tell me who pays your salary? about $20 million at least you got so you should know where the money is coming from.

>> our donors. >> but who exactly? >> we have 44,000 -- >> you are here credentialed in that capacity and tell me who is paying you and don't say donors but tell me who and what organizations? who is behind it? i know one of them is the trump political pack and is that correct? >> that is incorrect. we have 44,000 individual donors. so i have a few minutes and i am sorry and you are here credentialed with a nice sounding name and you're not telling us with paying your salary even though you have those positions. and you also are credentialed because you are a former secretary of homeland security and let me clear the record and make sure everybody gets this that two courts have ruled and existed under the trump administration that you had

that position illegally and those are your credentials. your testimony today said that it is okay for the united states to take military action and deploy young men and women and soldiers from the united states and mexico even though the mexican government doesn't want them there and you also said it is okay -- >> that was not my testimony. >> it was. >> you said it is okay that the united states separates children. >> that was your testimony and that is a fact. i think the borders are in crisis and i think we have to do something about it and i hope the senate can come up with a bipartisan solution to do something meaningful and not listen to failed -- >> i would like to ask a question of the witness.

let's entertain this issue and there are a lot of members here and there is a vigorous debate and we have a vote until probably 5:00 and i want to respect the witnesses time. do they have time to come back or remain here after votes at which time we can reconvene? >> i do. >> mr. hamilton? >> seeing i am a fan of making people wait, yes. >> so, mr. keating, everybody will have five minutes and i will yield. >> thank you. i appreciate that and if i am not back that early, don't call everybody else out. thank you so much. >> the chair recognizing mr. birch it. >> thank you, mr. chairman. quickly wasting my time here

and mr. hamilton, the border patrol, they have the authority to refuse to allow illegal crossings? >> depending on the context to which you are speaking, at the point of entry they do and we are building physical infrastructures to prevent the illegal entry of aliens into the united states which is a federal crime. >> what legal authority does the state like texas have to protect its border? >> under current interpretations of various courts those authorities remain limited under the supreme court's decision in arizona and under the constitution there are those who have different thoughts about that. >> vice president harris was put in charge of the border crisis by president biden and what has she done? >> little to nothing in my opinion. >> what can you tell us about the trafficking of children across the southern border?

>> over the last 32 or 33 months, we had about 500,000 unaccompanied alien children being trafficked across that border and that is a record number in the last three years. >> americans companies if they created jobs in that country would it help? >> yes. >> how is secretary mayorkas doing that? >> again, the number of aliens are using that app to come into the country and they are waiting in northern mexico and we talk a lot about npp, but they have their version of npp, which is using that app you can only access in northern mexico and then have to wait in northern mexico to receive your appointment at a point of entry. >> is he fulfilling his constitutional duty? >> that is a negative. >> i yield -- i reclaim my

time. i would like to yield the remainder of my time to maria salazar. >> thank you. i am maria salazar for the city of miami and i say thank you. i want to say that we have the same goals and i agree with ceiling the border and i voted for hr 2 and i am nauseated by the fact that kids are being trafficked and those children belong to my community and i belong to the hispanic minority which is the largest in the country. so i am with you. biden has done a horrible job. we are on the same page. my problem is that hr two which is the law we passed needs some teeth to become the law of the land and do you agree with me and do you think, mr. was that

it will become the law of the land and do you think it could pass the senate? it would be signed by president biden. >> i think it would be a good step forward. >> we understand it would be fantastic. the problem is there is something missing, which is what will we do with those 10 million people who are here and that we understand under president trump who had an effective immigration policy and i am looking at you, mr. wolf. mr. trump deported 8000 illegals a year but if we do the math we are talking about 10 million in land so that is 123 years we would need in order to deport everybody but all i am trying to do and i do repeat i am on your side is try to get something on the book so we can seal the border and stop having those kids be raped.

what do you think we can do? >> i think the question here is what do you do with the number of individuals here in the united states? do you deport them -- >> let's stop right there. let's try to deport them. am i right to say we don't have enough agents? >> without a doubt, it is a challenge. >> mr. trump tried it and mr. obama tried and every president has tried it and they are working on the fields and construction and hospitality and in my a correct in that statement? >> yes. >> so the democrats won't call us a bunch of racists anymore and they don't have the monopoly on compassion and we are also compassionate because you are concerned about those children who speak and sound like me who are being raped right now so shouldn't the

republicans be the ones that are ahead finding a solution so we can stop this and put something at the border and stop the asylum system being gamed because my people are gaming it every day and do i make sense? >> yes. >> what you think we should do is republicans? >> i think h.r. 2 was a good first step and there is more that can be done to secure that border and it's really an issue for congress that as you deal with the individuals who are here illegally, you have to close the loopholes that continue to funnel more and more folks coming here illegally. >> i agree with you. let's seal the border and i presented a law called the dignity act which does that. >> the gentleman's time expired and the chair recognizes -- >> we want to burn at the stake the child sex traffickers.

>> the chair recognizes ms. titus. >> thank you and i didn't realize i would have time before we left and i wanted to go over a few things. we are going to close the border to stop kids from being raped and many of them that is happening in their home countries which is why they are coming here because it is dangerous there. we have statistics that show that as a result of 1544 cases of rape, murder, torture, and assault and that doesn't sound like a good policy to me. when you talk about children, what is the definition of that and is it anybody under 21 or is it five-year-olds are six- year-old? who are these children that you are talking about? i then heard a statement that we are the only country in the world that people want to go to and we are the only ones where immigrants are coming.

i would ask who said that and what he thinks about all of the migration within latin america and you are going from el salvador to other countries in latin america, going from peru to argentina are going from venezuela to a number of countries and how about those countries? how about all of the north african countries that are going to europe and how about the people in syria or turkey who are going to europe as guestworkers and how about all the people of former colonies in africa who are going to europe? we aren't the only place where people are going. now, in this world you have climate change and you have authoritarian regimes and you have ethnic cleansing and a lot of things are driving people out and you do have social media so people can see what

these other countries have to offer and of course they want that for their families and on social media, they can figure out how to get there and try to make that happen. i would ask mr. was something and i saw that name and i thought it looked familiar and when i got here it dawned on me and i was on the homeland security when you are the illegal acting director and we have come up with no solutions but one of the things in addition to those that mr. castro mentioned, as i recalled, you wanted to give rid of the daca program when children who were brought here by their parents were little didn't even know that they weren't here illegally and they went to school here and spoke in galicia as well as you do but this is the only country they have ever known and you wanted to send them back and that is going through the courts and leaving a lot of

people in the shadows who don't know what the future would hold. i would ask you, do you still think getting rid of that daca program is a good idea? and maybe, mr. isaacson, you could take some time to put something in perspective because it has gotten totally out of hand and it is ridiculous. do you still think getting rid of daca is a good idea? >> i think it is a good idea to follow a law and court after court said that program is illegal. i have been on record that this is a situation that congress has to fix and time and again congress has punted on that. >> in texas they are not allowing future but it is all over the place and a lot of courts but it has put a stay on sending the ones here home and taking away that protection so don't just say the courts have said it is illegal.

can we please move on? >> if i could take a minute to talk about the children. a law signed by president bush in 2008 said any kid from the noncontinuous country who comes unaccompanied it's brought into the united states and given an asylum process and they get placed with sponsors or family members and we are supposed to know where they are and i think, yes, our administration has fallen down on tracking them and they haven't had enough resources and it goes back to my point that we didn't prepare our border for this sort of reality. but a kid lost often means they could be going to school in fairfax county right now but they lost the phone number and we don't have the resources to track everybody down and that is a shame but it is an administrative problem in most cases. but there has been amazing

reporting how some of these kids work at night or brought into child labor often legally with work permits but the conditions are horrible. it doesn't mean shutting down a law that protects vulnerable kids. >> thank you. secretary wolf, i want to address this issue that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle seem to be forgetting about the actual facts and circumstances related to the so-called family separation during the trump administration. during the trump administration when you served as acting secretary at the department of homeland security, they have a blanket policy of separating families at the border? >> is certainly not. i was acting secretary at the end of november 2019 throughout 2020 and zero-tolerance policy but even if you go back there wasn't any policy in separating

families. >> did the department and the trump administration have a responsibility to protect all minors in your custody? >> absolutely. >> there was a reason to question the claimed familiar relationship between the adult and child. do you think it would be appropriate to detain those adults and children together? >> it is appropriate to those who detain families together and separate a child from what is presumably their parent but in many instances it is not because they are being traffic -- traffic. they separate children at risk because the border patrol are doing their job and has ascertained that the parent or the adult they have come over the border with is not their parent. >> true or false, the dha witness, using children to pose

as family units to gain entry. >> that is 100% true and what we saw during my time was child recycling and saw some of the same children used across the border multiple times to get the adults into the country. >> so you a secretary in the trump administration protected children by taking them away from child molesters. is that correct? >> we did that during the trump administration and previous administrations did that and the biden administration continues to >> is it likely that families would be separated by having an open board or a secure border? >> less likely having a secure border. >> so, let me ask you about the success of the mpp remain in mexico policy. over the course of the limitation of mpp, tell me about what you saw in terms of apprehensions at the southern border. encounters and apprehensions.

>> during the course of the life of mpp, certainly throughout fy 19 and will little bit if fy 20 for it hit. was on the number of illegal apprehensions reduced quite significantly, particularly as it relates to family units from the northern triangle which was the driver behind the 2018 to 2019 crisis which is why we instituted mpp and we saw those drive down upwards to 80%. >> 80%. i border encounter to central american families dropped 80% during the implementation of mpp, is that right? to the biden administration reverse that remain in mexico policy? >> they eliminated mpp. >> they eliminated mpp and the fiscal year is the three fiscal years that correspond with the biden administration are the three worst years of illegal alien border apprehension ever recorded. is that because we don't have a remain in mexico policy anymore? >> it's not only because we don't have mpp or remain in

mexico, is because we don't have any enforcement policies along the border. we are sending the wrong message to the cartels, to the aliens and everyone else wants to come to the country illegally. >> more than 24,000 chinese citizens have been apprehended crossing the u.s. border from mexico in the past year, 24,000. this is more than in the preceding 10 years combined. who are these individuals? do we have any reason to believe that ccp is taking advantage of our open border? not just the fentanyl, but also these individuals and is there any reason to believe the ccp united front work is using the open border to infiltrate the united states? >> i think we have to assume they are. this naivety that everyone is coming here for humanitarian protections and they are not here to do bad things in the united states, i get that. it makes sense if you never worked in border patrol or dhs. you just thought about this issue. if you are on the line and you

are down there and talking to the agents and you are understanding with a pickup and about individuals that are coming into the country to harm americans every day, absolutely. i don't have the data and i have not seen the intelligence. you have to assume that the communist party of china is taking advantage of the situation along the border. >> my time is expired but i appreciate your service when you're here in the situation was far better with you leading the department. i yield. >> gentleman yields and chair recognizes mr. stan. >> thank you very much for i represent arizona. arizona knows all too well the situation at the southern border is unsustainable. a record number of migrants have been apprehended in the tucson sector. an unrelenting pace that has made tucson the busiest sector in the country over the last five months. agents in southern arizona apprehended more than 15,000 people last week alone i earlier today with cbp agents in the tucson sector. their message to me, the message to congress is additional resources cannot

come quickly enough. there triaging, leaving interior checkpoints unmanned and surging staff to deal with the influx of migrants, officers who normally work at the ports of entry were most illicit fentanyl is smuggled through are being reassigned to help with migrant apprehensions , without adequate staff, vehicle processing's have been reduced at ports of entry, which is devastating to arizona's cross-border economy. that's why, four months, i have been calling for more federal resources to support border communities. this administration has sent this congress a request for more than $13 billion to hire 1300 more border patrol agents, upgrade technology, and 1000 more agents to catch illicit fentanyl , higher 1600 asylum officers, and almost 400 new immigration

judge deems to quickly adjudicate asylum cases, also in short a safe orderly and humane border. and, more than $1.4 billion of that would go to replenish the shelter and services program to help ease the burden on overstretched local partners. that would make a massive difference right now on the ground in arizona. the majority, unfortunately, has yet to take up that critical request. this here is entitled that u.s. border crisis and american solution to an international problem. we know migration issues are not unique to the united states, increased migration is a worldwide crisis in which human tragedy in developing world is putting pressure on countries like ours. but managing our border effectively and humanely is a collective responsibility. republicans and democrats working together. i believe the trump administration did get it wrong.

their approach was inhumane and ultimately ineffective. through draconian policies, caging kids, separating families and children did nothing to deter migrants from coming to our borders and harmed the federal government's long-term ability to process migrants to the system, creating enormous backlogs that we are still trying to climb out of. business as usual is not working either. so first, this congress must get the emergency resources that dhs has asked for and the cbp agents on the front lines desperately need. this body needs to get to work on real, comprehensive immigration reform that secures our border once and for all, fully enforces our nation's immigration laws, reforms are deeply broken asylum system, and safeguards it from abuse and addresses the root causes of migration from countries in latin america. and why we do that, this committee cannot lose sight of how important our trade and economic relationships are with

mexico and latin america. we can't afford to lose or ignore the enormous economic benefit they bring to the united states, particularly border states like mine of arizona pickets want to take an all hands on deck, all of government approach and i am ready to roll up my sleeves and get to work with our republican colleagues but i hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle feel exactly the same. the people most hurt by washington's gridlock are those border communities and they simply can't wait any longer. with that, mr. chairman, i yield back. >> chair recognizes ms. kim. >> thank you, chairman. this hearing is about crisis with nursing at the border, so i want to talk about the crisis i deal with as a represent a district in southern california that is so close to the southern border and is reeling from the fact that fentanyl is having on my amenity.

the fentanyl crisis is taking over my state and especially in southern california that is so close to the orange county riverside county that i represent. i just want you to give -- take this into consideration. one and five youth deaths is related to fentanyl and the fiscal year 2022, nearly two thirds of fentanyl that came across the southern border came through the ports of san diego, imperial counties, fentanyl and other synthetic opioids are flooding through our southern border and have killed more than 100,000 americans per year since 2021. i want to talk about germans to my stay in san francisco and they talked about fentanyl precursor and they talked about maybe forming or establishing some sort of a working group, but as we know, the devil is in

the details. so, i have still yet to see what is in that detail? what is that working group is going to do? what you think this administration should be doing to stop the precursor from leaving china and ultimately entering the united states to kill americans? i want to address this to mr. wolf. >> i think the current discussions between president biden and president she is a good first step. i think what you said is important which is the devil is in the details. whether china lived up to their promises that they do, i have my suspicions come highly doubtful. when i will say is when we talk about fentanyl, we about that cartels. decide yet that we can't go after the cartels, sorry because it's going to continue the status quo. we can either continue to admire this problem, or we can

get serious about it and address of the underlying issue of the cartels. ports of entry i think it is important. you need more technology there. it is false to say that all of the fentanyl is coming between ports of entry pickets where we have most of our agents, most of our technology. of course you will see data that says it comes through their. >> i have introduced southern border strategy. so, let's also talk about what chairman xi said. he made the commitment that xi would correct down on the proliferation. if you recall in 2019, he made those same commitments when he banned the production, sale and export of fentanyl precursors from china to mexico but that he abandon his commitment when the former speaker made her trip to taiwan. i just want you to know that he

is using my constituents as bargaining chips in the broader geopolitical competition, we just cannot tolerate that behavior. knowing what we know today, it is clear that we should not have trusted chairman commitment on precursors back in 2019 and so do we have any reason to believe he is going to keep his word today? >> i don't believe so. i think it's a point to remember over the last 3 to 4 years, mexico has developed the capacity to produce fentanyl on their own and the cartels, it is a highly lucrative business and they have invested a lot of money, time and attention into this. i think there is still work that china can do but simply stopping the precursors from china is not going to eliminate the fentanyl coming into the united states. >> can you explain how the current administration's

bilateral relationship with mexico is failing to come -- combat fentanyl? >> i think it's failing on a number of instances. again come all of this whether we talk about fentanyl, human trafficking, illegal smuggling, it all stems from the cartels and there is not enough being done by the government of mexico when it comes to the cartels or to stop the illegal flow. i talked about in my opening statement, you have to put pressure on the government of mexico. they are transactional in nature. at least that was my experience during the trump administration. you have to push them to places they are uncomfortable with. simply sending diplomatic cables and asking them to do things is not going to serve the american people very well. >> thank you. >> time expired. chair recognizes mr. --. >> i appreciate the recognition. this is my first committee hearing. it is great to be part of the stages house foreign affairs committee. as the son of liberian and then

they and immigrants i look forward to bringing forth my unique background to this time for our nation and our world. it is with that perspective i look forward to helping shape our nation foreign policy. it is grounded in our values of defending freedom, championing economic opportunity, upholding human rights and ensuring that the rule of law is respected. i was impressed with how bipartisan this committee was during yesterday's markup, my first one of those as well. i've heard about this committee is rich bipartisan history. unfortunately, today is a bit of a departure from that and i hope we can work towards finding solutions on this critical issue. as a first generation american, i know the importance of legal immigration to our nation. i also know the importance of not vilifying those who seek a better life for themselves and their family. so, instead of a serious

inquiry around real immigration solutions, we are in the context we are in today with this hearing. the biden administration lost a series of foreign policy initiatives to manage migration across the western hemisphere and has requested real funding to implement them this hearing was meant to be more meaningful we would discuss the funding of the president's budget request. we would invest in partnering with governments in the region to screen migrants in support immigration. we would fund operations to vet potential candidates for refugee resettlement or other legal methods of migration. finally, the presidents request would seriously fund our border security. fully funded, our nation would be able to hire 1300 additional law enforcement officers at our southern border. it would be able to invest in southwest border ports of entry, with cutting detection technology to enhance inspection capabilities including fentanyl detection.

we should make real investments in strengthening the pipeline of immigrants to our nation. not choking it off. my hope, and this is my start, that we can work together on a long-term strategy for comprehensive immigration reform . with that, i yield back. thank you. >> gentleman yields. chair recognizes mr. davidson. >> i thank the chairman and appreciate witnesses being willing to come back. i'm excited to be able to get in under the deadline here. mr. secretary, from my lifetime we have been in this back-and- forth. it's border security, immigration, security immigration. as we have seen today, the two parties don't agree much on those two solutions. i can't say it's been an incredibly productive dialogue. we haven't change anybody's minds, i don't think. i hope we can at least agree to stop the cartels. the cartels are bad people. they are doing evil things and they are exploiting our broken

laws and causing many of the disastrous situations in mexico , central, and south america. last summer i introduced a bill the stuff the cartels act i have subsequently remained that lindsay murphy act to stop that cartels named after 21-year-old young lady in my district, daughter of a good friend who took a xanax at a party that was laced with fentanyl and like tens of thousands of other americans, she died. because the drug she took, not a good idea, but they are not supposed to kill you. poisoned with fentanyl and ended her life tragically. as i was introducing that bill last summer, the new york times introduced independent reported journalism and said, under trump there was a problem at the border, the cartels were exploiting and making around $500 million a year smuggling people across the border. that's a pretty big problem. and i yearn to have into the

biden administration, as of last summer, it was over $13 billion. i was a business and before i got into congress. 20 6x your business in a year and a half, that's insane. $13 billion of growth, another year on and the problem is only getting worse. in your expert opinion as a former secretary of homeland security, how can we most effectively stop the cartels? >> i agree with you. i think the cartels should be public enemy number one for the united states. there is no other driver that killed 100,000 americans every single year as it relates to fentanyl. as i've said repeatedly, and i have been questioned all options should be on the table when it comes to the cartels pick what we have done historically is treated this issue as a law enforcement issue. i would say we have made incremental and permits around the edges but we have not addressed the issue. you also need to provide leverage and you have to have

-- you need an administration willing to use the leverage against the government of mexico when this administration and president says i will never designate them as a foreign terrorist organization, never use military force, never do xyz, it takes all the leverage that they would normally have and government of mexico officials will say, i don't need to do anything else because there's no repercussions. there is nothing that is going to severely impact me. there's a number of things that you could be doing along that border and with the leverage that we have foreign assistance which i know is important to this committee and other things, there are leverage points that the u.s. government could be using to get more action and activity out of the government of mexico. we are not doing it. >> i do hope we can reframe the debate so we can at least agree to stop the cartels progress far as i know, there is no pro cartel lobbyist here in d.c. i will say there are no republican-led sanctuary cities and that's kind of a pro cartel activity. i'm concerned about that.

it would be highly more effective though, if people in mexico and central america south america solve their problems domestically. that would take away the whole fear of claims that they would end up showing in our border, correct? so, it seems like there is unanimous consent by our witnesses and i just wonder, in el salvador, bubbly not something that would go over well with our bill of rights in america, but seems to be pretty effective and peaceful and safe for people that aren't causing harm to their neighbors does anyone feel like what is going on in el salvador has been effective? >> in the short term? yes. ask in five years but i do worry about a permanent state of emergency and what that does and there is no checks and balances. >> okay. >> i think what president kelly has done is a miracle. you should in every western country across the world we should target criminals and

gangs and cartels, round them up and incarcerate them for as long as we can. >> i think was also very illustrative about el salvador is about a third of their gdp comes from --. here in the united states so we have got to deal with this issue. i certainly agree with what he is doing regarding criminals, but we have got to provide other incentives for these countries to retain the talent, retain --. >> my time is running out. i think that is right and i think i'm encouraged by department in ecuador and argentina and we have got a lot of promise in this western hemisphere as we close in on the 100 anniversary of the monroe doctrine. i hope protect our own backyard. i yield back. >> chair recognizes ms. jacobs. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm the only person to ask you questions today who represents a border community. i think that is important because illegally acting secretary wolf as he said, some people think about this issue. i actually live it every day as

does my community in san diego. what's interesting is, despite all of the fear mongering here today, san diego is not by coincidence one of the safest cities in this country. as is every other border community. we have heard my colleagues to talk about cartels. let's talk about cartels a little bit. the growth of cartels has been mentioned a lot but what my colleagues don't seem to mention is that actually, mpp assisted in the growth of the cartels. i think it's important for us to recognize that. mr. isaacson, isn't it true that mpp actually did not stop people from for fling violence, it trapped them in dangerous situations in mexico and fed the cartels and other criminal gangs on the next set of the border. >> are numerous testimonies that cartels were waiting as happened with title 42, waiting at the gates of the order entry for new kidnapped victims who they could then extort the

relatives in the united states which of course is a crime that crosses borders. >> you would say that mpp did not in fact -- get rid of the cartels? >> if anything it gave them some new fuel. >> okay pick we heard a lot about fentanyl. would you agree with what i heard from all of the cpp officers that he spent a lot of time talking to him again in the border community that i live in and represent, that almost all of the fentanyl that they see, and we have a lot of folks between ports of entry and san diego as well, almost all are through legal people crossing the borders legally at parts -- ports of entry. >> every statistic and conversation i have had with law enforcement says that. if you're apprehending 200 people a year between ports of entry and they don't have fentanyl, that should tell you a lot. >> thank you. we also talked a lot here today about following the law and what is legal and illegal. is seeking asylum illegal?

>> it is legal without regard to how you arrived you arrived. >> the migrant protection protocol, could you tell us, was it legal in terms of the international laws and obligations that united states is 42? >> is on our books as a lot that no president had dared use before. but the unhcr and all international bodies did issue opinions saying it violated international standards pick >> the very thing you guys are trying to propose as the way to make things more legal is in fact illegal under international law and seeking asylum is in fact illegal under both domestic and international law. i've also heard a lot of firsthand accounts from cbp agents of the logistical nightmare that mpp cause for them. could you speak to that? >> sure, it meant trying to send people back and make them wait and then had them show up at 4:00 in the morning. come to these video courts and

then send them back again with another court date and going back and forth and of course that logistically would become more of a nightmare after title 42 and the shutdown of immigration courts in the first months of the pandemic. >> did mpp make our border more orderly? >> if anything there was quite a bit more chaos during the second half of 2019. >> the migrant protection protocol is illegal under international law, made our border more chaotic, increased the cartels ability to extort people and grew their base, and yet this is what my colleagues and your other panelists are proposing as the solution to the very real situation that my constituents are dealing with, living at the border community? >> yes. like every other deterrent i've heard he had a short-term effect that was starting to bottom out when the pandemic had. >> thank you so much. i yield back from this very ridiculous hearing.

>> we have very limited time on the floor. mr. salazar, you have five minutes. you can take the chair but i don't want to miss the votes i really appreciate your generosity and willing to remain here until 10:00. we should be returning at 5:00 p.m. pick i will turn it over to mr. salazar. >> thank you for your patience i feel important. so, i want to continue, mr. wolf and hamilton because your opinion is highly important. and as i was telling you, i am your ally. i am on your side. i wanted to accomplish the same goals as you. let me just give you a couple

of ideas and i want you to tell me, mr. wolf, what do you think of what i want to tell you? let's suppose that by -- we have the ability to seal the border with the best technology. seal the border, best technology. whether a structure or high towers and infrared cameras, whatever technology is out there . we can increase the number of border patrols. we can increase the administrative judge is. we can increase immigration of judges. we can stop catch and release but everyone that is claiming asylum, goes into something called a humanitarian campus for 60 days and over there we will have enough personnel to determine if they could, if they are granted the asylum and if they are not, they will be returned home. what you think about that idea? >> a number of those are

obviously hypothetical situations. i think a number of them certainly deserve merit to look at further. >> i'm saying let's suppose it's doable. you seal the border and create humanitarian centers, it sounds correct, right? >> yes. >> let's suppose we can do that and then at some point we can then look inside and determine what are we going to do with the illegals? >> >> do think we could do that and at the same time give some type of not path to citizenship, not immediate citizenship to the illegals, but some type of work, go home for christmas, don't get deported, don't get any federal programs, by your own health insurance, do you think that maybe we could work something out? do you think there is appetite in this party and him people like you with very high positions when it comes to immigration in something like

that? it your opinion is very important. that's what i'm asking. >> i think that certainly is an issue that congress needs to deal with. i think what you said initially is very important. you have to close these loopholes and there are many that continue to incentivize. if you deal with the illegal population here today, but yet in two years or three years from now you let another 10, 20 million in because of the loopholes continue, you haven't solved anything. >> stop right there. we will have sealed the border with the best technology there is. >> it's not just technology, it's also policies. >> what you mean by policy? >> we can go down the line. you have to have mpp, if you're not detaining everyone, mpp is certainly there. you have addressed the asylum system. >> i just told you. the asylum system is going to be addressed by everyone who is coming and claiming asylum needs to come into something called a humanitarian center. is not going to get lost in

miami. and 20 stay there for 60 days. do you like that idea? that completely ends and stops -- >> addressing the asylum process very quickly if it's within 60 days, i am addressing the asylum process quickly. >> so you are in favor of keeping people for 60 days and you are in favor of sealing the border? >> i am in favor of addressing the asylum system and make sure we get those who need predictions quickly and those who don't need to be removed. >> and then increasing border patrol? increasing the judges and administrative immigration and administrative personnel? >> i think all of those would help the asylum system. >> if that were to be in place, what are we going to do with the people who have been here for more than five years, don't have any type of criminal records, what are we going to do with the illegal population? i think that's basically something that you told me that is challenging. what is your idea? >> i think that is only a

question that congress can answer because congress can provide them either certain protections and certain benefits if you're talking about work authorization, whatever it may be, >> that's what i'm trying to do but i need people like you to support ideas like mine because your opinion is highly estimated. >> i am highly skeptical that we can get to the first part of your equation there. >> there is no way we can get to the third if we don't have the first one sealed which is sealing the borders. that's what i'm saying, we agree. >> we agree we just have to do it. >> and stopping catch and release and not given the asylum system. thank you very much. so, votes have been called on the floor. without objection, the committee will stand and reconvene once the votes have