Latest / NO FILTER / LIVE_ DHS Secretary Kristi Noem testifies before the Senate(M4A_128K)

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LIVE_ DHS Secretary Kristi Noem testifies before the Senate(M4A_128K) · NO FILTER

2:35
Speaker 1: Billion dollar agency, encompassing sixteen different components, from the Transportation
2:40
Speaker 1: Security Administration to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
2:44
Speaker 2: It has grown into an unwieldy.
2:46
Speaker 1: Bureaucracy rife with unaccountable power and wasteful spending, characteristics all
2:51
Speaker 1: too common in large federal institutions. Before your tenure, DHS
2:56
Speaker 1: had quietly expanded its scope, using taxpayer dollars to surveil
3:01
Speaker 1: American citizens, censor speech, and even fund high risk virus research,
3:06
Speaker 1: all with little to know oversight. I commend you and
3:10
Speaker 1: the Trump administration for ending all government sponsored censorship using
3:14
Speaker 1: DHS personnel. Just last night, I received the first set
3:19
Speaker 1: of records from the Department regarding Tulsey Gabbard's placement on
3:23
Speaker 1: the TSA Quiet Sky's watch list. These documents confirm our suspicions.
3:29
Speaker 1: Federal air Marshall surveiled the now Director of National Intelligence
3:34
Speaker 1: during domestic flights in twenty twenty four, reporting back information
3:39
Speaker 1: related to her appearance and even how many electronics she
3:42
Speaker 1: was observed using. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case.
3:48
Speaker 1: TSA is not the only DHS component running secretive programs
3:53
Speaker 1: behind closed doors. Most Americans would be shocked to learn
3:58
Speaker 1: that DHS funds both classified and unclassified biological research right
4:03
Speaker 1: here on US soil. Under your leadership, the Department has
4:07
Speaker 1: begun producing subpoena records revealing deeply concerning experiments with biological
4:12
Speaker 1: threat agents. In one case, researchers propose combining elements of
4:18
Speaker 1: two weekend anthrax strains to re engineer aversion capable of
4:23
Speaker 1: causing disease. Again, these are experiments that we cannot countenance.
4:28
Speaker 1: You heard that right, DHS was using taxpayer dollars to
4:32
Speaker 1: try to recreate a fully virulent anthrax strain by engineering
4:36
Speaker 1: it from less dangerous components.
4:38
Speaker 2: That sure sounds like gain a function to me.
4:42
Speaker 1: At the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasure Center, also known
4:46
Speaker 1: as ENDBACK, scientists have conducted repeated experiments aerosolizing some of
4:52
Speaker 1: the world's deadly st pathogens, the plague, thebola, and more,
4:58
Speaker 1: exploring how to increase their leath, thad and transmissionability. We
5:02
Speaker 1: have documents indicating these experiments have continued during the Biden
5:06
Speaker 1: administration and back. The lab sits adjacent to NIH's Integrated
5:12
Speaker 1: Research Facility at Fort Dietrich, the very same facility where
5:16
Speaker 1: just recently Secretary Kennedy and director Batacharia halted research following
5:22
Speaker 1: a disturbing biosafety instance in which a research intentionally slashed
5:26
Speaker 1: another's biosafety suit while handling ebola inexcusable. Afterwards, DHS personnel
5:35
Speaker 1: were reportedly seen padlocking freezers inside the NIH lab. So naturally,
5:40
Speaker 1: I want to know what exactly is the relationship between
5:43
Speaker 1: DHS and NIH at Fort Dietrich, What overlap exists between
5:49
Speaker 1: their work. It shouldn't take a personal altercation and a
5:53
Speaker 1: compromised biosafety suit to initiate oversight.
5:56
Speaker 2: But here we are, And why is the Department of.
6:00
Speaker 1: Homeland Security an agency meant to defend the homeland conducting
6:05
Speaker 1: experiments with pathogens capable of killing millions in the first place.
6:10
Speaker 1: These are questions, and the taxpayers deserve answers. Some might
6:15
Speaker 1: say it's about preparedness, but when does preparedness cross in
6:19
Speaker 1: the line into recklessness? At one point does an attempt
6:23
Speaker 1: to prevent catastrophe? At what point does an attempt to
6:27
Speaker 1: prevent catastrophe actually.
6:29
Speaker 2: Increase the likelihood of one?
6:31
Speaker 1: This is only the tip of the iceberg of the
6:33
Speaker 1: reckless research quietly being funded out of the Department of
6:36
Speaker 1: Homeland security, some of it conducted on behalf of other
6:39
Speaker 1: federal agencies under the agency's Work for Others program, obscuring
6:44
Speaker 1: the ability of Congress and the public to follow the money.
6:48
Speaker 1: This isn't just a domestic safety concern, it's a diplomatic one.
6:53
Speaker 1: DHS conducts internal arms control compliance assessments to evaluate whether
6:58
Speaker 1: its projects could violate or or a peer to violate
7:00
Speaker 1: the Biological Weapons Convention. If DHS is engaging in high
7:05
Speaker 1: risk virus research that could lead to a catastrophic leak
7:09
Speaker 1: or could be perceived as a US violating the Biological
7:12
Speaker 1: Weapons Convention, then the Department isn't securing the homeland, it's
7:16
Speaker 1: endangering it. That's why Congress must pass my Bipartisan Risky
7:21
Speaker 1: Research Review Act to establish independent oversight a federally funded
7:26
Speaker 1: gain of function research and other potentially dangerous studies. We
7:30
Speaker 1: don't even have a universally accepted definition of gain of
7:34
Speaker 1: function allowing researchers to pick and choose the standards that
7:37
Speaker 1: suit them.
7:38
Speaker 2: That's not real oversight.
7:40
Speaker 1: Secretary nome, I appreciate your demonstrated commitment to reversing the
7:44
Speaker 1: obstruction of your predecessor and pushing back on efforts by
7:48
Speaker 1: entrenched bureaucrats within the Department to delay, redact, and resist oversight.
7:53
Speaker 1: You've inherited a difficult task restoring accountability to a department
7:58
Speaker 1: that is strayed from its founding mission, and this is
8:01
Speaker 1: a pivotal moment. I look forward to continue to work
8:03
Speaker 1: with you to bring about long overdue transparency to the
8:07
Speaker 1: American people. Thank you, and I recognize the ranking member.
8:11
Speaker 3: Thank you.
8:12
Speaker 4: Chairman Paul Secretario, thank you for joining us today. The
8:17
Speaker 4: Department of Homeland Security is responsible for a number of
8:20
Speaker 4: critical missions that safeguard our nation, from preventing terrorism to
8:25
Speaker 4: cyber attacks, to securing our northern as well as southern borders,
8:29
Speaker 4: and of course, responding to natural disasters. I am disappointed
8:34
Speaker 4: in a disappointing departure from prior administrations, including President Trump's
8:39
Speaker 4: first administration. We are holding today's hearing to discuss the
8:42
Speaker 4: department's budget needs without having received a detailed budget request
8:48
Speaker 4: from the President or briefing from the department's components about
8:51
Speaker 4: their budget needs. However, we have seen in just a
8:55
Speaker 4: few short months under the Trump administration how the Department
8:59
Speaker 4: has undergone vendous changes. I have serious concerns that some
9:03
Speaker 4: of these changes are harming rather than helping the Department
9:07
Speaker 4: in its mission to protect the safety and the security
9:10
Speaker 4: of all Americans. For example, as we heard, as we
9:14
Speaker 4: head into a hurricane season and the wildfire season, the
9:18
Speaker 4: administration has halted critical FEMA programs that support flood mitigation
9:23
Speaker 4: and slash staff who focus on disaster relief. These are
9:28
Speaker 4: critical resources for states in the aftermath of a natural disaster,
9:32
Speaker 4: and the Administration has provided little or no justification for
9:37
Speaker 4: these changes. FEMA has even internally acknowledged that it is
9:41
Speaker 4: not ready for hurricane season, which starts in just eleven days,
9:46
Speaker 4: and despite that, the administration is still planning on shifting
9:49
Speaker 4: the burden for disaster response to state and local governments,
9:53
Speaker 4: which will put Americans at grave risk the next time
9:57
Speaker 4: disaster strikes, which is inevitable. Similarly, at a time when
10:01
Speaker 4: we are facing increasing threats from cyber attacks, the administration
10:05
Speaker 4: plans to drastically cut our nation's primary cybersecurity agency SISAM.
10:11
Speaker 4: SISA is supposed to be finalizing a rule required by
10:15
Speaker 4: law that this committee passed to improve cyber incident reporting
10:19
Speaker 4: to better protect our critical infrastructure from cyber attacks. Yet
10:24
Speaker 4: reporting indicates that seven hundred SISA employees have taken deferred
10:29
Speaker 4: resignation under pressure from this administration. Sis's work on election
10:34
Speaker 4: security has stopped, and the agency's advisory committees have been shuttered.
10:39
Speaker 4: These actions make us less prepared to address cybersecurity attacks.
10:44
Speaker 4: The administration also proposes cutting two hundred and forty seven
10:47
Speaker 4: million dollars from the Transportation Security Administration's budget to reduce
10:52
Speaker 4: the number of frontline TSA agents At a time when
10:56
Speaker 4: air travel is at an all time high and we
10:59
Speaker 4: are inner the busy summer travel season, these cuts only
11:03
Speaker 4: threaten to make our skies and the flying travelers less secure.
11:07
Speaker 4: At the same time, the administration has also caught congressionally
11:11
Speaker 4: mandated oversight offices that protect the civil rights and civil
11:14
Speaker 4: liberties of individuals who interact with DHS components. These officers
11:19
Speaker 4: where offices were put in place to ensure that DHS
11:22
Speaker 4: personnel can conduct their important national security missions effectively while
11:28
Speaker 4: safeguarding the rights of the people in this country. Shutting
11:31
Speaker 4: these offices down not only puts Americans at risk, it
11:34
Speaker 4: also is a violation of the Homeland Security Act itself.
11:38
Speaker 4: Despite several inquiries into your office for more information, I
11:41
Speaker 4: have yet to receive sufficient explanation for these actions.
11:45
Speaker 3: I also have serious.
11:46
Speaker 4: Concerns about this administration's inappropriate use of the US military
11:51
Speaker 4: for domestic immigration enforcement and the outrageous use of taxpayer dollars,
11:56
Speaker 4: which I will be asking questions about for detention at
11:58
Speaker 4: Guatanamo Bay. Certainly, anyone concerned about prudent use of taxpayer
12:04
Speaker 4: money should be outraged by what's happening down there. Our
12:07
Speaker 4: nation faces a multitude of homeland security challenges, and this
12:11
Speaker 4: Committee has always been willing to work to address them
12:13
Speaker 4: on a bipartisan basis. Secretary Nome, when we first met
12:18
Speaker 4: prior to your confirmation, you gave me a commitment that
12:21
Speaker 4: you would work with me to address the many threats
12:23
Speaker 4: facing our nation. And I hope today's hearing will be
12:26
Speaker 4: an honest discussion about the resources the Department needs to
12:30
Speaker 4: do just that, and I welcome having that kind of discussion.
12:34
Speaker 4: I would hope that we would be able to have
12:36
Speaker 4: that as a discussion in a way that we have
12:38
Speaker 4: done in this committee in a bipartisan way for as
12:40
Speaker 4: long as I can remember. Or a first round would
12:42
Speaker 4: be seven minutes and then a second round would be
12:45
Speaker 4: five minutes. Certainly, Chairman Paul, I would hope you would
12:48
Speaker 4: continue to press it that I've always known when Senator
12:50
Speaker 4: Johnson was chair of the committee, he always made sure
12:52
Speaker 4: that everybody had seven minutes. Certainly, homeland security is a
12:56
Speaker 4: primary concern for use, Madame Secretary, and for all of us.
13:00
Speaker 4: And I'm not sure why the chair is insisting on
13:03
Speaker 4: five minutes. I know you're fully capable of answering for
13:06
Speaker 4: seven minutes, and you shouldn't be concerned about it, but
13:09
Speaker 4: apparently the chairman is concerned about that extra time. So,
13:11
Speaker 4: mister Chairman, I hope we'd get seven minutes on the
13:13
Speaker 4: first round and then five as we always have as
13:16
Speaker 4: long as this committee has been in existence. Thank you,
13:20
Speaker 4: mister Chairman. Look forward to seven minute rounds.
13:23
Speaker 1: It is the practice of the Committee to swear and witness.
13:26
Speaker 1: The Secretary Nome please stand and raise your right hand.
13:31
Speaker 3: Do you swear?
13:33
Speaker 1: The testimony will give before this Committee will be the truth,
13:36
Speaker 1: the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help you, Godes,
13:52
Speaker 1: so turn home. Thank you for appearing today. As you know,
13:55
Speaker 1: I've been concerned for a long time about gain and
13:58
Speaker 1: function research. I commend the President for in the administration
14:01
Speaker 1: for having an executive or to stop it.
14:03
Speaker 2: Some of the problems are in the definitions of it.
14:06
Speaker 1: You know, Anthony Falci said, if it's an animal virus,
14:08
Speaker 1: it can't be you know, it cannot be gain of function.
14:12
Speaker 1: And yet animal viruses can be trained to infect humans,
14:15
Speaker 1: and we think that's what happened ultimately with COVID nineteen.
14:20
Speaker 1: We think some of the dangerous research is going on
14:22
Speaker 1: at the lab controlled by DHS. Have you begun to
14:26
Speaker 1: look into this? I know Secretary Kennedy said that you
14:29
Speaker 1: and he will be going out and I've requested permission
14:32
Speaker 1: to attend that as you go out to.
14:33
Speaker 2: Look at these labs.
14:34
Speaker 1: Have you looked at these labs any yet to get
14:36
Speaker 1: a feeling for what gain of function?
14:38
Speaker 4: Mister Chairman, are we going to have opening comments from
14:40
Speaker 4: the secretary? Are we skipping that as well? Oh?
14:43
Speaker 2: I neglected that I went right into questions without training that.
14:46
Speaker 1: So Committee, mister chairman, let's start again. Secretary Um, you
14:50
Speaker 1: are recognized for your remarks.
14:52
Speaker 5: Okay, thank you, mister Chairman, and thank you Ranking Member
14:54
Speaker 5: Peters for the honor of allowing me to be here today.
14:58
Speaker 5: Thank you to all the senators for your participation in
15:01
Speaker 5: oversight into the Department of Homeland Security.
15:03
Speaker 6: I'm looking forward to visiting.
15:05
Speaker 5: With you about all of the accomplishments that we've been
15:07
Speaker 5: able to tackle these first several months of this Trump administration.
15:11
Speaker 5: I'm also blessed to have my husband with me today,
15:14
Speaker 5: so I thank him for his support and my family
15:16
Speaker 5: support as well as I fill this role for our country.
15:19
Speaker 5: Having previously served eight years as a member of Congress,
15:22
Speaker 5: it's my distinct honor to be on this side of
15:24
Speaker 5: the dais today as the Secretary of the Department.
15:26
Speaker 6: Of Homeland Security.
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Speaker 5: Today, I'm proud to discuss all of our accomplishments since
15:31
Speaker 5: President Trump took office, and he has set us a
15:34
Speaker 5: full agenda as a priority.
15:36
Speaker 6: High on the list is the.
15:37
Speaker 5: Mandate and was the mandate on the very first date
15:40
Speaker 5: to secure our southern border and to start deporting illegal
15:43
Speaker 5: criminal aliens. The border crisis is the biggest problem that
15:46
Speaker 5: was facing our country, and it was one that was
15:50
Speaker 5: imperative to fixing for our nation's future. We're solving this
15:53
Speaker 5: crisis at a record pace, and we have delivered the
15:56
Speaker 5: most secure border in American history. We've obtained near complete
16:00
Speaker 5: operational control of the border with daily encounters down ninety
16:04
Speaker 5: three percent since President Trump took office. And because we're
16:07
Speaker 5: fixing this biggest challenge so quickly, President Trump can focus
16:11
Speaker 5: on other priorities as well, and problems that are facing
16:13
Speaker 5: the American people.
16:14
Speaker 6: Let's just look at the last ten days.
16:17
Speaker 5: Last week, he signed a historic prescription drug Reduction and
16:21
Speaker 5: Pricing Executive Order that will slash prices.
16:24
Speaker 6: For the American people.
16:25
Speaker 5: After that, he went on a trip to completely rewrite
16:29
Speaker 5: America's relationship with the Middle East. During this trip, he
16:32
Speaker 5: secured trillions of dollars of new investments in the United
16:35
Speaker 5: States with several Middle Eastern countries. He's also taking steps
16:39
Speaker 5: towards rebuilding our relationship with Syria. The last living American
16:43
Speaker 5: hostage held by Hamas Eaden, Alexander, was finally released and
16:46
Speaker 5: returned home to his family. He announced major new trade
16:50
Speaker 5: deals with both China and the United Kingdom, and just yesterday,
16:53
Speaker 5: President Trump jump started ceasefire talks between Russia and Ukraine.
16:57
Speaker 5: And with only the kind of leadership that Present and
17:00
Speaker 5: Trump could provide, we prevented the breakout of an all
17:03
Speaker 5: out war between India and Pakistan. These historic accomplishments were
17:08
Speaker 5: possible because President Trump confronted right away the chaos at
17:13
Speaker 5: the southern border, President Trump can continue to not only
17:15
Speaker 5: make America safe, but he can also continue to.
17:18
Speaker 6: Work to make the entire world safer.
17:21
Speaker 5: Now at the Department of Homeland Security, under President Trump,
17:24
Speaker 5: we've already delivered a drastic turnaround in homeland security from
17:27
Speaker 5: the southern border to our coast guard to cyber space,
17:31
Speaker 5: and we're just getting started. The secure border has allowed
17:34
Speaker 5: our men and women of law enforcement at DHS to
17:37
Speaker 5: zero in on fighting cartels and their illicit activities. Under
17:41
Speaker 5: President Trump, we have designated six cartels and four dangerous
17:45
Speaker 5: criminal gangs as foreign terrorist organizations.
17:48
Speaker 6: This has allowed us to take.
17:49
Speaker 5: A whole of government approach to going after these murderers
17:53
Speaker 5: and these drug traffickers. In March, fentanyl traffic at the
17:56
Speaker 5: border fell fifty four percent compared to the previous year,
18:00
Speaker 5: and once again, the United States is enforcing immigration laws
18:03
Speaker 5: to arrest, identify, detain, and remove dangerous illegal alien criminals.
18:08
Speaker 5: We're prioritizing those that are a public safety threat to people,
18:12
Speaker 5: especially those who are affiliated with the terrorist organizations MS
18:15
Speaker 5: thirteen and Trende. Iragua Customs and Border Protection has worked
18:20
Speaker 5: to enforce President Trump's America First trade agenda and the
18:24
Speaker 5: Biden administration's trade policies that hollowed out America's industrial base
18:28
Speaker 5: have been changed. We are no longer shipping our jobs overseas. Instead,
18:32
Speaker 5: we're using tariffs as an effective negotiating tool. The Department
18:36
Speaker 5: of Homeland Security is reforming emergency management in this country.
18:41
Speaker 5: We have the FEMA Review Council which will be doing
18:43
Speaker 5: the work to make recommendations and also work with this
18:46
Speaker 5: body to change the department into something that actually gives
18:50
Speaker 5: more local and state control, and that first council meeting
18:53
Speaker 5: is today. We are also taking steps to defend the
18:56
Speaker 5: nation's transportation systems, which are vulnerable targets for attack. The
19:00
Speaker 5: Transportation Security Administration is responsible for ensuring all of the
19:05
Speaker 5: safety of individuals who travel. In a single day, there
19:08
Speaker 5: are forty five thousand flights and nearly two point nine
19:11
Speaker 5: million Americans and passengers in the United States. We're also
19:16
Speaker 5: fulfilling our obligation and did do so to implement real ID,
19:20
Speaker 5: which was enacted and put in law over twenty years ago.
19:24
Speaker 5: Validated ideas secure travel, safeguard our elections, and help make
19:28
Speaker 5: sure that we never experience another tragedy like nine to
19:30
Speaker 5: eleven again. And as technology advances, so do the threats
19:34
Speaker 5: to our nation. That's why cybersecurity is so crucial to
19:38
Speaker 5: our future. Countries like communists China have the capability and
19:42
Speaker 5: the intent to infiltrate and to potentially disrupt our critical
19:46
Speaker 5: infrastructure systems. Despite these threats, the Biden administration instead used
19:51
Speaker 5: SISSA to promote politics and police speech. Under President Trump,
19:56
Speaker 5: we've been working to get SISA back on its intended
19:58
Speaker 5: cybersecurity mission. The Coast Guard is the only branch of
20:02
Speaker 5: the US Armed Forces that is under the umbrella of
20:05
Speaker 5: the Department of Homeland Security. It has many missions with
20:09
Speaker 5: specialized needs, and as we secure our southern border, the
20:12
Speaker 5: cartels have shifted their activities out into our maritime borders.
20:16
Speaker 5: The Coastguard has already surpassed fiscal year twenty twenty four's
20:19
Speaker 5: drug interdiction numbers just since President Trump took office, and
20:24
Speaker 5: they have also excelled at search and rescue while interdiction
20:27
Speaker 5: of illicit substances as well. Still, the Coast Guard is
20:31
Speaker 5: facing our greatest readiness crisis since World War Two. We
20:35
Speaker 5: have a plan to reinvigorate this critical component to make
20:38
Speaker 5: sure they're ready for the future, and with Force Designed
20:42
Speaker 5: twenty twenty eight, we will transform the Coastguard into a
20:44
Speaker 5: more agile, cap capable, and responsive force. We're making sure
20:49
Speaker 5: that they have the resources and that they have the
20:51
Speaker 5: vision to lead and to be the point of the
20:53
Speaker 5: spear in the future.
20:55
Speaker 6: Now, since I.
20:55
Speaker 5: Took office, one of the responsibilities that I have is
20:58
Speaker 5: in reforming the Secret Service.
21:00
Speaker 6: We've reassessed the Secret Services needs.
21:02
Speaker 5: We've gotten recruitment away from DEI recruitment that the Biden
21:05
Speaker 5: administration was doing, and we're making sure that they're equipped
21:08
Speaker 5: and ready to take on the task of protecting our
21:11
Speaker 5: future leaders and the leaders of today. So, mister Chairman,
21:14
Speaker 5: I want to thank you and thank this committee for
21:16
Speaker 5: your time today and allowing me to get the facts
21:19
Speaker 5: out into this important issues and topics that we'll be
21:22
Speaker 5: discussing today and to visit with this committee. I'm so
21:25
Speaker 5: grateful to the men and women of the Department of
21:27
Speaker 5: Homeland Security for all the good work they're doing to
21:29
Speaker 5: serve the American public. There are examples of bravery and
21:32
Speaker 5: patriotism and dedication. It's our responsibility to continue to provide
21:36
Speaker 5: for them the resources that they need to continue doing
21:39
Speaker 5: the important work that they do. And with that, mister Chairman,
21:43
Speaker 5: I look forward answering your questions and I yield.
21:45
Speaker 1: Back great, you've got to preview my questions. I went
21:52
Speaker 1: out of order, but that's our end. Back the National
21:55
Speaker 1: Bio Defense Analysis and Countermeasure Center out there by for Tetrick.
21:59
Speaker 1: We're concerned there's still doing some dangerous research out there
22:02
Speaker 1: and it needs more oversight.
22:04
Speaker 2: Do you have any update for us on that.
22:06
Speaker 5: I do, and I want to thank the Chairman for
22:08
Speaker 5: bringing a lot of history to my knowledge of this
22:14
Speaker 5: lab and the work that it was doing. And I
22:16
Speaker 5: appreciate Secretary Kennedy's input as well. Yes, we do have
22:19
Speaker 5: a visit a planned in the future here in the
22:21
Speaker 5: next ten days to two weeks with Secretary Kennedy to
22:26
Speaker 5: look into the work that this lab is doing and
22:28
Speaker 5: if it is appropriate for the Department of Homeland Security
22:30
Speaker 5: to be engaged in that. I think your concerns have
22:35
Speaker 5: created some oversight that is very helpful and will be
22:38
Speaker 5: helpful making sure that they're doing correct research that actually
22:41
Speaker 5: is beneficial and not research that's been abused in the past.
22:45
Speaker 1: So the President's banned gain of function and as you
22:47
Speaker 1: and I have discussed, it's important that someone can simply
22:51
Speaker 1: come forward who disagrees and says, well, this doesn't meet
22:53
Speaker 1: the definition of gain of function. This is a sense
22:56
Speaker 1: of what Anthony Fauci did when everybody said the research
23:00
Speaker 1: was gain of function. They were taking an animal virus,
23:02
Speaker 1: they were running it through an animal model with human
23:05
Speaker 1: lungs over and over again and adapting it to.
23:07
Speaker 2: Be infectious in humans. That is gain of function.
23:10
Speaker 1: So the people in personnel make a difference. And so
23:13
Speaker 1: what I would ask is is you ask the career
23:15
Speaker 1: people out there who've been doing the experiments. You realize
23:18
Speaker 1: that their natural tendency is to want to keep doing
23:20
Speaker 1: what they've been doing. So I think it's going to
23:22
Speaker 1: take scrutiny new people, new scientists, consultants, to look at
23:26
Speaker 1: each one of these and say, don't just tell me
23:28
Speaker 1: you're not doing it, give me a list of twenty
23:31
Speaker 1: or thirty experiments.
23:32
Speaker 2: What are you doing?
23:33
Speaker 1: And as an example of that, you know, we've been
23:35
Speaker 1: sending records requests for three years and we got nothing
23:37
Speaker 1: until you came into office.
23:39
Speaker 2: And I hope that you will be looking at our
23:41
Speaker 2: records requests.
23:42
Speaker 1: They're all dated in time, some of them by five Republicans,
23:45
Speaker 1: some of them by Republicans and Democrats, and they were
23:48
Speaker 1: just routinely ignored. Have you had a chance to look
23:52
Speaker 1: at the chain of questioning here to see if there's
23:55
Speaker 1: anybody that was actually purposely obstructing us.
23:59
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you for asking those questions and talking about
24:03
Speaker 5: the follow up to members of Congress, senators and representatives.
24:06
Speaker 5: My predecessor didn't respond to anybody. It didn't matter if
24:08
Speaker 5: you were a Republican or a Democrat. He didn't respond
24:11
Speaker 5: to your letters and your oversight. And I've tasked all
24:14
Speaker 5: of my people with changing that about our Department of
24:17
Speaker 5: Homeland Security that we will be responsive to Congress. We've
24:21
Speaker 5: given you about fifty thousand pages I think so far
24:23
Speaker 5: of information, and we continue to get and gather more
24:27
Speaker 5: data than facts that we can return to you so
24:29
Speaker 5: you can conduct oversight. What I would say is between
24:32
Speaker 5: NIH and the Department of Homeland Security, there are no
24:35
Speaker 5: research projects ongoing right now today or that we've been
24:38
Speaker 5: able to find as far as projects they were doing together.
24:41
Speaker 5: We did have a couple of employees that were contracted
24:44
Speaker 5: for their specialty backgrounds that have done work over at
24:48
Speaker 5: NIH before but that kind of oversight needs to happen,
24:51
Speaker 5: and I think it's important that we have an independent
24:53
Speaker 5: outside source that also is reviewing the work that they do.
24:57
Speaker 1: As you're collecting the records, I would just ask if
24:59
Speaker 1: you asked the people, why wasn't it given before, and
25:02
Speaker 1: see if you can find where the chain of command ended,
25:05
Speaker 1: whether people purposely not giving us the records because they
25:08
Speaker 1: really shouldn't be employed by government. Secretary of MAJORCA has
25:11
Speaker 1: told us repeatedly that there was no censorship going on.
25:16
Speaker 1: SISA wasn't doing anything. They weren't involved with speech. We
25:19
Speaker 1: know from the Twitter files they were. Have you en't
25:21
Speaker 1: uncovered any internal communications or activities that contradict their testimony
25:26
Speaker 1: with regard to the government being involved in censorship.
25:30
Speaker 5: Yes, sir, we have literally found thousands of documents that
25:33
Speaker 5: have proven that they were involved in censorship and policing speech.
25:37
Speaker 5: So we will be unveiling these to this committee and
25:41
Speaker 5: making sure we're exposing what SISA was doing with a
25:44
Speaker 5: vast majority of its time of certain employees, and some
25:48
Speaker 5: of the discussion I think we'll have here today is
25:50
Speaker 5: about getting SISA back on mission and some of the
25:53
Speaker 5: reductions and staff that have been over there, and that's
25:55
Speaker 5: reflective in the fact that many of them were doing
25:57
Speaker 5: work that they shouldn't have been doing.
26:00
Speaker 2: You look at our bill, the Risky Research Review Act.
26:03
Speaker 1: Administrations do a lot of things, and a lot of
26:05
Speaker 1: good things, and then they go away with the next
26:06
Speaker 1: administration comes in. The good thing about this legislation, it
26:09
Speaker 1: would be a presidential commission of scientists to define in
26:13
Speaker 1: a continual basis what is or isn't gain and function
26:16
Speaker 1: to rule on that. It's been voted put an bipartisan way.
26:20
Speaker 1: It was a unanimous vote out of this committee. It's
26:22
Speaker 1: one of the few things in Congress we actually I
26:24
Speaker 1: think have bipartisan support for. So we hope the administration
26:27
Speaker 1: will look at that and consider making a public endorsement
26:29
Speaker 1: of that. That way we can make permanent the things
26:31
Speaker 1: you're trying to do to constrain gain and function. Thank
26:34
Speaker 1: you for that your testimony, and with that I recoon
26:37
Speaker 1: as Senator Peter.
26:38
Speaker 4: Kim, thank you, mister Chairman, Sir tradelm thank you for
26:43
Speaker 4: being here again before.
26:45
Speaker 3: The committee today.
26:46
Speaker 4: Also appreciated the time we spent yesterday morning on the
26:49
Speaker 4: phone discussing a variety of issues.
26:52
Speaker 3: And I look forward.
26:53
Speaker 4: To those kinds of discussions continuing in the future. As
26:57
Speaker 4: you know, the protections for sharing information under the Cybersecurity
27:01
Speaker 4: Information Sharing Act of twenty fifteen, confusingly referred to as
27:05
Speaker 4: SISSA twenty fifteen, but it deals with the information sharing
27:10
Speaker 4: expires at the end of September. This is a critical
27:13
Speaker 4: authority that applies to information sharing across the federal government.
27:17
Speaker 4: Not only to SISSA the agency, but it also allows
27:20
Speaker 4: the agency the ability to have robust and timely cyber
27:24
Speaker 4: threat information shared between public and private sectors, as well
27:28
Speaker 4: as among private sector companies, so folks have an understanding
27:32
Speaker 4: of the threat landscape that's out there and have full
27:34
Speaker 4: awareness of what's coming at them by nefarious actors. Does
27:38
Speaker 4: the Administration support the extension of this incredibly important authority
27:42
Speaker 4: that I've been hearing about from a number of stakeholders
27:47
Speaker 4: that they're very concerned it's going to expire. Does the
27:49
Speaker 4: Administration support the extension?
27:50
Speaker 5: Yes, we do, Thank you, Senator Peters. It's a very
27:53
Speaker 5: important piece of legislation. Does endorse it for ten more years,
27:57
Speaker 5: which I think is a long enough to timeframe for
28:00
Speaker 5: us to really make sure that we have the stability
28:03
Speaker 5: we need in this area to create those kind of
28:05
Speaker 5: partnerships you were talking about with private industry. We need
28:08
Speaker 5: their expertise and their knowledge and their interaction with those
28:11
Speaker 5: across the world that hate the United States of America
28:14
Speaker 5: to come in and cooperate with us to make sure
28:16
Speaker 5: we're prepared to secure our systems and our critical infrastructure.
28:19
Speaker 4: Great well, I look forward to your support, administration support
28:21
Speaker 4: so we can pass this extension, a ten year extension
28:24
Speaker 4: before it expires.
28:26
Speaker 3: You're absolutely right how critical.
28:27
Speaker 4: It is, Starodem. I'm also concerned about the increasing number
28:31
Speaker 4: of security threats that we're seeing, from drone incursions to
28:35
Speaker 4: public spaces, to airports, critical infrastructure sites all across our country,
28:40
Speaker 4: as we spoke about yesterday morning.
28:42
Speaker 3: Just last week, a man in Michigan was.
28:44
Speaker 4: Arrested after he allegedly tried to attack the US Army's Tank,
28:48
Speaker 4: Automotive and Armament's command facility at the Detroit Arsenal and Warren.
28:53
Speaker 4: According to prosecutors, the man flew a drone over the
28:56
Speaker 4: facility to conduct operational reconnaissance or other highlighting the need
29:01
Speaker 4: to ensure that law enforcement is properly resourced to deal
29:04
Speaker 4: with this growing threat. While I understand that there are
29:08
Speaker 4: safety concerns with the technology that need to be addressed
29:11
Speaker 4: by the FAA. I would like for all of us
29:15
Speaker 4: to work together to reauthorize DHS and DOJ's counter drone
29:19
Speaker 4: authorities that also expire at the end of September, because
29:23
Speaker 4: this threat is, you know, is not going away. Last Congress,
29:28
Speaker 4: Senator Johnson and I introduced to bill S sixteen thirty
29:32
Speaker 4: one that I think is a good starting point. So
29:35
Speaker 4: my question for you, Secretary Nome is can I get
29:37
Speaker 4: your commitment that we can work together to not only
29:40
Speaker 4: reauthorize these authorities on a long term basis, but actually
29:43
Speaker 4: strengthen those authorities to make sure we deal with this
29:46
Speaker 4: persistent threat.
29:48
Speaker 5: Yes, Senator Peters, I'll take a look at your legislation specifically,
29:51
Speaker 5: but we do need to reauthorize the authorities that we
29:54
Speaker 5: do have in order to address not just our homeland
29:57
Speaker 5: security day to day activities, but we're hosting some very
30:00
Speaker 5: large events in this country that will, I think challenge
30:04
Speaker 5: our ability to secure that many large events at one time.
30:08
Speaker 5: So having those kind of authorities and addressing what we
30:11
Speaker 5: can do to cooperate with states and local governments and
30:13
Speaker 5: cities in locations where big events happen would be very
30:17
Speaker 5: important to do that. So you're right, the expansion of
30:19
Speaker 5: those authorities needs to be looked at to make sure
30:22
Speaker 5: it's appropriate, but also.
30:23
Speaker 6: Gives us the tools we need to keep people safe.
30:25
Speaker 5: We've got the Club Cup coming this summer, the World
30:29
Speaker 5: Cup next summer, which will be ten million ticketed people,
30:33
Speaker 5: twenty two million people that will be involved in the
30:36
Speaker 5: activities surrounding it, the Olympics coming. That's important we address
30:40
Speaker 5: this now so we can be proactive.
30:42
Speaker 3: Yeah.
30:42
Speaker 4: Absolutely, well, I appreciate that, Senator Johnson and I would
30:45
Speaker 4: appreciate it. And our biggest supporter for our bill is
30:48
Speaker 4: actually the National Football League, who have real concerns about
30:52
Speaker 4: their games. We've already had games interrupted and it could
30:55
Speaker 4: be more serious at some point.
30:57
Speaker 3: Start training.
30:57
Speaker 4: On two weeks ago during a Senate Appropriation hearing, you
31:00
Speaker 4: told me very clearly to the questions that I had
31:04
Speaker 4: that Sissa was quote back on mission end a quote.
31:08
Speaker 4: If this is accurate, My question is, why is the
31:11
Speaker 4: administration proposing to cut five hundred million dollars from an
31:15
Speaker 4: agency's budget for an agency that's on mission right now
31:19
Speaker 4: when those activities you previously described as off mission. Specifically,
31:24
Speaker 4: election security work cost about twenty million. Those folks have
31:28
Speaker 4: been let go, they're no longer there. I can understand
31:30
Speaker 4: a cut of twenty million, but this is a cut
31:32
Speaker 4: of five hundred million. So specific what if you could
31:35
Speaker 4: tell this committee what specific activities or departments at SISSA
31:39
Speaker 4: does the department plan to cut as a result of
31:42
Speaker 4: these very large proposed cuts, And if you could please
31:45
Speaker 4: give some specific examples of offices and programs. And you know,
31:52
Speaker 4: as you know, the sissa's statutory requirements are extensive. You
31:56
Speaker 4: have a lot on your plate, you have a lot
31:58
Speaker 4: to cover, you need to have resources to do that.
32:01
Speaker 4: But this is a pretty significant cut and funding and
32:03
Speaker 4: we need to know exactly what protection will not be
32:06
Speaker 4: offered after these cuts go into effect.
32:09
Speaker 5: Yeah, we will continue to fulfill all the statutory requirements
32:13
Speaker 5: of the Department of Homeland Security has and has given
32:16
Speaker 5: to CISSA as in the work that it does. Putting
32:19
Speaker 5: it back on mission means that it fulfills the responsibility
32:22
Speaker 5: of why it was created, and that's to be the
32:24
Speaker 5: cybersecurity agency of the nation to go out and secure
32:27
Speaker 5: our critical infrastructure, work with small and medium sized businesses
32:32
Speaker 5: and states and localities to give them the insight and
32:34
Speaker 5: wisdom they need to make sure that they're not vulnerable
32:37
Speaker 5: to hackers or nefarious activity. Getting rid of censorship, getting
32:43
Speaker 5: rid of the Ministry of Truth at SISSA, the employees
32:47
Speaker 5: that were duplicative, that were fulfilling roles that wasn't related
32:51
Speaker 5: to cybersecurity was something that we addressed. I would say
32:54
Speaker 5: under the President's budget, cybersecurity is only strengthened, and we're
32:58
Speaker 5: doubling down on the need to build private and partner
33:01
Speaker 5: with those individual industries that have the expertise and knowledge
33:04
Speaker 5: that we've lacked for so long, and they're looking for
33:07
Speaker 5: some more abilities to do new things for this country
33:11
Speaker 5: as far as giving us insight into nefarious activities. But
33:15
Speaker 5: they do ask that we give them some level of
33:17
Speaker 5: protection from liabilities, and I think you're very familiar with
33:21
Speaker 5: some of their concerns. I want to work with you
33:23
Speaker 5: to see what we can do to address those needs
33:25
Speaker 5: so that we can have the information we need to
33:28
Speaker 5: really truly secure the country. One of the biggest alarming things,
33:31
Speaker 5: and I think I've visited with you about this before,
33:34
Speaker 5: was that we still don't necessarily know how to stop
33:36
Speaker 5: the next salt typhoon, volt typhoon and private industry can
33:40
Speaker 5: help us with that. With their knowledge, they see things
33:42
Speaker 5: that we don't, and that partnership could be strong and
33:46
Speaker 5: make sure that we're not just spending more dollars with
33:49
Speaker 5: no means to an end, that we actually have an
33:51
Speaker 5: end that relies and ends with a more secure United
33:55
Speaker 5: States of America.
33:56
Speaker 3: So I look forward to working with you, and thank you,
33:58
Speaker 3: Senator Johnson.
34:00
Speaker 7: Chairman, I'll point out the rank of member did get
34:01
Speaker 7: seven minutes.
34:03
Speaker 5: Sorry, Man, Secretary, need to be sorry, you.
34:08
Speaker 7: Know, welcome, thanks for your service. I think you've probably
34:11
Speaker 7: seen this chart. Yes, why don't bring it a little
34:13
Speaker 7: bit closer here For the first time, I've brought this chart,
34:19
Speaker 7: and it's showing good news. For the previous four years.
34:22
Speaker 7: It described a disaster, a catastrophe, a clear and present
34:25
Speaker 7: danger to this country. And one of the reason I
34:29
Speaker 7: want to point it up here is to point out
34:31
Speaker 7: how we werelied to during the entire four year period
34:34
Speaker 7: by the administration, reinforced by our colleagues on the other
34:37
Speaker 7: side of the aisle, saying we had to have Congress Act.
34:40
Speaker 7: You know, we needed legislation. The fact that the fact
34:43
Speaker 7: matter is no we just need a new president. We
34:46
Speaker 7: need President Trump. Now. I would have been happy to
34:49
Speaker 7: pass a bill to reinforce President Biden's authority to secure
34:52
Speaker 7: the border, but he didn't want to. I think it's
34:54
Speaker 7: clear about this chart is you can see when President
34:58
Speaker 7: Biden was considering reelection, he realized the catastrophe at hand
35:02
Speaker 7: was becoming politically unpopular, and so he used the secutive
35:05
Speaker 7: authority that President Trump had used to secure the border
35:08
Speaker 7: in his first term, and he started actually making progress
35:12
Speaker 7: on that. So again, this is just important American people
35:15
Speaker 7: understand that for four years the Biden administration, reinforced by
35:19
Speaker 7: the folks on the other side of the Aisle, lied
35:22
Speaker 7: bold face that President Biden didn't have the authority to
35:26
Speaker 7: secure the border. He wanted an open border. That's exactly
35:29
Speaker 7: what he got. Now, the question I have for you
35:31
Speaker 7: off this chart is in his first term, took President
35:35
Speaker 7: Trump about twelve months ago from his peak of almost
35:37
Speaker 7: five thousand encounters per day to a little over five hundred.
35:42
Speaker 7: You know, we remained in Mexico, the agreements he had
35:45
Speaker 7: with the third countries, that type of thing. How could
35:48
Speaker 7: he do it so swiftly this time? This is literally
35:50
Speaker 7: a matter of months. In February is four hundred and
35:53
Speaker 7: eighteen encounters per day on average in March is three
35:56
Speaker 7: hundred and fifty five. And this is stunning success. I
35:59
Speaker 7: was kind of want to get your reaction terms of
36:02
Speaker 7: how he accomplished it, how you guys accomplished this.
36:05
Speaker 5: You know, I would say, Senator that the President used
36:09
Speaker 5: not only the laws that were already on the books
36:11
Speaker 5: and started enforcing them, he also made sure that he
36:15
Speaker 5: talked about it and messaged it throughout the campaign. He
36:18
Speaker 5: talked about the need for a secure border. What we
36:21
Speaker 5: need to remember constantly in this country is that the
36:23
Speaker 5: world listens to everything that we say and what our
36:26
Speaker 5: leaders say. And he told me specifically when he nominated
36:29
Speaker 5: me for this position, I don't want you just to
36:32
Speaker 5: go and run the Department of Homeland Security, secure the
36:34
Speaker 5: border and make sure that our agencies are back on mission.
36:37
Speaker 5: I want you to tell the world what we're doing,
36:39
Speaker 5: because the only way they're going to stop coming to
36:41
Speaker 5: this country is if they know never to leave their
36:43
Speaker 5: home country. If they know that we're enforcing our laws,
36:46
Speaker 5: they will stop coming. And that's exactly what's happening because
36:50
Speaker 5: of our messaging, because of the fact that we have
36:52
Speaker 5: actively talked in Guatemala, in Honduras, in Mexico about don't
36:58
Speaker 5: come to the United States anymore illegally. There will be
37:01
Speaker 5: consequences they have stayed there. In fact, we're showing now
37:05
Speaker 5: in the Darien Gap that it's reverse migration that people
37:08
Speaker 5: that got to Mexico never even made it to the border.
37:11
Speaker 6: Now they're turning around and going back home.
37:13
Speaker 5: When I was in Mexico visiting with the president there
37:16
Speaker 5: and with government leaders, she said specifically they think there
37:19
Speaker 5: could be five hundred to six hundred thousand people that
37:22
Speaker 5: just stopped in Mexico that turned around, that were never
37:25
Speaker 5: even encountered, that reached our border. I think that's why
37:27
Speaker 5: in March you saw less than two hundred encounters a day,
37:31
Speaker 5: and it was a historic low for this country in encounters.
37:34
Speaker 5: And it was because not only did he enforce the
37:37
Speaker 5: laws and show there would be consequences if you broke
37:39
Speaker 5: our laws, which is what our country was built on,
37:43
Speaker 5: he also made sure that we talked to the American
37:45
Speaker 5: people about why we were doing it, that it was
37:48
Speaker 5: for our safety and for our future, and that also
37:51
Speaker 5: to these other countries that it was no longer going
37:53
Speaker 5: to be the status quo of Joe Biden, and of.
37:55
Speaker 7: Course that's the sea change the Biden administration welcomed. I mean,
37:58
Speaker 7: they encouraged her percent of people to come here. So
38:01
Speaker 7: this is a bunch of hearing. I do want to ask.
38:04
Speaker 7: In the first Trump administration, I have best information, we
38:09
Speaker 7: build something four hundred and fifty eight miles of walls
38:12
Speaker 7: costs about six point six billion dollars, about fourteen million
38:16
Speaker 7: dollars per mile. Your budgetary request right now is for
38:20
Speaker 7: forty six point five billion, a lot more that would
38:25
Speaker 7: at the same price build something in more than three
38:27
Speaker 7: thousand miles. So can you kind of square square that
38:32
Speaker 7: circle or circle at square or whatever? Can can you
38:35
Speaker 7: explain it exactly? What are you asking for in that
38:37
Speaker 7: forty six point five billion. Why is the request so
38:39
Speaker 7: high when we were able to build so many miles
38:42
Speaker 7: in the first term for a lot less.
38:45
Speaker 5: Well, today, the estimates are that building steel ballreed wall
38:49
Speaker 5: will be over twelve million dollars a mile, is what
38:51
Speaker 5: they're estimating. We have built about seventy miles of walls
38:54
Speaker 5: since the president has been in place, but that's been
38:57
Speaker 5: a mixture of permanent steel versus ten versus a little
39:01
Speaker 5: bit of booy barrier where it's appropriate that are water borne.
39:05
Speaker 7: So yeah, the twelve million is less than the fourteen
39:07
Speaker 7: million I had calculated that would be way more than
39:11
Speaker 7: three thousand miles. Are you really planning on buildings.
39:13
Speaker 6: The problem that we.
39:14
Speaker 5: Have at the border right now is that we have
39:16
Speaker 5: CBP cameras and towers that don't work. We have some
39:20
Speaker 5: authorities there with the FAA on infrastructure that helps us
39:23
Speaker 5: do surveillance of areas where there isn't a wall that
39:27
Speaker 5: is not even operational. I would say one out of
39:31
Speaker 5: three actually are functioning today, which makes the individuals that
39:35
Speaker 5: are their work even harder. And we know that we
39:37
Speaker 5: talk about god aways and what happens today, the truth
39:40
Speaker 5: is is that there's portions of this border that we
39:42
Speaker 5: still don't necessarily know what happens there twenty four to seven.
39:45
Speaker 7: So we're thirty seven billion dollarsand dead. I'm just going
39:48
Speaker 7: to ask you and the Department sharpen your pencil on
39:50
Speaker 7: that wall request. I think it's it's more.
39:52
Speaker 3: Than you need.
39:53
Speaker 7: Okay, Again, I'm happy to provide the support you need
39:56
Speaker 7: to secure the border, do the deportations, but we need
39:59
Speaker 7: to be very learned about how much we're spending and
40:01
Speaker 7: it needs all be justified.
40:03
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you, Sandor Hassen.
40:06
Speaker 6: Thank you, mister chair. Good morning morning, madam.
40:09
Speaker 8: Secretary Secretary Nome, the White House Deputy chief of Staff,
40:14
Speaker 8: recently said that the Trump administration is actively looking at
40:17
Speaker 8: suspending habeas corpus. Last week you were asked about this,
40:22
Speaker 8: and I want to clarify your position because it's obviously
40:25
Speaker 8: really important to get this right.
40:26
Speaker 6: So, Secretary Nome, what is habeas corpus?
40:30
Speaker 5: Well, Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president
40:34
Speaker 5: has to be able to remove people from this country.
40:37
Speaker 8: Let's spend their right. Let me let me stop habeas corpus.
40:40
Speaker 8: Excuse me, that's that's incorrect. Presidents corpus, excuse me. Habeas
40:46
Speaker 8: corpus is the legal principle that requires that the government
40:50
Speaker 8: provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. If
40:54
Speaker 8: not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people,
40:57
Speaker 8: including American citizens, and whole them indefinitely for no reason.
41:02
Speaker 8: Habeas corpus is the foundational right that separates free societies
41:06
Speaker 8: like America from police states like North Korea. As a
41:10
Speaker 8: senator from the live free or die state. This matters
41:13
Speaker 8: a lot to me and my constituents and to all Americans. So,
41:17
Speaker 8: Secretary Nome, do you support the core protection that Habeas
41:21
Speaker 8: corpus provides that the government must provide a public reason
41:25
Speaker 8: in order to detain and imprison someone.
41:28
Speaker 6: Yet I support Habeas corpus.
41:30
Speaker 5: I also recognize that the President of the United States
41:32
Speaker 5: has the authority under the Constitution to decide if it
41:35
Speaker 5: should be suspended or not.
41:37
Speaker 8: It has never let us be, It has never been done.
41:39
Speaker 8: It has never been done without approval of Congress. Even
41:42
Speaker 8: Abraham Lincoln got retroactive approval from Congress. So I have
41:46
Speaker 8: been asking executive branch nominees a simple question over the
41:50
Speaker 8: past few months. If the President orders them to break
41:53
Speaker 8: the law, I've been asking, will you follow the law
41:55
Speaker 8: or follow the order? I want to ask you a
41:58
Speaker 8: more specific question here. If the President tries to suspend
42:02
Speaker 8: Habeas corpus and a federal court reverses the president's order,
42:07
Speaker 8: will you comply with the court order and uphold Habeas
42:10
Speaker 8: corpus or will you follow the president's directly?
42:13
Speaker 5: We are following all federal court orders and are complying
42:16
Speaker 5: with that, as is the President and every decision.
42:19
Speaker 8: Well that that is obviously not true for anybody who
42:22
Speaker 8: reads the news. There are federal court orders right now,
42:25
Speaker 8: any including returning returning somebody who mistakenly But to be clear,
42:35
Speaker 8: this is about a fundamental legal right that ensures that
42:38
Speaker 8: we live in a free society instead of a police
42:40
Speaker 8: state that would have a sham legal system like Russia
42:44
Speaker 8: or Korea North Korea. So I'm glad that you have
42:48
Speaker 8: now committed to following court orders. I'm glad you believe
42:51
Speaker 8: in the basic freedom for Americans if ordered to do
42:55
Speaker 8: so by a court. And again, I want just to
42:59
Speaker 8: make clear that it is critically important that even if
43:03
Speaker 8: the President tries to suspend the right of people to
43:06
Speaker 8: know why they've been detained or imprisoned, if a federal
43:09
Speaker 8: court reverses that order, that you will follow that order,
43:13
Speaker 8: and I hope all members of the administration will, because
43:17
Speaker 8: it's obviously critical that some of the people, for instance,
43:21
Speaker 8: who've been deported by mistake, who didn't get due process,
43:24
Speaker 8: be returned in compliance with court orders. So now let's
43:30
Speaker 8: move on to another issue. International criminal organizations target Americans
43:35
Speaker 8: with sophisticated cyber crime, including elaborate scams that robbed Americans
43:40
Speaker 8: of billions of dollars, with seniors in the United States
43:43
Speaker 8: losing five billion to scammers in twenty twenty four alone.
43:47
Speaker 8: As artificial intelligence improves, so does the ability of criminals
43:51
Speaker 8: to deceive and defraud Americans. With this new technology, criminals
43:55
Speaker 8: can impersonate loved ones, develop advanced malware, or make more
44:00
Speaker 8: convincing phishing messages. How is DHS working to identify trends
44:05
Speaker 8: in illegal activity and ensure that new AI systems have
44:08
Speaker 8: safeguards in place to prevent their use in criminal activity.
44:13
Speaker 5: Yes, we are working extensively through SISA, but in all
44:16
Speaker 5: of our agencies to make sure that we're growing going
44:18
Speaker 5: after these criminal nefarious actors. I would say partnering with
44:22
Speaker 5: private industries critically important so that we have the insight
44:25
Speaker 5: that we need to really understand the tactics that they
44:28
Speaker 5: use and the advancements in software. You know, the AI
44:32
Speaker 5: ability that they have to adjust and to supersede some
44:36
Speaker 5: of our systems is incredible, and so investing in those
44:39
Speaker 5: systems is important. But also having the knowledge and bringing
44:43
Speaker 5: everybody to the table and breaking down the silos between
44:46
Speaker 5: our agencies and our intelligence agencies is important. So we
44:50
Speaker 5: all have the information that we need.
44:51
Speaker 8: To gill and that gets me to one final point
44:54
Speaker 8: and question here because Sarah Peters began to ask about it.
44:59
Speaker 8: There's been re reporting that indicates that the Chinese government
45:03
Speaker 8: installed remote access to Chinese made power inverters in the US,
45:07
Speaker 8: raising concerns that the Chinese government could try to disable
45:10
Speaker 8: parts of our power grid. And you made a comment
45:14
Speaker 8: following up on Senator Peter's question about the importance of
45:18
Speaker 8: not only working with private industry on this issue, as
45:21
Speaker 8: you would also want to work on AI, but also
45:23
Speaker 8: on working with state and local governments on cybersecurity, and
45:28
Speaker 8: can you just talk to me a little bit about
45:29
Speaker 8: how DHS is partnering with state and local government. So
45:32
Speaker 8: that's one of the core critical missions of SISA is
45:35
Speaker 8: to help those state and local governments harden their systems.
45:38
Speaker 8: We're extremely vulnerable by our weakest link, and so when
45:43
Speaker 8: you have a small state that doesn't have the resources
45:46
Speaker 8: it needs to invest in these security operations, then they're
45:51
Speaker 8: vulnerable to attacks and hacking attempts, and they can access
45:54
Speaker 8: our systems if they have a contract or system that
45:57
Speaker 8: interfaces with the federal system. It makes usulnerable as well.
46:01
Speaker 8: So we are responsible for ten of the sixteen critical
46:04
Speaker 8: infrastructures under the Department of Homeland Security. And making sure
46:07
Speaker 8: that China can't come in and shut down our electrical grid,
46:10
Speaker 8: our water systems, things that people rely on every day
46:13
Speaker 8: for their day to day lives is very important. So
46:16
Speaker 8: that's why we need these kind of partnerships, is to
46:18
Speaker 8: make sure that we're secure all the way down to
46:21
Speaker 8: our smallest actor that participates. Well, I appreciate that, and
46:24
Speaker 8: I appreciate working more with you on that.
46:26
Speaker 2: Thank Thank you, Senator live Pordon si home.
46:29
Speaker 9: Good to see again. Thanks for your leadership and the
46:32
Speaker 9: work that you've already done. And there's a lot more
46:33
Speaker 9: still to do, but y'all have had a pretty remarkable
46:36
Speaker 9: start in the process, and I'm very grateful. For four years,
46:40
Speaker 9: every single hearing we ever had with any DHS official
46:44
Speaker 9: was dominated by border close it, close it, close it,
46:47
Speaker 9: close it, and excuses why they couldn't, couldn't, couldn't, couldn't.
46:50
Speaker 9: It's kind of fun for me actually to bable CITR
46:53
Speaker 9: and to hear a conversation about FEMA, about Coast Guard,
46:55
Speaker 9: about all the other aspects of DHS that's out there
46:58
Speaker 9: secret service. When all we had time to talk about
47:02
Speaker 9: was about border. In the previous time, I had my
47:05
Speaker 9: team pulled together just the March numbers for the last
47:09
Speaker 9: four years of border crossings and what happened.
47:12
Speaker 3: If I go back to.
47:13
Speaker 9: March of twenty twenty two, two hundred and twenty two thousand,
47:17
Speaker 9: twenty twenty three, one hundred and ninety three thousand, twenty
47:20
Speaker 9: twenty four, one hundred and eighty nine thousand, and then
47:25
Speaker 9: this last March eleven thousand, and to be able to
47:29
Speaker 9: see the dramatic difference that's happened in a very short
47:33
Speaker 9: period of time and the enforcement that's actually happened, It's given.
47:38
Speaker 3: A deep breath to the nation.
47:41
Speaker 9: It's also given an opportunity for the folks of the
47:43
Speaker 9: border to catch up. I was in San Diego a
47:45
Speaker 9: couple of weeks ago meeting with the Border Patrol folks
47:48
Speaker 9: in CBP and Coastguard. They're in San Diego and their
47:51
Speaker 9: enforcement around the Tijuana border, and to be able to
47:54
Speaker 9: see what's happening and the morale there is dramatically different,
47:58
Speaker 9: just dramatically different from the times that I've been there
48:01
Speaker 9: in the past. You had mentioned Coast Guard as well,
48:04
Speaker 9: and I want to be able to just highlight that.
48:05
Speaker 9: Then I've got a whole bunch of other questions I
48:07
Speaker 9: want to go through, but I just want to say
48:09
Speaker 9: thank you to you and your team for the work
48:10
Speaker 9: that's been done. Coast Guard folks are getting an additional
48:13
Speaker 9: pressure point there. Folks are getting on jet skis and
48:16
Speaker 9: Penga boats and coming around coast guards and not only
48:19
Speaker 9: saving lives as we've seen in the past couple of weeks,
48:22
Speaker 9: even about some of these Penga boats that are coming
48:26
Speaker 9: in that are capsizing out there, Coast Guards rescuing and
48:31
Speaker 9: actually removing folks at the same time.
48:33
Speaker 3: In the process.
48:35
Speaker 9: They've got to have additional cameras, they need different radar systems,
48:39
Speaker 9: they need additional people that are there. I saw some
48:42
Speaker 9: of the DoD personnel that's working alongside the Coast Guard
48:45
Speaker 9: folks to be able to assist them from other agencies
48:47
Speaker 9: of DoD. They need additional folks there. So one of
48:50
Speaker 9: the questions I want to ask you was about Coast
48:52
Speaker 9: Guard and the plan. You mentioned that about additional assets,
48:55
Speaker 9: but there are radars, cameras, other things including personnel that
48:58
Speaker 9: they're going to need help on.
49:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, I would say the Coast Guard it's mission set
49:03
Speaker 5: is pretty expansive, and most of the time they're not
49:06
Speaker 5: only just doing search and rescue, they're out there doing
49:08
Speaker 5: interdiction on the water. They're also participating with the Navy
49:12
Speaker 5: in securing projects and missions worldwide, and their cutters move
49:18
Speaker 5: faster and help work securing our warships and our aircraft carriers.
49:24
Speaker 5: And it's incredibly important the work that they do, so
49:26
Speaker 5: we're grateful for that, but we also recognize that they've
49:29
Speaker 5: been neglected for years. They've got cutters that have been delayed.
49:33
Speaker 5: We're outmanned by Russia and China every day in the
49:36
Speaker 5: Arctic region, in the Indo Pacific region as well. We
49:40
Speaker 5: need more assets. But down on the border specifically, you
49:43
Speaker 5: talked about the fact that these cartels are using faster
49:46
Speaker 5: boats with faster engines and jet skis to out maneuver
49:48
Speaker 5: the coastguard, and that's how they're penetrating into the country
49:51
Speaker 5: and proliferating their drug use in human trafficking. So we're
49:55
Speaker 5: going to continue to get them the assets they need.
49:57
Speaker 5: They need airframe they've got several have been grounded because
50:01
Speaker 5: they can't even be maintained anymore. They need cutters, but
50:03
Speaker 5: they also need counter uas technology every cutter could use that.
50:07
Speaker 5: They see drones every day out there on the waters
50:10
Speaker 5: and in the work that they do that they can't
50:12
Speaker 5: find out why they're hovering over their mission set, what
50:16
Speaker 5: they're doing, if they're weaponized, and then use that to
50:19
Speaker 5: protect our country. They also need satellite technology. They need
50:23
Speaker 5: new software systems and to be able to interact with
50:26
Speaker 5: law enforcement their communications. I talked to one coasty when
50:30
Speaker 5: I was out spending time with them on the frontline,
50:31
Speaker 5: and thank you for spending time with them, by the way,
50:34
Speaker 5: because that doesn't just mean the world to them. I
50:36
Speaker 5: think you learn in a different way truly what their
50:38
Speaker 5: needs are. One was carrying around two radios that probably
50:43
Speaker 5: weighed five to seven pounds each, and I said, why
50:46
Speaker 5: are you carrying two radios? And he said, well, this
50:48
Speaker 5: one's an old one that doesn't really work. But this
50:50
Speaker 5: one is even older than that that doesn't have some
50:52
Speaker 5: of the channels this one has. But I have to
50:54
Speaker 5: carry two of them to cover all my bases. And
50:57
Speaker 5: I wish we could get the newer one. Then I
50:59
Speaker 5: could put both of them.
51:00
Speaker 6: Down, and it weighs half as much.
51:01
Speaker 5: So this guy's walking around with his belt filled with
51:04
Speaker 5: not only all of his other equipment, but also these radios,
51:08
Speaker 5: and it's that we can't afford to buy him a
51:10
Speaker 5: new radio that was already released five to ten years ago.
51:14
Speaker 5: But we have an upgraded for these individuals, so some
51:17
Speaker 5: of that stuff could be addressed and is very important
51:20
Speaker 5: for us to do so well.
51:21
Speaker 3: Thank you.
51:22
Speaker 9: Thanks for paying attention to that as well. That's going
51:23
Speaker 9: to be vital for us in the days ahead. Just
51:26
Speaker 9: quick comment on a couple of things on this. Our
51:29
Speaker 9: team has reached out to your team. There were a
51:31
Speaker 9: lot of things the previous administration would never turn over
51:33
Speaker 9: to us. We're doing some investigations to try to get data,
51:36
Speaker 9: for instance, on the parole plus programs that were done.
51:40
Speaker 9: We can never get any data on that. We're trying
51:42
Speaker 9: to figure out where are those people, what actually happened
51:44
Speaker 9: to all of them, and so we'd like to be
51:46
Speaker 9: able to get some of that information. So we've got
51:48
Speaker 9: several pending requests with your team just to be able
51:51
Speaker 9: to get those things. And the other thing is on
51:53
Speaker 9: the FEMA grants based on the tornadoes and the storms
51:56
Speaker 9: that have come through much of the Midwest, including states
51:59
Speaker 9: like Kentucky and Oklahoma of late some of the building
52:04
Speaker 9: resilient infrastructure and communities, some of those grants there's a
52:08
Speaker 9: hold on and we're just trying to be able to
52:09
Speaker 9: figure out the future of that. So just some additional
52:11
Speaker 9: information would help our communities to be able to prepare
52:13
Speaker 9: as well.
52:14
Speaker 2: Chairman, thank you absolutely, Center Bluementhal Thanks Missus.
52:18
Speaker 10: Chairman, thank you for being here. Madame Secretary, I'm sure
52:23
Speaker 10: you've seen the recent reports that your agency is going
52:29
Speaker 10: to sponsor a reality show TV show in which immigrants
52:37
Speaker 10: would compete for US citizenship. Is DHS seriously vetting a
52:43
Speaker 10: reality show for immigrants to obtain US citizenship? Your spokesperson's
52:48
Speaker 10: quoted in the Wall Street Journal. I'm going to ask
52:50
Speaker 10: that article b in the record, mister Chairman, if there's
52:53
Speaker 10: no objection saying that quote. It's in the very beginning
53:00
Speaker 10: stages of that vetting process. Each proposal undergoes a thorough
53:04
Speaker 10: vetting process prior to denial or approval.
53:08
Speaker 6: Sir, we have no knowledge of a reality show.
53:10
Speaker 5: There may have been something submitted to the Department, but
53:13
Speaker 5: I did not know anything about this reality or not
53:16
Speaker 5: until the reporter reached out. We told him we have
53:19
Speaker 5: no knowledge of it. We don't know what he's talking about.
53:21
Speaker 5: And they still printed wrong information, so that article, in fact,
53:24
Speaker 5: they had to change it later because they lied so bad,
53:27
Speaker 5: and they had us on the record saying I had
53:29
Speaker 5: no knowledge of a reality show.
53:31
Speaker 6: The department didn't.
53:32
Speaker 5: There may have been something submitted somewhere along the line,
53:35
Speaker 5: because there are proposals pitched to the department, but me
53:38
Speaker 5: and my executive team have no knowledge of a reality
53:41
Speaker 5: show and.
53:41
Speaker 10: It's not under consideration. Is to confirm that you will
53:44
Speaker 10: not do a reality show.
53:46
Speaker 6: There are no plans whatsoever to do a reality show.
53:49
Speaker 10: And that I'm the spokesperson, was completely misquoted as saying
53:52
Speaker 10: that it was being that that.
53:54
Speaker 5: Article was completely inaccurate, completely inaccurate and false.
53:58
Speaker 6: And the fact that they.
53:59
Speaker 5: Printed it when they knew the expenditure, there was a
54:01
Speaker 5: dereliction of their work.
54:03
Speaker 10: Let me go to some of the expenditures that your
54:07
Speaker 10: department is making two hundred million for an ad campaign
54:11
Speaker 10: fawning over President Trump's supposed accomplishments. Twenty one million between
54:16
Speaker 10: January and April for transporting around four hundred immigrants to
54:20
Speaker 10: Guantanamo Bay, About half of them were flown back to
54:23
Speaker 10: the United States six million to El Salvador to imprison
54:27
Speaker 10: three hundred individuals in a prison known for grave human
54:31
Speaker 10: rights violation, and many more, including one thousand dollars to
54:36
Speaker 10: immigrants wishing to self deport I understand one of the
54:40
Speaker 10: planes left within the last twenty four hours. None of
54:43
Speaker 10: these expenditures are in your present budget. Aren't you going
54:48
Speaker 10: to run out of money before the end of this
54:51
Speaker 10: fiscal year? The continuing Resolution doesn't cover any of them.
54:54
Speaker 5: Now, all the dollars being spent are being utilized as
54:58
Speaker 5: authorized and appropriate for the situation that flight that left yesterday.
55:03
Speaker 10: Under the Flight doing Resolution, or any other way that
55:07
Speaker 10: we normally authorize money. You're just spending recklessly, and it
55:13
Speaker 10: would seem wastefully without authorization.
55:15
Speaker 3: That's against the law.
55:16
Speaker 5: Well, Senator, I completely disagree with you. I'm doing the
55:19
Speaker 5: job that the Secretary of Homeland Security is supposed to
55:21
Speaker 5: be doing, the one that the last secretary refused to
55:24
Speaker 5: do that endangered the.
55:25
Speaker 11: Future of our country.
55:26
Speaker 5: What I'm doing is making sure we're enforcing our laws
55:30
Speaker 5: and that people who are here.
55:31
Speaker 6: That our criminal illegal aliens.
55:32
Speaker 3: Are making provides.
55:34
Speaker 10: You are acting in a way you think you're doing
55:37
Speaker 10: your job the American people.
55:40
Speaker 12: Told us to do this job.
55:41
Speaker 5: The American people overwhelmingly in the last election said we
55:44
Speaker 5: want a secure border. We want to make sure that
55:47
Speaker 5: no longer not are the scales of.
55:49
Speaker 10: Justice, tipt and trevor of your legal authority and spend
55:51
Speaker 10: money that is not in your budget.
55:53
Speaker 5: All money is being spent according to how it is
55:56
Speaker 5: authorizing appropriately.
55:58
Speaker 10: Let me ask you about the money that is being
56:01
Speaker 10: used to supposedly repatriate Afghan Allies refugees to this country
56:10
Speaker 10: from the Taliban Ukrainians who have fled here from Russian aggression.
56:16
Speaker 10: Can you confirm that money is being taken from the
56:20
Speaker 10: foreign aid allocation?
56:22
Speaker 5: Are you talking about the Temporary Protective Status program?
56:25
Speaker 3: Correct?
56:26
Speaker 10: Yeah, so the repetriation supposedly of those individuals here under
56:33
Speaker 10: the Temporary Protected Status program.
56:36
Speaker 5: So we do have thousands of individuals that are here
56:38
Speaker 5: that have been protecting or been participating in the TPS
56:42
Speaker 5: program that has been reevaluated. To see if that program
56:45
Speaker 5: is still being utilized the way that it is supposed
56:48
Speaker 5: to be as intended by Congress when it was laid out.
56:52
Speaker 6: That is always intended.
56:53
Speaker 10: To publicly reported that say, the administration is going to
56:57
Speaker 10: use money from the Foreign aid program AID to send
57:03
Speaker 10: those people back to countries where they will be worencouraging, tortured,
57:07
Speaker 10: and perhaps killed for encouraging the Afghan allies would be
57:10
Speaker 10: let me finish my question, ma'am.
57:14
Speaker 3: Where they will be potentially killed.
57:17
Speaker 10: Tortured Afghan allies who served us during our wars There
57:26
Speaker 10: saved lives of American soldian diplomats are going to be
57:30
Speaker 10: sent back to Talman using foreign aid money. Can you
57:33
Speaker 10: confirm that's the plan that's been reported in the Washington
57:37
Speaker 10: Post this morning?
57:39
Speaker 5: No, I won't confirm that because that's not true. Those
57:42
Speaker 5: individuals have an opportunity to apply for asylum and other
57:46
Speaker 5: programs where they will be protected if.
57:48
Speaker 6: Their lives are aging from the government that's in their country.
57:51
Speaker 3: Can't Thomas.
57:56
Speaker 2: Center Meeting.
57:59
Speaker 13: Thank you and Ran and welcome.
58:01
Speaker 6: Thank you for being here.
58:03
Speaker 3: You.
58:03
Speaker 13: I think I can speak for everyone in this room
58:05
Speaker 13: and everyone in this country that you are a welcome
58:11
Speaker 13: addition as the head of DHS. In fact, you heard
58:14
Speaker 13: time and time again from everybody that's been questioning you.
58:20
Speaker 13: They sought repeatedly documents from that agency. I litigated as
58:24
Speaker 13: Florida's Attorney General against DHS and Secretary of Majorkis and
58:28
Speaker 13: sought documents and as part of that, and I hate
58:32
Speaker 13: that it took litigation to uncover what I believe was
58:35
Speaker 13: the most destructive cover up in our nation's history. But
58:40
Speaker 13: I uncovered plans by DHS when the border was overrun
58:43
Speaker 13: to just step back and let everybody come in and
58:47
Speaker 13: facilitate that. Plans to push quotas into the interior daily,
58:53
Speaker 13: Plans to build illegal programs to bring more and more
58:56
Speaker 13: people directly here from out of our country here, Plans
59:00
Speaker 13: to illegally release people into the US that had been
59:03
Speaker 13: brought here for prosecution solely for prosecution for drug crimes
59:07
Speaker 13: from outside our country. And when they finished their decades
59:11
Speaker 13: long prison sentence as drug traffickers, instead of historically as
59:15
Speaker 13: they would have been deported, they put them back into
59:18
Speaker 13: the community in which they were prosecuted and released them.
59:24
Speaker 13: The premeditated calculation that went into destroying our borders and
59:31
Speaker 13: pushing barely vetted, oftentimes dangerous people into this nation, I
59:39
Speaker 13: believe was something that we will look back on in
59:42
Speaker 13: a nation and say that was the moment as a
59:45
Speaker 13: country we stopped taking seriously protecting the sovereignty of our nation,
59:54
Speaker 13: our security, and making sure first and foremost we were
59:57
Speaker 13: keeping an eye on the plans of our enemies and
1:00:00
Speaker 13: the weaknesses that we had as a country. And I
1:00:04
Speaker 13: cannot thank you enough for stepping up and coming back
1:00:07
Speaker 13: to work, coming to DC, having been home in your state,
1:00:10
Speaker 13: coming back to the swamp to try and reverse the
1:00:13
Speaker 13: damage that was done. In fact, we've been talking a
1:00:15
Speaker 13: lot about cover ups and things that were kept from
1:00:17
Speaker 13: the American people and the last administration. Your predecessor sat
1:00:21
Speaker 13: here and testified to Congress time and time again while
1:00:23
Speaker 13: I was busy litigating as an ag uncovering the real plans.
1:00:29
Speaker 13: The border is secure, The border is secure. The border
1:00:32
Speaker 13: is secure. Time and time again, he lied. And in
1:00:36
Speaker 13: terms of someone that needs to be held accountable for
1:00:38
Speaker 13: perjuring themselves, it's not just about not providing information, it's
1:00:42
Speaker 13: about lying to the American people as he systematically made
1:00:47
Speaker 13: our country weaker and put their lives and their families
1:00:49
Speaker 13: in danger.
1:00:50
Speaker 11: I think that is abhorrent.
1:00:52
Speaker 13: I cannot believe a person was allowed to be trusted
1:00:55
Speaker 13: with the responsibility he was given. And I am so
1:00:57
Speaker 13: glad that you're willing to be here and take questions
1:00:59
Speaker 13: and provide documents about that. The Coast Guard is one
1:01:03
Speaker 13: of the things I think you said to testimony. It's
1:01:07
Speaker 13: been neglected for years. Our service is outmanned and equipped
1:01:10
Speaker 13: by Russia, China and the cartels. We need cutters, I
1:01:14
Speaker 13: can tell you. In Florida under the last administration, we
1:01:17
Speaker 13: kept seeing people, many times criminals, coming to our shores.
1:01:22
Speaker 13: We are a maritime border. Obviously we had to surge resources. Thankfully,
1:01:26
Speaker 13: President Trump came in on day one and asked that
1:01:29
Speaker 13: we do that, so we were able to surge resources there.
1:01:31
Speaker 13: But I just wanted to give you some sort of example.
1:01:34
Speaker 13: In the last year, we saw thirteen thy five hundred
1:01:37
Speaker 13: illegal aliens stop from entering Florida, about almost seven hundred
1:01:42
Speaker 13: vessels that we kept from coming on to shore. So
1:01:45
Speaker 13: important that we get the coast Guard cutters, get those
1:01:49
Speaker 13: ships built, ramp up assets. Thank you for that commitment.
1:01:53
Speaker 13: I am concerned that we might and trying to do
1:01:55
Speaker 13: that so quickly. Much needed that we give foreign nations
1:02:00
Speaker 13: or companies outside the United States contracts. Do I have
1:02:04
Speaker 13: your word you will look at how we can readily
1:02:08
Speaker 13: increase our Coastguard assets, like our Coastguard cutters, but using
1:02:12
Speaker 13: American businesses.
1:02:14
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
1:02:15
Speaker 5: That's one of the things that Force Designed twenty twenty
1:02:17
Speaker 5: eight focuses on is making sure that we're building those
1:02:21
Speaker 5: kind of partnerships to meet the needs that the Coastguard has.
1:02:23
Speaker 5: And I'd say our greatest asset is our people. I'm
1:02:26
Speaker 5: so thrilled with the fact that Coastguard recruitment is at
1:02:29
Speaker 5: one hundred and eight percent of its recruitment goal, just
1:02:32
Speaker 5: because of the excitement to serve in a fleet that
1:02:34
Speaker 5: gets to do its mission again and recognizes that it's
1:02:37
Speaker 5: been neglected for too long. But there's a focus and
1:02:40
Speaker 5: a recognition of the important work that they do.
1:02:42
Speaker 13: And certainly Florida has participated a lot with a lot
1:02:46
Speaker 13: partnering with not only in Texas at our southern border,
1:02:48
Speaker 13: we've sent assets there, but we are ramping up our
1:02:51
Speaker 13: own assets to complement what was not provided up to
1:02:53
Speaker 13: us in the last administration. Thank you for your dedication
1:02:56
Speaker 13: to making sure that's provided to us so we can
1:02:58
Speaker 13: secure our own maritime boardppreciateltely, absolutely, thank you.
1:03:02
Speaker 2: Perfect five minutes. Thank you, Senator Kim.
1:03:05
Speaker 14: Thank you, Chairman, Madam Secretary.
1:03:08
Speaker 15: A press release came out from the Department Homeland Security
1:03:11
Speaker 15: a couple days ago, it said that members of Congress
1:03:13
Speaker 15: in New Jersey that went to the Delaney Ice Delaney
1:03:17
Speaker 15: Hall Ice Attention facility could quote could have just scheduled
1:03:21
Speaker 15: a tour. I guess I'd just like to hear from
1:03:23
Speaker 15: you if you can confirm that you understand that members
1:03:26
Speaker 15: of Congress, by law, are allowed to show up unannounced
1:03:29
Speaker 15: to conduct oversight visits of ice attention facilities.
1:03:33
Speaker 5: Yes, they can conduct oversight, but Senator, what I would
1:03:36
Speaker 5: ask is that they understand that that doesn't mean they
1:03:39
Speaker 5: could show up with a mob with the intention to
1:03:41
Speaker 5: break in an assault law enforcement officers.
1:03:43
Speaker 6: That's what happened at Delaney Hall last week.
1:03:46
Speaker 5: Familiar is that those individuals and those members of Congress
1:03:49
Speaker 5: were surrounded by criminals creating criminal and perpetuating criminal acts.
1:03:53
Speaker 6: You understand that when you show up and ask for
1:03:55
Speaker 6: a tour.
1:03:56
Speaker 5: We've facilitated every single tour that every member of Congress
1:03:59
Speaker 5: has wanted. We've always done that, and we have to
1:04:02
Speaker 5: when we have a tour, also make sure that we've
1:04:04
Speaker 5: addressed security concerns and have enough staff and all of that.
1:04:07
Speaker 5: And we were accommodating that when those individuals showed up
1:04:10
Speaker 5: and they decided instead to break in.
1:04:12
Speaker 15: You know that they were already on the ICE premise,
1:04:15
Speaker 15: already facilitating into having the tour when there was the
1:04:19
Speaker 15: rest of the mayor.
1:04:20
Speaker 7: They were not.
1:04:21
Speaker 5: Breaking they had broken through the outer fence and they
1:04:23
Speaker 5: were interior on federal property when.
1:04:26
Speaker 15: They were divided in by ICE as the ICE was
1:04:29
Speaker 15: preparing to give them a tour.
1:04:31
Speaker 6: Doesn't give them an excuse to start punching when.
1:04:33
Speaker 14: You understand that they were not storming a fence.
1:04:36
Speaker 5: Well, I don't understand. Are you making excuses for their
1:04:39
Speaker 5: behavior that day.
1:04:40
Speaker 14: I'm just trying to clarify what exactly.
1:04:42
Speaker 5: Well, first site is an important part of what Congress
1:04:45
Speaker 5: does and what you provide to our department, and we
1:04:48
Speaker 5: welcome it. We give tours when members of Congress ask
1:04:51
Speaker 5: for it. We just ask that they not be politicized.
1:04:54
Speaker 5: That they actually are there to provide the oversight that
1:04:57
Speaker 5: is needed to ensure that we're doing five diligious job.
1:05:01
Speaker 14: And if I were to show up.
1:05:02
Speaker 15: At ICE detention facility unannounced, I would be let in.
1:05:06
Speaker 5: Yes, I would ask that you would be allowing us
1:05:09
Speaker 5: to secure the officers that we need to give you
1:05:11
Speaker 5: an appropriate tour that we'd be able to cover the
1:05:13
Speaker 5: other bases and posts that they would have to leave
1:05:16
Speaker 5: to come and facilitate that. We may have to call
1:05:18
Speaker 5: other people in to help cover some of that because.
1:05:21
Speaker 15: Of the extra responsibilities, but we've done this before. I
1:05:23
Speaker 15: just wanted to make sure I heard that from you.
1:05:25
Speaker 15: I wanted to just go back to something that was
1:05:26
Speaker 15: raised earlier by Habeas corpus. Can you confirm to us
1:05:30
Speaker 15: that you understand that any suspension of Habeas corpus requires
1:05:33
Speaker 15: an act of Congress.
1:05:36
Speaker 5: President Lincoln executed Habeas corpus in the past with a
1:05:41
Speaker 5: retroactive action by Congress. I believe that any president that
1:05:45
Speaker 5: was able to do that in the past, it should
1:05:47
Speaker 5: be afforded to our current day president. This president has
1:05:50
Speaker 5: never said he's going to do this. He's never communicated
1:05:53
Speaker 5: to me or his administration that they're going to consider
1:05:56
Speaker 5: suspending Habeas corpus, But I do think the constitution allows
1:05:59
Speaker 5: them the right to consider it.
1:06:01
Speaker 15: When we saw what happened with well, how many times
1:06:05
Speaker 15: has Habeas corpus been suspended in our list?
1:06:07
Speaker 6: Once that I know of, four times. I'm not certain.
1:06:10
Speaker 15: Of the instance that you were referring to was one
1:06:13
Speaker 15: where the courts subsequently showed that Congress is the one
1:06:17
Speaker 15: that has the ability. Do you know what section of
1:06:19
Speaker 15: the Constitution the suspension clause.
1:06:21
Speaker 14: Of habeas corpus?
1:06:22
Speaker 10: Do not?
1:06:23
Speaker 14: Do you know which article it is in?
1:06:26
Speaker 16: No?
1:06:26
Speaker 15: I do not, sir, Okay, Well, it is in Article one.
1:06:28
Speaker 14: Do you know which branch of government?
1:06:30
Speaker 15: Article one outlines the tasks and the responsibilities for Yes?
1:06:35
Speaker 14: Which one Congress?
1:06:36
Speaker 3: Yes.
1:06:38
Speaker 15: Stephen Miller has said that he is actively considering that
1:06:41
Speaker 15: there is active consideration of habeas corpus.
1:06:43
Speaker 14: Have you had a conversation with.
1:06:44
Speaker 15: Steven Miller about suspending habeas corpus?
1:06:48
Speaker 6: I have not.
1:06:50
Speaker 15: When it comes to FEMA, this is something I'm concerned about.
1:06:53
Speaker 15: Being from New Jersey and we've had challenges with Superstorm
1:06:57
Speaker 15: Sandy and others in the past. I was alarmed with
1:07:00
Speaker 15: I saw some reports that the acting head Richardson said
1:07:04
Speaker 15: last Thursday that he's about eighty to eighty five percent
1:07:07
Speaker 15: done with the hurricane season plan. Given that we were
1:07:09
Speaker 15: just days away from hurricane season beginning, I just want
1:07:12
Speaker 15: to ask you, is he done with his hurricane preparedness
1:07:15
Speaker 15: plan that he.
1:07:17
Speaker 5: Is working diligently with the employees at FEMA, and are
1:07:20
Speaker 5: prepared for hurricane season.
1:07:22
Speaker 14: What you referend this plan? Have you seen this plan is.
1:07:25
Speaker 5: The Yes, I've been actively engaged in hurricane response and preparation.
1:07:29
Speaker 5: We're staging people, pre staging equipment.
1:07:32
Speaker 6: Is that, we're making.
1:07:33
Speaker 5: Sure that we have tabletop exercise. We're running through with
1:07:37
Speaker 5: all of our regions on what their response will be.
1:07:40
Speaker 5: It's been very extensive how we've laid out this plan.
1:07:43
Speaker 15: Will you be able to share that plan with this committee?
1:07:46
Speaker 5: I will check and make sure that I can. But
1:07:48
Speaker 5: I would think I would think that we would be
1:07:49
Speaker 5: able to do that. I can't see no reason that
1:07:51
Speaker 5: that's just.
1:07:51
Speaker 14: One last thing.
1:07:52
Speaker 15: A couple of weeks ago, you said that you were
1:07:54
Speaker 15: considering restarting in person training at the National Fire Academy.
1:07:58
Speaker 15: I just want to ask if you're prepared to tell
1:08:00
Speaker 15: this committee that you are moving forward with restarting in
1:08:04
Speaker 15: person trainings.
1:08:05
Speaker 6: Yes, the plan is to do with that again.
1:08:07
Speaker 14: So it has been approved to restart us. It has
1:08:10
Speaker 14: been okay. Thank you, and with that I you'll back
1:08:12
Speaker 14: the center.
1:08:13
Speaker 17: Scott Sure, thank you, Chairman. First, thanks secret or known
1:08:18
Speaker 17: for being here today. I want to take this opportunity
1:08:20
Speaker 17: to thank you and President Trump for returning the Department
1:08:23
Speaker 17: of Homeland Security to its core mission of securing the
1:08:26
Speaker 17: homeland and making community safe again. We had an increase
1:08:30
Speaker 17: in threats to under Biden and a complete open border.
1:08:33
Speaker 17: You have prioritized or border. Daily bordered encounters have plunged
1:08:37
Speaker 17: ninety five percent since President Trump took office.
1:08:40
Speaker 3: Is that correct?
1:08:41
Speaker 6: That is correct.
1:08:42
Speaker 17: You're finished in the border wall and one hundred days
1:08:44
Speaker 17: HS already has eighty five miles of new construction, either
1:08:46
Speaker 17: planned or under construction.
1:08:48
Speaker 6: That is correct, sound right?
1:08:49
Speaker 17: Yes, the Trump administration has reunited nearly five thousand unaccompanied
1:08:55
Speaker 17: children with the safe relative or guardian after Biden administration
1:08:58
Speaker 17: completely lost track over three one hundred thousand of these
1:09:01
Speaker 17: vulnerable miners.
1:09:02
Speaker 3: That sounds right.
1:09:03
Speaker 6: That is correct.
1:09:04
Speaker 17: The United States Customer and Border Protection in the US
1:09:06
Speaker 17: Coast Guard have seasonally two hundred and thirty two thousand
1:09:10
Speaker 17: pounds of fentanyl and other illsted drugs, stopping them from
1:09:13
Speaker 17: ever reaching American communities or Florida shores.
1:09:16
Speaker 3: That sounds right.
1:09:16
Speaker 6: That is correct.
1:09:17
Speaker 17: And you are bringing an accountability to the agency is incredible.
1:09:21
Speaker 17: What we can do with a willing partner like you
1:09:23
Speaker 17: and President Trump who actually want a secure border and
1:09:26
Speaker 17: enforce our laws. Sector BORCI has testified repeatedly before this
1:09:29
Speaker 17: committee and lied to my face and that our border
1:09:32
Speaker 17: was secure.
1:09:33
Speaker 14: Clearly it was not.
1:09:34
Speaker 17: Worst the Biden demonstration dismantled every processing system we had
1:09:38
Speaker 17: in place to secure the border and allowed millions of
1:09:41
Speaker 17: illegal aliens and cooling hundreds of known terrorists to come
1:09:45
Speaker 17: into our country unchecked and unbedded, wrecking havoc and bringing drugs.
1:09:50
Speaker 17: They were welcomed into our country by majorchis and the
1:09:53
Speaker 17: Biden administration. Sext raight Nome, You've been working for months
1:09:56
Speaker 17: to fix the mess your predecessor left behind.
1:09:59
Speaker 6: Is the border, yes, it is.
1:10:03
Speaker 17: Besides additional resources, which you clearly need, what legislate fixes
1:10:08
Speaker 17: do you need from Congress to maintain a secure border?
1:10:11
Speaker 6: Well, Senator, thank you for the question.
1:10:13
Speaker 5: This border is the most secure border that we've ever
1:10:16
Speaker 5: had in the history of the United States of America.
1:10:18
Speaker 5: But what we need to do is address the areas
1:10:21
Speaker 5: that are still vulnerable, and those areas require technology, wall, infrastructure,
1:10:26
Speaker 5: more individuals at times than we need surveillance equipment camera
1:10:31
Speaker 5: equipment to be fixed. Out of only one out of
1:10:33
Speaker 5: three CBP cameras are really functional right now. So the
1:10:37
Speaker 5: Reconciliation Package is incredibly important for us to have the
1:10:40
Speaker 5: resources we need at the border, but also to make
1:10:42
Speaker 5: sure that CBP can continue to do their work that
1:10:45
Speaker 5: they do of our ports of entry, assessing terriffs and
1:10:47
Speaker 5: collecting duties, all of that. But beyond that, Reconciliation has
1:10:51
Speaker 5: needed assets for other areas of our national security portfolio.
1:10:55
Speaker 5: The fact of the matter is the Department of Homeland
1:10:57
Speaker 5: Security is one of the largest agents with one of
1:11:01
Speaker 5: the smallest budgets, and the task that we have taken
1:11:05
Speaker 5: on is gotten more and more complicated all the time
1:11:08
Speaker 5: as things move online cybersecurity, bad actors get more sophisticated,
1:11:12
Speaker 5: and now we've let these dangerous terraces and cartel members
1:11:15
Speaker 5: into our country in the interior of our country that
1:11:18
Speaker 5: threaten the American public. They need to be removed and
1:11:22
Speaker 5: taken out. And we're fighting a court system at times
1:11:24
Speaker 5: as well. So that Reconciliation Package make sure that we're
1:11:28
Speaker 5: able to due diligence and the work that we do
1:11:30
Speaker 5: and really assure the American people that we're on watch
1:11:33
Speaker 5: for them.
1:11:33
Speaker 6: Beyond that, remain.
1:11:35
Speaker 5: In Mexico policy to be codified would be incredibly important
1:11:38
Speaker 5: to make sure we have stability in that policy going forward.
1:11:43
Speaker 5: Some clarity and credible fear would be wonderful to have
1:11:47
Speaker 5: if this body would choose to tackle that, that would
1:11:50
Speaker 5: help us not have to deal consistently with court challenges
1:11:53
Speaker 5: and tie us up fighting that battle when we really
1:11:56
Speaker 5: should be addressing security concerns.
1:12:00
Speaker 17: One of the eleven US cities hosting matches for the
1:12:02
Speaker 17: upcoming World Cup, can you discuss how DHS is preparing
1:12:06
Speaker 17: for that, how DHS is working with the state and
1:12:08
Speaker 17: the locals make sure they have everything they need for
1:12:10
Speaker 17: a successful and secure event.
1:12:11
Speaker 5: Yes, we are working diligently with FIFA and other entities
1:12:16
Speaker 5: to ensure that cities and states have the assets that
1:12:19
Speaker 5: they need. This will be an unprecedented world event. It'll
1:12:23
Speaker 5: be take place in three different countries and many cities
1:12:27
Speaker 5: across our country but also Mexico and Canada, and it
1:12:30
Speaker 5: will take place over a month. That's the equivalent to
1:12:32
Speaker 5: ten different Super Bowls, and we will at times have
1:12:35
Speaker 5: eleven different matches going on in the country on the
1:12:38
Speaker 5: same day. And making sure we're supporting security operations and
1:12:41
Speaker 5: all of these cities is imperative. So having the conversations. Now,
1:12:47
Speaker 5: there's meetings happening almost every single day between our department,
1:12:51
Speaker 5: the White House, the federal government, and FIFA and these
1:12:55
Speaker 5: cities to ensure that we have the protocols in place,
1:12:58
Speaker 5: the guidelines in place, universal approach to how they're going
1:13:02
Speaker 5: to be applied, and then what we can do to
1:13:05
Speaker 5: secure not just the ground and territory and access to
1:13:08
Speaker 5: these events, but also the air space above it. We
1:13:13
Speaker 5: need counter drone technology, We need to have jurisdiction to
1:13:18
Speaker 5: be able to make sure that we're dealing with those
1:13:21
Speaker 5: threats as they present themselves, but also make sure that
1:13:23
Speaker 5: we have the men and women that are trained and
1:13:25
Speaker 5: prepared to secure them. Going forward, it will be safe
1:13:28
Speaker 5: and it will be secure. It's a lot of work
1:13:30
Speaker 5: because we've never done anything like this before.
1:13:32
Speaker 14: Though, Well, thank you for all your hard work and
1:13:34
Speaker 14: your team.
1:13:35
Speaker 6: Thank you appreciate it.
1:13:37
Speaker 18: Senator Slotkin, thank you, Chairman, thank you for being here.
1:13:41
Speaker 18: You know, Michigan's border state, so we need each other.
1:13:45
Speaker 18: We have a very big bridge that's being inaugurated ribbon
1:13:49
Speaker 18: cut in September.
1:13:51
Speaker 11: We need that to be fully staffed.
1:13:53
Speaker 18: We have a lot going on in Michigan as a
1:13:55
Speaker 18: northern border state, so we need each other. But what
1:13:59
Speaker 18: I can learned about is that you've taken the mandate
1:14:05
Speaker 18: to close off the border beyond going after, as you say,
1:14:11
Speaker 18: the quote most dangerous illegal immigrants. I'm a CIA officer.
1:14:15
Speaker 18: I work my entire life to protect the homeland. If
1:14:17
Speaker 18: someone's here illegally, they need to not be here. They've
1:14:19
Speaker 18: committed a crime by being here. They need to go
1:14:22
Speaker 18: back to wherever they're from. But my concern is that,
1:14:26
Speaker 18: either through sloppiness or intent, you have gone far beyond
1:14:30
Speaker 18: going after the quote most dangerous illegal immigrants and gone
1:14:33
Speaker 18: into legal immigrants who were given the ability to be here,
1:14:38
Speaker 18: and even American citizens. And when I think about that,
1:14:45
Speaker 18: you know, there are lots of people in this country,
1:14:47
Speaker 18: including me, who have families who fled this kind of
1:14:52
Speaker 18: environment where they have no rights, where they have no
1:14:56
Speaker 18: due process, where they don't have habeas corpus. So while
1:15:01
Speaker 18: I'll be the first to say, coming from a state
1:15:03
Speaker 18: that one by Trump was one by Trump, that there
1:15:05
Speaker 18: is a mandate to do something about the border, I
1:15:08
Speaker 18: think it is absolute dangerous overreach to go beyond that
1:15:12
Speaker 18: and start picking up American citizens and people who have
1:15:16
Speaker 18: the legal right to be here, lawful immigrants who have
1:15:18
Speaker 18: done everything right. So, first and foremost, do you acknowledge
1:15:23
Speaker 18: that your department has made some mistakes, any mistakes in
1:15:27
Speaker 18: going after either American citizens or legal immigrants here in
1:15:31
Speaker 18: the time that you've been in office.
1:15:33
Speaker 5: We have not deported any US citizens obtained or people
1:15:38
Speaker 5: get interviewed. If they get interviewed and they go through
1:15:41
Speaker 5: that process, and if we find that they're US citizens
1:15:44
Speaker 5: or legal immigrants, they stay in the United States, have
1:15:47
Speaker 5: a process.
1:15:48
Speaker 18: Have any American citizens, including children, been deported during your
1:15:53
Speaker 18: time in office?
1:15:54
Speaker 5: We have children that mothers have chosen to keep with them,
1:15:57
Speaker 5: so those by time, you.
1:15:58
Speaker 18: May attend American citizens, incouting children with cancer, who have
1:16:01
Speaker 18: been deported out of the country. I understand you're saying
1:16:04
Speaker 18: it's their choice, but it's hard to imagine the hard
1:16:07
Speaker 18: to imagine a small child having a choice.
1:16:10
Speaker 11: But have you gone after legal immigrants?
1:16:14
Speaker 19: Again?
1:16:14
Speaker 18: Your standard in your opening statement was the most dangerous
1:16:17
Speaker 18: illegal immigrants? Does that include PhD students and master students
1:16:20
Speaker 18: at colleges across the country unarmed? Are they the most
1:16:23
Speaker 18: dangerous illegal when they have status and no weapons?
1:16:26
Speaker 5: I don't decide who gets status through a student program.
1:16:30
Speaker 5: This Department of State decides that and we enforce it.
1:16:32
Speaker 5: Come on, that's what our Department of Home. I just
1:16:35
Speaker 5: would offer this again. I have no qualms with going
1:16:39
Speaker 5: after folks who are here illegally.
1:16:41
Speaker 11: That is not my concern.
1:16:42
Speaker 18: I prevented that was part of my job is to
1:16:44
Speaker 18: prevent people from coming here illegally in a former life.
1:16:48
Speaker 18: My concern is you're sending a chill down the spine
1:16:50
Speaker 18: of America by going after people who either have legal
1:16:54
Speaker 18: status or American citizens. And when my colleagues ask you
1:16:58
Speaker 18: about habeas corpus and you say, literally, we can review
1:17:02
Speaker 18: the tape that you believe it's a right.
1:17:04
Speaker 11: The president has.
1:17:06
Speaker 18: You sat here in front of all of us and
1:17:08
Speaker 18: swore an oath to the Constitution. And that is not
1:17:12
Speaker 18: at all what habeas corpus is. It is a right
1:17:14
Speaker 18: that we all get, that American citizens get that people
1:17:18
Speaker 18: who are in the United States legally have. So my
1:17:21
Speaker 18: concern is it's complete overreach. I don't think American citizens,
1:17:26
Speaker 18: even those who voted for Trump, believe that you should
1:17:28
Speaker 18: be able to just grab someone off the street, sloppy
1:17:31
Speaker 18: who has the legal right to be here. And certainly
1:17:33
Speaker 18: an American citizen, and I just I just am concerned
1:17:38
Speaker 18: that while you say you're going after the most dangerous folks,
1:17:41
Speaker 18: what you're actually doing is going after folks for political reasons.
1:17:45
Speaker 11: Right A PhD student, A PhD student.
1:17:47
Speaker 5: That's where are absolutely is not not deporting US citizens.
1:17:51
Speaker 6: And we're not deporting.
1:17:52
Speaker 18: Ten of them have been ten American citizens. So let
1:17:57
Speaker 18: me ask one other question about cybersecurity. You know you've
1:18:00
Speaker 18: cut five hundred million dollars from the budget. What specific
1:18:03
Speaker 18: programs are you cutting? Because there are programs that really
1:18:07
Speaker 18: aid states and locals that we depend on for cybersecurity.
1:18:12
Speaker 18: And we know that right now, while we may have
1:18:15
Speaker 18: good security in the federal government, if you are a
1:18:18
Speaker 18: local state official, you're depending on the federal government. So
1:18:22
Speaker 18: have you cut the IAC program, the program to states
1:18:25
Speaker 18: and locals on cybersecurity?
1:18:27
Speaker 5: The President's recommended budget has a reduction in four hundred
1:18:30
Speaker 5: and ninety one.
1:18:31
Speaker 6: Was it that program? I've heard them cut the program
1:18:34
Speaker 6: on mission.
1:18:35
Speaker 18: I just can't say that it's the most cyber security
1:18:38
Speaker 18: be strength. You cannot say it's the most CyberSecure administration.
1:18:41
Speaker 18: If you're cutting the program to my state and to
1:18:44
Speaker 18: your state, it will if you look on record, that's
1:18:46
Speaker 18: what you've cut.
1:18:47
Speaker 2: I yeel back, Tim has expired.
1:18:49
Speaker 20: Senator Holly, thank you very much, mister Chairman. Secretary No,
1:18:53
Speaker 20: I'm good to see you. Welcome, congratulations on securing the
1:18:56
Speaker 20: border and a record amount of time. The last administration
1:18:59
Speaker 20: came and sat where you're sitting for four years and
1:19:01
Speaker 20: told us it couldn't be done. It couldn't be done.
1:19:03
Speaker 20: The border was just an intractable problem. It would take
1:19:06
Speaker 20: years to do it. You did it in the space
1:19:09
Speaker 20: of really thirty days, and now the United States southern
1:19:12
Speaker 20: border is secure. So thank you for your tremendous work
1:19:14
Speaker 20: on that. I want to begin, however, with the situation
1:19:17
Speaker 20: in Saint Louis, which I'm sure you're aware of. On
1:19:19
Speaker 20: Friday afternoon and evening, major storms ripped through the Saint
1:19:22
Speaker 20: Louis area as well as southeast Missouri. I'm going to
1:19:25
Speaker 20: put a picture up over my shoulder here. An F
1:19:27
Speaker 20: three tornado cut right through north Saint Louis. This is
1:19:32
Speaker 20: what you're seeing here is pretty typical. I'm sad to
1:19:35
Speaker 20: say of the damage. We lost five people in Saint Louis.
1:19:38
Speaker 20: We lost another two in Scott County, which is down
1:19:40
Speaker 20: in southeast Missouri there to the south, a couple of
1:19:43
Speaker 20: hours south of the city. I spent much of the
1:19:46
Speaker 20: day yesterday just walking these neighborhoods and talking to residents.
1:19:50
Speaker 20: And this that you're seeing over my shoulder is what
1:19:52
Speaker 20: these neighborhoods all look like. These are areas that two
1:19:55
Speaker 20: families have lived here in some cases. I talked to
1:19:57
Speaker 20: one individual, one gentleman, and he said that his family
1:20:00
Speaker 20: had been there since his great grandmother came to that
1:20:03
Speaker 20: neighborhood in nineteen nineteen. So it's that kind of a community,
1:20:06
Speaker 20: and they are totally devastated. Yesterday afternoon, my governor requested
1:20:10
Speaker 20: an emergency disaster declaration to expedite FEMA funds to help
1:20:14
Speaker 20: the state just clean up, I mean, just clean up
1:20:16
Speaker 20: the kind of rubble now that you're seeing behind me.
1:20:19
Speaker 20: You've been a governor until very recently, you know how
1:20:22
Speaker 20: important this is. Can we get your help to expedite
1:20:24
Speaker 20: the consideration of that request? Again, it was just made yesterday.
1:20:28
Speaker 20: We need it as quickly as possible. Will you help
1:20:30
Speaker 20: us expedite that?
1:20:31
Speaker 3: Yeah?
1:20:31
Speaker 5: Absolutely, I've spoken with your governor and did that day
1:20:34
Speaker 5: that this devastation happened, and so promised and pledged to
1:20:38
Speaker 5: get that expedited as soon as possible for him so
1:20:41
Speaker 5: he can have the resources that he needs to respond
1:20:44
Speaker 5: to his people. And that's one of the failures that
1:20:45
Speaker 5: FEMA's had in the past, is that people that incur
1:20:49
Speaker 5: this kind of damage and lose everything, then they sit
1:20:51
Speaker 5: there for months, sometimes years, and never get the promised
1:20:55
Speaker 5: critical response that they think that they believe they shoululd
1:20:59
Speaker 5: be getting from the federal government. And that's why President
1:21:01
Speaker 5: Trump believes that this agency needs to be dramatically reformed.
1:21:05
Speaker 20: I'm glad to hear you say that, and you're exactly right.
1:21:07
Speaker 20: We've had the situation in Missouri in years past where
1:21:09
Speaker 20: we've had individuals who have qualified for FEMA aid, including
1:21:11
Speaker 20: individual assistants. In some cases, they've been awarded the assistance
1:21:15
Speaker 20: and then FEMA has come in and clawed it back
1:21:17
Speaker 20: or never paid it out, or never sent teams to help.
1:21:21
Speaker 20: So to have your commitment to expedite this is tremendous.
1:21:24
Speaker 20: That will be welcome news to the residents of Saint Louis.
1:21:27
Speaker 20: We also have the state has pending three requests for
1:21:30
Speaker 20: major disaster declarations from earlier storms. We've lost over a
1:21:34
Speaker 20: dozen people. Actually, if you count the folks we lost
1:21:37
Speaker 20: just on Friday, we've lost almost twenty people now in
1:21:40
Speaker 20: major storms just in the last two months in Missouri.
1:21:42
Speaker 20: It's been a terrible spring for us here again. Can
1:21:45
Speaker 20: I ask for your help? Will you commit to helping
1:21:47
Speaker 20: for those three major disaster declaration requests that are pending?
1:21:51
Speaker 20: Will you help expedite those Secretary of NOME and get
1:21:53
Speaker 20: those in front of the President and get those approved?
1:21:55
Speaker 3: We are desperate for the assistants in Missouri. Yes.
1:21:58
Speaker 5: Absolutely, make sure the application and gets to the White
1:22:00
Speaker 5: House as soon as possible.
1:22:01
Speaker 20: Fantastic, Thank you. And can I also have your commitment
1:22:04
Speaker 20: that if and when the President approves a major disaster
1:22:07
Speaker 20: declaration for this storm that just happened on Friday at
1:22:10
Speaker 20: Saint Louis, will you expedite as much as possible FEMA
1:22:14
Speaker 20: individual assistance for those who qualify for it in the
1:22:17
Speaker 20: Saint Louis area.
1:22:18
Speaker 3: Yes.
1:22:19
Speaker 20: And I want to tell you just how important that is,
1:22:20
Speaker 20: because as I toured these streets and walked and talked
1:22:23
Speaker 20: to the residents, what I heard over and over is
1:22:26
Speaker 20: many of these folks don't have insurance.
1:22:28
Speaker 3: You know, many of these folks.
1:22:29
Speaker 20: They either got their homes from a family member or
1:22:33
Speaker 20: they bought them from a family member, so they don't
1:22:35
Speaker 20: have a mortgage on the property, and therefore they don't
1:22:38
Speaker 20: have homeowners insurance. So, as you know, having been a
1:22:41
Speaker 20: governor in many instances, FEMA assistants is going to be
1:22:44
Speaker 20: the only assistance that they're going to get. And I
1:22:47
Speaker 20: just had a hearing in this committee and our subcommittee,
1:22:50
Speaker 20: Senator Kim and I last week where we talked to
1:22:52
Speaker 20: major insurance companies who routinely scam people by refusing to
1:22:57
Speaker 20: pay out the full policy awards that they are due.
1:23:00
Speaker 20: So I know we're going to be fighting that in Missouri.
1:23:02
Speaker 20: We've got to have the federal government where there's individual assistance.
1:23:05
Speaker 3: That people qualify for.
1:23:07
Speaker 20: We've got to have people be able to get that,
1:23:09
Speaker 20: otherwise we're never going to be able to rebuild these neighborhoods.
1:23:11
Speaker 20: So you just committed, I think, to expediting that. I
1:23:14
Speaker 20: appreciate that. Thank you for your help and all of this.
1:23:16
Speaker 20: And then the last thing we'll say is, can you
1:23:19
Speaker 20: commit also to making sure that the FEMA communication with
1:23:24
Speaker 20: the state and with individuals is open, is clear, is transparent.
1:23:28
Speaker 20: You reference the fact that FEMA is notorious, notorious for
1:23:32
Speaker 20: giving bad information, for slow walking residents, for confusing intake
1:23:38
Speaker 20: forms that nobody knows how to fill out, for not
1:23:40
Speaker 20: getting back to people. Can you commit to as we
1:23:43
Speaker 20: deal with this disaster in Saint Louis and others around
1:23:45
Speaker 20: the state. But under your leadership, FEMA is going to
1:23:48
Speaker 20: act with expedition. They are going to be clear in
1:23:51
Speaker 20: their communications, and they're going to follow up and give
1:23:54
Speaker 20: people the awards that they need if they qualify for it.
1:23:56
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's been the biggest challenge of FEMA in the past,
1:23:59
Speaker 5: is just the delayed response. People are counting on the
1:24:01
Speaker 5: assistance and it never comes through, and the paperwork is
1:24:04
Speaker 5: too complicated for an individual many times to complete on
1:24:07
Speaker 5: their own. They need help and assistance. So that's part
1:24:10
Speaker 5: of the reforms that the Female Review Council will be undertaking.
1:24:14
Speaker 5: And we've got people that are our first frontline responders
1:24:16
Speaker 5: across the country that are serving on that council, and
1:24:19
Speaker 5: we'll take your insight as well. But we'll continue to
1:24:22
Speaker 5: expedite what we can with the framework we have in
1:24:24
Speaker 5: front of us, but do better diligence than the last
1:24:26
Speaker 5: administration on how we take care of people.
1:24:28
Speaker 20: Fantastic. Everything you said today is going to be very
1:24:30
Speaker 20: very welcome news in Saint Louis and the rest of
1:24:32
Speaker 20: Missouri this morning.
1:24:33
Speaker 3: Thank you for being here, Thank you for your service.
1:24:35
Speaker 3: Thank you, mister Jerrem you Center Vetterman, thank you Secretary. Hi. Hello.
1:24:49
Speaker 21: As you may know, I'm from Pennsylvania and now I
1:24:53
Speaker 21: occupy perhaps a unique position. I've been very, very very
1:24:58
Speaker 21: pro immigration, but I early identified the serious problem about
1:25:04
Speaker 21: the border, the security. Uh, and I've said this publicly,
1:25:08
Speaker 21: I'll say it now that my party, my party failed
1:25:12
Speaker 21: to secure our border and we deserve to pay a
1:25:14
Speaker 21: political price for that. And I've been trying to find
1:25:17
Speaker 21: a way forward to to move forward and those things.
1:25:20
Speaker 21: I voted for you, not because you and I agree
1:25:23
Speaker 21: on a lot of political things and we're in different parties.
1:25:27
Speaker 21: But you're the Secretary and I'm a member of this committee,
1:25:29
Speaker 21: so I believe we have to find a way to
1:25:31
Speaker 21: work forward together. And I'm not here for fireworks or
1:25:35
Speaker 21: to try to create like something to be clipped on TV.
1:25:40
Speaker 21: I'm honestly coming, you know, asking for your help about
1:25:43
Speaker 21: a situation here. So now you know I have a constituent,
1:25:46
Speaker 21: his name's Ramine and he's in Afghani who served alongside
1:25:50
Speaker 21: our service members there in the war. He is a
1:25:54
Speaker 21: resident of Philadelphia. Now he's a surgeon, and he saved
1:25:59
Speaker 21: American love lives and now he is waiting to be
1:26:02
Speaker 21: approved like a green card. And now he helped evacuate
1:26:07
Speaker 21: our forces through an airlift. Now and his two brothers,
1:26:12
Speaker 21: and of course we can't name them due to their concerns,
1:26:14
Speaker 21: but they're trapped in Pakistan and the risk for removal
1:26:18
Speaker 21: for Afghanistan and they face torture and death because of
1:26:21
Speaker 21: their commitment for a free and democratic Afghanistan. They've saved
1:26:26
Speaker 21: American lives and they have defended our forces there and
1:26:33
Speaker 21: now here. That's part of my concern right now, and
1:26:35
Speaker 21: if looking for help, honestly, and that's one of the
1:26:38
Speaker 21: reasons why I voted for you, because we went to
1:26:40
Speaker 21: trying to find a way because not all immigration is
1:26:43
Speaker 21: just about securing our border, we know, but it's about
1:26:45
Speaker 21: helping people that deserve to come to our nation after
1:26:49
Speaker 21: serving in such an amazing, great risk. So there was
1:26:54
Speaker 21: the president's executive order suspending refugee resettlement now, but again
1:26:58
Speaker 21: they kind of got caught up in the middle of
1:26:59
Speaker 21: it that and I'm honestly, I'm not here looking for
1:27:03
Speaker 21: the theater. I'm just here to come because I think
1:27:05
Speaker 21: I believe they deserve to be here for the sacrifices
1:27:08
Speaker 21: and what they've put at risk. And I'm asking if
1:27:11
Speaker 21: we're able to get some kind of working with my office,
1:27:14
Speaker 21: you know, please to find a way to bring these
1:27:17
Speaker 21: afgh Any heroes that saved American lives during that war
1:27:21
Speaker 21: because things may got caught up in these executive orders
1:27:25
Speaker 21: that So that's really all I'm asking today.
1:27:28
Speaker 5: Yeah, Senator, we will certainly work with your office on
1:27:30
Speaker 5: those specific cases. We have eight thousand individuals that have
1:27:35
Speaker 5: been granted asylum since President Trump has been in office,
1:27:38
Speaker 5: looking at cases much like you have, and these individuals
1:27:42
Speaker 5: that are here that may have been on a different
1:27:44
Speaker 5: program like TPS that is no longer going to be
1:27:46
Speaker 5: in place in a couple of months, we have the
1:27:48
Speaker 5: opportunity to work with them to get them qualified. Many
1:27:51
Speaker 5: of the concerns with some of these countries when you're
1:27:54
Speaker 5: talking about, you know, interacting with them and giving them
1:27:58
Speaker 5: status and green cards here in the United States, the
1:28:00
Speaker 5: ability to vet them, and it sounds like the individuals
1:28:03
Speaker 5: that you know have been thorly vetted in partnership with
1:28:05
Speaker 5: the United States, and so that that is something that
1:28:09
Speaker 5: we'll look at and we'll certainly work with you on
1:28:11
Speaker 5: recognizing their their service to our country.
1:28:14
Speaker 21: Yeah, I would be I would be profoundly grateful if
1:28:17
Speaker 21: if my office can work with with your your team
1:28:20
Speaker 21: and perhaps even with state as well too. So that's
1:28:23
Speaker 21: all this is about too. You know, it's a political
1:28:26
Speaker 21: truth that we have to find a way to work
1:28:27
Speaker 21: together because there are truth and it is not owned
1:28:30
Speaker 21: by one side or the other. So I look forward
1:28:32
Speaker 21: to to finding a solution here.
1:28:36
Speaker 3: Okay, thank thank you.
1:28:37
Speaker 6: Thank you Sinner.
1:28:39
Speaker 3: Center MA right now, secur On, thank you for being here.
1:28:43
Speaker 3: Thank you for your work.
1:28:45
Speaker 22: I just wanted to reiterate for the record ninety three
1:28:48
Speaker 22: percent drop and border encounters.
1:28:51
Speaker 3: Is that accurate?
1:28:52
Speaker 12: That is correct?
1:28:53
Speaker 22: And are you aware that during the Biden Harris administration
1:28:57
Speaker 22: we had four thousand alien that died along the journey
1:29:02
Speaker 22: to come to America.
1:29:04
Speaker 6: I wasn't aware of that specific number, but it doesn't.
1:29:06
Speaker 22: Surprise me because basically we had a dangerous trip. It's
1:29:10
Speaker 22: a dangerous trip the Darien Gap, which is right here
1:29:13
Speaker 22: where I was born in Colombia went from being a
1:29:16
Speaker 22: supposedly uncrossable border to hundreds of thousands of people making
1:29:21
Speaker 22: that journey. Who benefited from our open borders policy under Biden?
1:29:27
Speaker 6: Oh, I would say Joe Biden certainly did.
1:29:29
Speaker 22: And the drug cartels that made tens of billions of dollars, ye,
1:29:33
Speaker 22: And who was the victim certainly American citizens.
1:29:38
Speaker 5: American citizens, but those who chose to come to our
1:29:40
Speaker 5: country at that time believing that they could come without
1:29:43
Speaker 5: any consequences.
1:29:45
Speaker 22: And obviously the drug cartels are drug cartels that became
1:29:49
Speaker 22: human traffickers at scale and used that human trafficking as
1:29:53
Speaker 22: a disguise to allow illegal fetanyl to come into our country.
1:29:58
Speaker 22: And what's been the ramification of that? What have you
1:30:00
Speaker 22: seen firsthand when you go to the border, What do
1:30:02
Speaker 22: the agents tell you about the fetanyl that's coming across
1:30:05
Speaker 22: the border.
1:30:06
Speaker 6: Well, it's devastating.
1:30:08
Speaker 5: Luckily, we have the ability now to enforce our laws
1:30:11
Speaker 5: with this president, and fentanyl traffic has been down fifty
1:30:15
Speaker 5: four percent since he's been in office because of that.
1:30:18
Speaker 5: But unfortunately, what's happening is these cartels, foreign terrorist organizations
1:30:22
Speaker 5: are now moving to our maritime borders. They're moving and
1:30:26
Speaker 5: getting much more sophisticated, and so we need to adapt
1:30:28
Speaker 5: and have the resources to be able to interdict them
1:30:30
Speaker 5: before they come in and kill off our next generation
1:30:33
Speaker 5: of Americans.
1:30:34
Speaker 22: So it's not hyperbole to say that tens of thousands
1:30:38
Speaker 22: of Americans have not been killed with fatanyl because of
1:30:41
Speaker 22: the rect Absolutely, and it's just important to just reflect,
1:30:45
Speaker 22: not for political reasons, but just for moral reasons to
1:30:49
Speaker 22: say that what happened over the last four years just despicable.
1:30:52
Speaker 22: We should never have allowed that to happen. There was
1:30:55
Speaker 22: no outcry about the situation, and yet it.
1:31:00
Speaker 3: Was allowed to happen. Now it's a lot.
1:31:01
Speaker 22: Easier to enter America than it is to be deported
1:31:04
Speaker 22: for America.
1:31:05
Speaker 3: Can you talk about that from it?
1:31:06
Speaker 5: Well, that is true when you have a president in
1:31:08
Speaker 5: the White House that is openly saying our laws won't
1:31:11
Speaker 5: be enforced. And in facilitating this invasion that happened over
1:31:15
Speaker 5: our southern border, we had millions of people come, and
1:31:20
Speaker 5: not just people looking for new opportunities in the American dream.
1:31:22
Speaker 5: You had people coming that were criminals, murderers, rapists, traffickers, terrorists,
1:31:28
Speaker 5: And now to remove them is much more complicated difficult
1:31:32
Speaker 5: and expensive for us to deport someone that we have
1:31:36
Speaker 5: to go out and find that individual, arrest and detain
1:31:39
Speaker 5: them and remove them from the country. It costs upwards
1:31:41
Speaker 5: to seventeen thousand dollars if there isn't more delays than
1:31:46
Speaker 5: the normal process. That's why we're encouraging people to self deport.
1:31:50
Speaker 5: If you are here illegally, we recognize that you may
1:31:53
Speaker 5: have been here for a period of time. But if
1:31:55
Speaker 5: you want to leave and have the chance to come
1:31:57
Speaker 5: back someday, leave on your own.
1:31:59
Speaker 6: We will facility that will buy you a plane ticket
1:32:01
Speaker 6: when you land.
1:32:02
Speaker 5: We will give you one thousand dollars that you can
1:32:05
Speaker 5: get started with and provide for your family. That cost
1:32:08
Speaker 5: of self deportation is forty five hundred dollars, so much
1:32:12
Speaker 5: much more cheaper for the American taxpayer. And how we
1:32:16
Speaker 5: make sure that we really are following our laws and
1:32:18
Speaker 5: that the people here in this country, the American citizens,
1:32:22
Speaker 5: are treated with the respect that they're due by coming
1:32:25
Speaker 5: here through the legal process and being a part of
1:32:27
Speaker 5: our future.
1:32:28
Speaker 22: Yeah, and I think it's just important, and I hope
1:32:30
Speaker 22: my colleagues, especially on the other side of the Aisle.
1:32:33
Speaker 22: I look at Sanerriga Diego whose family came here from
1:32:36
Speaker 22: another Country's mom from Colombia, that from Mexico. That we
1:32:42
Speaker 22: honor and respect those of us like myself, my five brothers,
1:32:46
Speaker 22: my sister, my mom and dad that followed the legal process, which, by.
1:32:49
Speaker 3: The way, is hard. It's a privilege to come to America.
1:32:52
Speaker 3: It's not easy. You have to go through a process.
1:32:56
Speaker 22: But over the last four years, what we did is
1:32:58
Speaker 22: we made it so that if you hired a drug
1:33:00
Speaker 22: cartel brought you to the border and then raised your
1:33:03
Speaker 22: hand when you got to the border patrol and said
1:33:06
Speaker 22: asylum or asilo asilo, that that got you a free
1:33:10
Speaker 22: ticket into the country, free housing, free health care, free education,
1:33:14
Speaker 22: to the detriment of Americas. And I think that should
1:33:16
Speaker 22: be something we unite about. And Senator Fetterman talked about
1:33:19
Speaker 22: asylum seekers. Those are not asylum seekers. There are people
1:33:22
Speaker 22: who want a better life. They're economic migrants. We empathize
1:33:26
Speaker 22: for them, but we have to have a process that
1:33:30
Speaker 22: we honor the people who are following the rules. So
1:33:33
Speaker 22: for example, the afghanis that he's talking about, well, they
1:33:36
Speaker 22: have to wait in line behind millions of fake asylum claims.
1:33:40
Speaker 22: And I think we have to once and for all
1:33:41
Speaker 22: acknowledge that that's the case. I was proud to introduce
1:33:44
Speaker 22: something called the Rules Act. Unfortunately the Democrats blocked that
1:33:48
Speaker 22: very common sense bill, which would have said, hey, if
1:33:51
Speaker 22: you come across our border illegally and claim asylum, you
1:33:55
Speaker 22: can't claim asylum at an undesignated port of entry.
1:33:58
Speaker 3: You're immediately returned. Something that's common sense.
1:34:01
Speaker 22: I want to ask you a few other just technical questions.
1:34:04
Speaker 2: I want time. We're going to do another round in
1:34:07
Speaker 2: just a few minutes.
1:34:08
Speaker 3: Okay, do you mind. I just asked one quick question.
1:34:10
Speaker 2: One quick ones.
1:34:11
Speaker 3: Okay.
1:34:12
Speaker 22: I want to just encourage you to continue to do
1:34:15
Speaker 22: what you're doing, which is to enforce the law, which
1:34:18
Speaker 22: is that the agencies within DHS purchased products in the
1:34:21
Speaker 22: United States of America.
1:34:22
Speaker 3: So I applaud you for doing that.
1:34:24
Speaker 6: Yeah, yes, thank you for that.
1:34:26
Speaker 23: Senator Guy Diego, thank you, thank you, Share, thank you
1:34:32
Speaker 23: forctaring known for ten today. Let me start by also
1:34:35
Speaker 23: agreeing with SUA Marine on some things. And I think
1:34:38
Speaker 23: it is positive the trempistration has provided stronger bord security
1:34:42
Speaker 23: to keep illegal border crossings as close to zero as
1:34:44
Speaker 23: poss But we definitely have seen that in Arizona.
1:34:46
Speaker 3: Uh.
1:34:47
Speaker 23: You know, my concern is that it's not sustainable. It's expensive,
1:34:50
Speaker 23: and that's why I recently released a comment s ince
1:34:52
Speaker 23: Bord Security that would make it sustainable and would actually
1:34:55
Speaker 23: deliver long term solutions. But let me get to my
1:34:57
Speaker 23: first question. Your department is overspending right now, It's on
1:35:00
Speaker 23: track turnout of money again by mid July support a
1:35:04
Speaker 23: mass deportation campaign that can't be afforded. At the same time, though,
1:35:08
Speaker 23: you recently requested a fifty million dollar allotment for a
1:35:12
Speaker 23: private Gulfstream jet. That's fifteen million dollars of taxpayer money
1:35:16
Speaker 23: to subsidize some of your national tours you've been going on. Meanwhile,
1:35:20
Speaker 23: Republicans are about to kick another thirteen million people off
1:35:22
Speaker 23: Medicaid to fund taxes for the rich on the backs
1:35:25
Speaker 23: of some working class Americans. So how can you justify
1:35:28
Speaker 23: spending millions fifty million on a jet while your departments
1:35:32
Speaker 23: is definitely overspending and Republish and Congress are about to
1:35:35
Speaker 23: strip off of healthcare from millions of Americans.
1:35:39
Speaker 6: Well, Senator, thank you for the question.
1:35:40
Speaker 5: We are spending our dollars appropriately and will beyond budget
1:35:44
Speaker 5: when your reference to the airframe that was the requested
1:35:47
Speaker 5: dollars were put in for.
1:35:49
Speaker 6: That's for the Coast Guard.
1:35:50
Speaker 5: It's to replace an existing jet that is over twenty
1:35:53
Speaker 5: years old and is beyond its usable hours. And the
1:35:57
Speaker 5: Coast Guard for many many years has been neglect and
1:36:00
Speaker 5: has many airframe that have been grounded because they can't
1:36:03
Speaker 5: even be maintained anymore. The suppliers they give us parts
1:36:06
Speaker 5: and repairs and maintenance for them have said that they'll
1:36:08
Speaker 5: no longer support that kind of emission. We have cutters
1:36:11
Speaker 5: that haven't been completed, that haven't been deployed out across
1:36:14
Speaker 5: the world. And then we also beyond that, are asking
1:36:18
Speaker 5: for a request to build out the number of Coast
1:36:21
Speaker 5: Guard members that we need in place. We're asking for
1:36:23
Speaker 5: fifteen thousands where to complete the mills they're going for.
1:36:26
Speaker 23: Are you going to have access to that fifty million
1:36:28
Speaker 23: dollars Gulf Stream jet that the Coast Guard is going
1:36:30
Speaker 23: to supply.
1:36:31
Speaker 5: The Coast Guard will use that jet exactly how it
1:36:33
Speaker 5: uses the jets that it has today, exactly in the
1:36:35
Speaker 5: same manner that it uses the ones that it has
1:36:37
Speaker 5: in place to.
1:36:38
Speaker 23: Would you consistently be using to travel.
1:36:40
Speaker 5: I don't know if I would use that one or
1:36:42
Speaker 5: if I would use the other one. I have no idea,
1:36:44
Speaker 5: but I do spend time out there with our components
1:36:47
Speaker 5: making sure that they are know that they have a secretary.
1:36:50
Speaker 23: That's engages with them, that's visiting.
1:36:52
Speaker 5: Them, seeing what their needs are. No, sir, they're not photos.
1:36:56
Speaker 5: They've meant the world to the individuals at the Departmental Security.
1:36:59
Speaker 5: They have meant the world to our iceags when they ask.
1:37:05
Speaker 23: Some law enforcement besides those under DHS, we've also seen
1:37:11
Speaker 23: some law offers that have been pulled away from investigations,
1:37:13
Speaker 23: such as child porn, sex trafficking. We've had some agents
1:37:17
Speaker 23: pulled in that we're doing investigations on bank fraud that
1:37:20
Speaker 23: are now you know, provisional UH provisional ICE agents, and
1:37:25
Speaker 23: I think creating and making them do this type of
1:37:27
Speaker 23: work is also making us more and more dangerous and
1:37:30
Speaker 23: so not actually doing this long term investigation. On the
1:37:33
Speaker 23: other hand, I have talked to some border sheets and
1:37:36
Speaker 23: sheriffs repeatedly, and they've been highlighting the danger associated with
1:37:40
Speaker 23: cartels targeting teenagers and border communities through social media apps
1:37:45
Speaker 23: and recruiting them to participate in smoking operations. And one
1:37:47
Speaker 23: of the bills I introduced with several collegues here actually
1:37:51
Speaker 23: is the Combating Cartels on Social Media Act, which will
1:37:53
Speaker 23: help DHS counter the threat Arizona communities cannot wait for
1:37:57
Speaker 23: the legendive process to play out on this. DHS doing
1:38:01
Speaker 23: to solve this problem help keep American children and communities
1:38:04
Speaker 23: safe from cartel criminal activity and recruitment too.
1:38:10
Speaker 5: Well, that is the problem that we have with the
1:38:11
Speaker 5: longer that they're here, the more established they become, and
1:38:14
Speaker 5: the more they recruit individuals who may live in this country,
1:38:17
Speaker 5: US citizens or even our kids to be a part
1:38:19
Speaker 5: of their operation.
1:38:21
Speaker 23: Side too, So it's both sides. What do you mean
1:38:23
Speaker 23: on some of the cartels are using social media and
1:38:26
Speaker 23: let's say Mexico, we'll definitely there.
1:38:28
Speaker 2: So it's back and forth.
1:38:29
Speaker 5: Yes, they definitely are, but they also are infiltrating our
1:38:31
Speaker 5: country still by recruiting our children to be a part
1:38:34
Speaker 5: of their nestlers. So we're working with not just the
1:38:38
Speaker 5: experts that we have within CBP and ICE, but also
1:38:41
Speaker 5: using our other components to address some of the sophistication
1:38:44
Speaker 5: that we've seen in these apps, as far as SISA
1:38:47
Speaker 5: and partnerships that they may have with private industry that
1:38:50
Speaker 5: can give us insight and what we can do to
1:38:52
Speaker 5: deploy our own counter terrorist activities and applications to those systems,
1:38:58
Speaker 5: what we can do to make sure that we're stopping
1:39:00
Speaker 5: their ability to communicate with our children and bringing awareness.
1:39:03
Speaker 5: The Department of Homeland Security has programs in different areas,
1:39:07
Speaker 5: such as the Noble to Protect and the other programs
1:39:10
Speaker 5: you may be familiar with.
1:39:11
Speaker 23: When able to work directly with the social media companies,
1:39:13
Speaker 23: though not just through the list.
1:39:14
Speaker 6: We have had conversations with the social business companies, and.
1:39:17
Speaker 23: By the time we get around to do it, we're
1:39:19
Speaker 23: losing more and more people. So like having a very
1:39:21
Speaker 23: direct conversation and a concentrated effort to actually have outcomes
1:39:25
Speaker 23: is going to be quicker because they have the option
1:39:27
Speaker 23: to it.
1:39:27
Speaker 7: We don't have to come in and do it.
1:39:29
Speaker 23: They just choose not to because they rather have make
1:39:32
Speaker 23: more money than anything else.
1:39:34
Speaker 5: Well that may be, but I found them very willing
1:39:36
Speaker 5: to come to the table. I've had myself spent dozens
1:39:39
Speaker 5: of hours with them, and my team has spent hundreds
1:39:42
Speaker 5: of hours visiting with them on what we can do
1:39:44
Speaker 5: to be much more proactive. So they've got some solutions
1:39:48
Speaker 5: that we can pursue. Will be coming to you with
1:39:49
Speaker 5: some of those ideas, but I think it's important that
1:39:52
Speaker 5: we use their knowledge of this way of communication and
1:39:56
Speaker 5: recruitment to help protect our children.
1:40:00
Speaker 19: Senator Ernest, thank you, mister Chair Secretary Nome, thank you
1:40:05
Speaker 19: very much for being here today.
1:40:07
Speaker 12: I truly appreciate it.
1:40:10
Speaker 19: During your confirmation process, I had shared a story with
1:40:14
Speaker 19: you and it was a heartbreaking story about one of
1:40:17
Speaker 19: my constituents, Sarah Root. Sarah was killed by an illegal
1:40:22
Speaker 19: immigrant that was drunk driving with three times the blood
1:40:27
Speaker 19: alcohol content of the legal limit, three times over the limit,
1:40:33
Speaker 19: using a.
1:40:33
Speaker 12: Loophole in the federal law.
1:40:35
Speaker 19: That killer he fled the country and he vanished for years.
1:40:41
Speaker 19: But thanks to your leadership, your leadership, and the work
1:40:48
Speaker 19: of many of the brave men and women of DHS
1:40:50
Speaker 19: and the State Department, Sarah's killer was arrested in Honduras
1:40:56
Speaker 19: in a matter of days, days after our conversation and
1:41:03
Speaker 19: was extradited back to the United States. He is in Omaha,
1:41:07
Speaker 19: Nebraska now and he is going through the court system there.
1:41:12
Speaker 19: And believe you and me, Sarah's mother, Michelle Root, her
1:41:16
Speaker 19: father Scott Root, and her brother Scottie Root. Thank you
1:41:22
Speaker 19: day in and day out, and President Trump for having
1:41:25
Speaker 19: the wherewithal to follow through to bring her killer to justice.
1:41:30
Speaker 12: So thank you, thank you for that.
1:41:33
Speaker 5: Well, thank you for telling Sarah's story. I know you
1:41:35
Speaker 5: had two for many many years. That was the first
1:41:38
Speaker 5: time Honduras actually extradated.
1:41:40
Speaker 6: Someone for homicide.
1:41:43
Speaker 5: And so I think it's very important the President we
1:41:46
Speaker 5: set the relationship that we built there so that we
1:41:48
Speaker 5: are able to get some justice for Sarah's family. And
1:41:50
Speaker 5: thank you for being passionate about her. And that just
1:41:53
Speaker 5: proves that telling your story and telling her story doesn't
1:41:57
Speaker 5: fall on deaf ears.
1:41:58
Speaker 12: With this administration, it certainly doesn't.
1:42:01
Speaker 19: And I want to take this time and just to
1:42:03
Speaker 19: point out the difference in the administrations. So, after this
1:42:09
Speaker 19: killer fled from prosecution in the United States, he was
1:42:14
Speaker 19: on IS's most wanted list.
1:42:18
Speaker 12: That was in the Trump administration.
1:42:21
Speaker 19: When President Biden came into office, he actually took this killer,
1:42:25
Speaker 19: Edwin Mahea, off of the most wanted list. They weren't
1:42:29
Speaker 19: actively trying to find him. They didn't care about Sarah's
1:42:34
Speaker 19: plight nor that of her parents. President Trump came back
1:42:40
Speaker 19: into office and again within that first month of President
1:42:45
Speaker 19: Trump being in office and you being sworn in, we
1:42:49
Speaker 19: had located him in Honduras and was able to negotiate
1:42:55
Speaker 19: for the extradition of this killer back to the United States.
1:43:00
Speaker 19: This family deserves justice, and I'm glad that they are
1:43:03
Speaker 19: getting it, So thank you, Secretary Nome. Just a few
1:43:08
Speaker 19: moments ago, you said that you have provided the committee
1:43:11
Speaker 19: quote with fifty thousand pages from COVID and the origins.
1:43:17
Speaker 19: I haven't seen any of those pages yet. Will you
1:43:21
Speaker 19: commit to ensuring that I am able to see those
1:43:25
Speaker 19: fifty thousand pages.
1:43:27
Speaker 5: Yeah, certainly, they were given to the chairman at his request,
1:43:31
Speaker 5: and I'll certainly.
1:43:32
Speaker 2: For those documents.
1:43:33
Speaker 1: Are those documents are up in your staff does have
1:43:35
Speaker 1: access to them?
1:43:36
Speaker 12: Okay? Great, thank you. I appreciate that.
1:43:39
Speaker 19: I know that the Biden administration had blocked us from
1:43:43
Speaker 19: seeing that information. So I think it's really really important
1:43:47
Speaker 19: that those of us on the Committee that have pursued
1:43:50
Speaker 19: the origins of COVID have the opportunity to review those documents.
1:43:55
Speaker 12: So thank you.
1:43:56
Speaker 19: Just in the remaining time that I have, I want
1:43:58
Speaker 19: to talk a little bit about the doze work that
1:44:01
Speaker 19: we have going on, and you've been a very good
1:44:03
Speaker 19: partner with DOJE, and I want to commend your recent efficiency.
1:44:08
Speaker 19: You've enhanced election integrity and you've saved taxpayer dollars. And
1:44:13
Speaker 19: in October of twenty twenty four, my home state of
1:44:16
Speaker 19: Iowa uncovered over two thousand cases of non citizens. Iowa
1:44:22
Speaker 19: two thousand cases of non citizens registering to vote or
1:44:28
Speaker 19: voting after self identifying as non citizens at the DMV.
1:44:36
Speaker 12: This happens every day, folks.
1:44:39
Speaker 19: The previous administration, again, Joe Biden's administration, obstructed Iowa's request
1:44:45
Speaker 19: for immigrant verification records in the days before our federal election.
1:44:51
Speaker 19: This is unacceptable, and I'm grateful that you tackled this
1:44:55
Speaker 19: issue immediately.
1:44:57
Speaker 12: Some people may.
1:44:58
Speaker 19: Say two thousand people, big deal, but I will remind
1:45:02
Speaker 19: you that in one of our congressional districts, in the
1:45:05
Speaker 19: case of Marionette Miller Meeks, who's now a congresswoman, she
1:45:10
Speaker 19: won her race by six.
1:45:15
Speaker 6: Six votes.
1:45:18
Speaker 12: It matters.
1:45:20
Speaker 19: Thank you, Secretary, known for doing the right thing, and
1:45:23
Speaker 19: I yield.
1:45:23
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you.
1:45:24
Speaker 2: We're going to try to do a quick round of
1:45:26
Speaker 2: five minutes one more time.
1:45:27
Speaker 1: I'm going to gable at five minutes, so the Secretary knows,
1:45:30
Speaker 1: everybody knows that's the end. We're going to try to
1:45:31
Speaker 1: move on to the next person to get you out
1:45:34
Speaker 1: of here.
1:45:35
Speaker 2: We talked a little bit about the wall earlier.
1:45:38
Speaker 1: The administration has asked for forty six point five billion
1:45:41
Speaker 1: dollars for the wall.
1:45:42
Speaker 2: The border on the.
1:45:43
Speaker 1: Mexican board is about nineteen hundred and fifty miles. We've
1:45:47
Speaker 1: fenced he walled about seven hundred of it. That leads
1:45:50
Speaker 1: about twelve hundred miles.
1:45:52
Speaker 2: There's two or three hundred miles of it that's probably
1:45:54
Speaker 2: never gonna have a fence on.
1:45:55
Speaker 1: It's mountainous or just impossible to fence her wall. So
1:45:59
Speaker 1: I would say we realistically you got under a thousand.
1:46:02
Speaker 2: Let's just say there's a thousand. You really want a
1:46:03
Speaker 2: wall in a thousand. CBP says at six.
1:46:07
Speaker 1: Point five million per mile, your response today was twelve
1:46:11
Speaker 1: millions per mile. That means twelve billion dollars for one
1:46:14
Speaker 1: thousand miles. We're all here by a factor of three
1:46:16
Speaker 1: or four. With forty six billion. Where's the rest of
1:46:20
Speaker 1: the forty six billion? The administration says they want forty
1:46:22
Speaker 1: six billion for a wall. You could pave all of
1:46:25
Speaker 1: it and still have you know, thirty you know thirty
1:46:29
Speaker 1: four billion leftover.
1:46:30
Speaker 2: What's a thirty four billion going for him?
1:46:33
Speaker 5: Yeah, Senator, thank you for the question. We do have
1:46:35
Speaker 5: seven hundred and two miles of wall today. Of five
1:46:39
Speaker 5: hundred and ninety eight of that are steal. The rest
1:46:40
Speaker 5: of that is temporary that's in place. Since President's been
1:46:43
Speaker 5: in office, over seventy miles has been erected. We have
1:46:47
Speaker 5: eleven contracts that have gone out and allocated. We also
1:46:51
Speaker 5: have five more that are pending. Based on the dollars
1:46:55
Speaker 5: that have been requested, it's not just the infrastructure that
1:46:58
Speaker 5: would be built that would be the actual wall construction,
1:47:01
Speaker 5: it would be also.
1:47:02
Speaker 1: The number the numbers. The numbers way off a thousand.
1:47:05
Speaker 1: You could do one thousand miles for twelve billion. You're
1:47:08
Speaker 1: asking them for forty six billion. So I'm one who's
1:47:10
Speaker 1: not impressed and would have to see more detail as
1:47:12
Speaker 1: to wear the rest of the money. We can't just
1:47:14
Speaker 1: throw thirty billion dollars out there and say things cost
1:47:17
Speaker 1: a lot.
1:47:18
Speaker 6: I agree. We'll get you the specific sign.
1:47:20
Speaker 1: With regard to the drones and all the preparatory work
1:47:23
Speaker 1: the DHS does and the government does for the NFL
1:47:25
Speaker 1: and for FIFA does the NFL pay dhs for the
1:47:29
Speaker 1: work you do.
1:47:31
Speaker 6: Point not to my knowledge, I will well.
1:47:33
Speaker 2: I mean, here here's my point.
1:47:35
Speaker 1: The NFL makes billions of dollars worth two trillion in
1:47:38
Speaker 1: the whole. I don't care if government shares their technology
1:47:42
Speaker 1: and government helps out the World Cup.
1:47:44
Speaker 2: But they ought to pay.
1:47:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're paying hundreds of dollars for tickets, I mean
1:47:48
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars for the NFL for Super Bowl and things.
1:47:51
Speaker 1: They're also paying for FIFA, and so these people ought
1:47:54
Speaker 1: to pay. And so I'm one holding up these authorizations
1:47:58
Speaker 1: and I'll let them go forward, but I.
1:48:01
Speaker 2: Want people to pay.
1:48:02
Speaker 1: I mean, it's ridiculous that the average taxpayer who could
1:48:04
Speaker 1: never afford to go to an NFL Super Bowl has
1:48:06
Speaker 1: got to pay for their security. Should the government help
1:48:09
Speaker 1: if we have technology they don't, perhaps, but they ought
1:48:13
Speaker 1: to pay. So NFL FIFA, I think they ought ought
1:48:15
Speaker 1: to pay. And we'll be insisting on trying to put
1:48:18
Speaker 1: language in that if you're a for profit entity and
1:48:21
Speaker 1: the government's helping you, you ought to pay for it.
1:48:24
Speaker 1: With regard to Tsa, Quiet Skies and Tulsea Gabbard situation,
1:48:29
Speaker 1: I suspect there's going to be other people that were
1:48:31
Speaker 1: caught up in this thing as well. I'm horrified by
1:48:34
Speaker 1: the idea that we took a former congresswoman and we're
1:48:38
Speaker 1: surveilling her and writing on jets with her. There was
1:48:41
Speaker 1: another story of an air marshal whose wife I mean
1:48:44
Speaker 1: might have been it January sixth or something. And now we're,
1:48:47
Speaker 1: you know, have air marshals writing following another air marshal.
1:48:51
Speaker 2: Or his wife. So I want to hear the whole
1:48:54
Speaker 2: story of what happened.
1:48:56
Speaker 1: I want to hear that people have been let go,
1:48:58
Speaker 1: that they're no longer doing this. If there were abuses
1:49:01
Speaker 1: of Tulsi Gabbard's liberties, I want to hear from that.
1:49:04
Speaker 1: But I want reprecautions to come from this. And I
1:49:07
Speaker 1: think you've said something's coming. Please let us know, and
1:49:11
Speaker 1: let us know how the program, the destruction of civil
1:49:16
Speaker 1: liberties can be minimized. I frankly probably have trouble with
1:49:19
Speaker 1: a whole program, but let's see if there's some way.
1:49:21
Speaker 2: But we need significant reform, if it needs legislation, please
1:49:25
Speaker 2: come to us with that. Thank you for your testimony
1:49:27
Speaker 2: to day.
1:49:28
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you again Sertrey.
1:49:32
Speaker 4: Now for being here. I just want to follow up
1:49:34
Speaker 4: briefly with Chairman Paul's questions about the cost of the wall,
1:49:38
Speaker 4: the billions of dollars that are going to be put forward,
1:49:41
Speaker 4: we do have to have accurate numbers so that we
1:49:44
Speaker 4: could look at that for funding it. But I would
1:49:46
Speaker 4: hope you also take a look at all of the
1:49:48
Speaker 4: cost of a wall, because there are a lot of
1:49:49
Speaker 4: other secondary kinds of defenses you have to put forward.
1:49:53
Speaker 4: I was at the wall. I've been with security folks.
1:49:55
Speaker 4: They tell me that a lot of the cartels have
1:49:58
Speaker 4: designed very phisticated technologies to get over the wall. They're
1:50:02
Speaker 4: called ladders and they're called ropes. So a wall doesn't
1:50:06
Speaker 4: really do the job if there's not a lot of
1:50:08
Speaker 4: other background technologies there. So you just can't put out
1:50:11
Speaker 4: a cost for the wall. That's money that's not going
1:50:14
Speaker 4: to be as effective without everything else. So let's have
1:50:17
Speaker 4: a discussion about that. For the first time in US history,
1:50:20
Speaker 4: the federal government, at the direction of President Trump, is
1:50:24
Speaker 4: moving immigrants apprehended and detained in the United States on
1:50:28
Speaker 4: civil immigration charges to naval station at Guantanamo Bay, which
1:50:33
Speaker 4: I know you're very familiar with. In March, I traveled
1:50:36
Speaker 4: to Guantanamo Bay with several colleagues to have a first
1:50:40
Speaker 4: hand examination of the detention operations underway, and I certainly
1:50:45
Speaker 4: have serious concerns about the cost involved there today. Can
1:50:48
Speaker 4: you tell us the total cost for detaining individuals at
1:50:52
Speaker 4: Guantanamo Bay?
1:50:53
Speaker 6: You want the cost per individual?
1:50:55
Speaker 3: Do you have that?
1:50:56
Speaker 6: I do not have that with me today, Sir, I
1:50:57
Speaker 6: can get that for you.
1:50:59
Speaker 3: Well, I do have a number.
1:51:01
Speaker 4: Do you know how much it costs to hold an
1:51:03
Speaker 4: immigrant in ice attention facility in the United States?
1:51:07
Speaker 3: You have that number?
1:51:08
Speaker 6: Are you talking per day?
1:51:10
Speaker 5: One hundred and I believe the last estimate that I
1:51:13
Speaker 5: got was one hundred and forty two dollars a day
1:51:15
Speaker 5: around in that approximately a pretty it's.
1:51:17
Speaker 4: Close to what I'm understanding. I understand it's one hundred
1:51:20
Speaker 4: and sixty five dollars per day, so it's in the range.
1:51:24
Speaker 4: I'm still waiting for detailed financial information from this administration
1:51:28
Speaker 4: from my time to Gontanamo Bay.
1:51:29
Speaker 3: In fact, we a letter.
1:51:30
Speaker 4: With Ranking Member or Chairman, Paul and the ranking Member together,
1:51:33
Speaker 4: we wanted more information on the costs there. When I
1:51:39
Speaker 4: was there, the two month cost estimate for operations was
1:51:43
Speaker 4: forty three million dollars. When we were down there talking
1:51:45
Speaker 4: to the officials there, and that does not include transportation
1:51:48
Speaker 4: to and from the island. We find that people are
1:51:51
Speaker 4: sent to the island and then they're sent back to
1:51:52
Speaker 4: the United States again before they're sent out. I'm not
1:51:55
Speaker 4: sure why we have all those costs. We have plenty
1:51:57
Speaker 4: of vice facilities to keep them here, have to send
1:52:00
Speaker 4: them there and back. And on the day that I visited,
1:52:03
Speaker 4: there were eighty seven people in custody, And my understanding
1:52:08
Speaker 4: is that's a pretty normal number there's at that time
1:52:11
Speaker 4: at least, so my back of the Napkin calculation we're
1:52:13
Speaker 4: waiting for your numbers is that it's costing about one
1:52:16
Speaker 4: hundred thousand dollars a day to keep someone at Guantanamo Bay.
1:52:21
Speaker 3: Man, this is like ripe for Doge. Why is Doge
1:52:24
Speaker 3: not down there?
1:52:25
Speaker 24: There were spending one hundred thousand dollars a day to
1:52:28
Speaker 24: keep someone at Guantanamo, and we fly them down there,
1:52:30
Speaker 24: we keep them there a while, then we fly them
1:52:31
Speaker 24: back to the United States, or we could keep them
1:52:34
Speaker 24: here for one hundred and sixty five dollars a day.
1:52:36
Speaker 3: I think that's kind of outrageous.
1:52:38
Speaker 4: So, you know, I'm concerned by the staggering cost of this,
1:52:42
Speaker 4: and I would hope Secretary, you could commit providing this
1:52:45
Speaker 4: committee a detailed breakdown of the total cost of that operation.
1:52:49
Speaker 4: There there were just a sea of empty beds. There
1:52:51
Speaker 4: was all sorts of security folks and nobody in those beds.
1:52:56
Speaker 3: Which is why it's so expensive.
1:52:57
Speaker 4: So a Chairman Paul will probably on his Festivus report later,
1:53:02
Speaker 4: I'm sure of outrageous government spending and I'll look forward
1:53:06
Speaker 4: to see in that sectary nom Are you familiar with
1:53:09
Speaker 4: section seven or excuse me eight seventy two of the
1:53:12
Speaker 4: Homeland Security Act of two thousand and two.
1:53:15
Speaker 5: I'm i it sounds familiar, sir. You'll have to remind
1:53:19
Speaker 5: me the topic.
1:53:20
Speaker 4: Yes, well, Section eight seventy two requires you, as Secretary,
1:53:24
Speaker 4: to provide a sixty day notice to Congress at any creation, deletion, consolidation,
1:53:30
Speaker 4: or alteration of organizations within the Department that are not
1:53:33
Speaker 4: required in statute, which must include an explanation for the
1:53:37
Speaker 4: rationale behind any charges. It also prohibits you from making
1:53:40
Speaker 4: any changes to offices in the status. So my question
1:53:44
Speaker 4: for you is why have you not provided notice to
1:53:47
Speaker 4: Congress of the changes you are making at the Department
1:53:50
Speaker 4: and will you be doing so in the near future,
1:53:52
Speaker 4: and will you include intended reduction enforces in that. For example,
1:53:57
Speaker 4: you've already terminated virtually the whole Civil Rights and Liberties
1:54:00
Speaker 4: Office staff without any communication to Congress about your intent,
1:54:05
Speaker 4: and the only letter yesterday claiming all of the statutory
1:54:08
Speaker 4: responsibilities would be met. You sent a letter, but it
1:54:11
Speaker 4: conflicts certainly with the whistleblower disclosure that I received last week.
1:54:16
Speaker 4: So please explain to the committee why you are not
1:54:18
Speaker 4: following this law.
1:54:20
Speaker 5: Well, Senator, we are following that law. Those offices that
1:54:23
Speaker 5: you referenced are still open and functioning and providing their
1:54:27
Speaker 5: duties as required, but they have been right sized many times.
1:54:32
Speaker 5: The Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties or the
1:54:34
Speaker 5: Ombudsman Office, which you and I visited.
1:54:36
Speaker 6: About before, had grown quite expansive.
1:54:39
Speaker 5: They were used as a political tool, suing and attacking
1:54:45
Speaker 5: each other and censoring individuals and not doing the job
1:54:49
Speaker 5: for which they were created.
1:54:51
Speaker 6: So we've right sized.
1:54:51
Speaker 5: Them, put them back on mission, and if there would
1:54:55
Speaker 5: be an instance to where notification is required, I certainly
1:54:58
Speaker 5: will follow that.
1:55:00
Speaker 1: Thomas expired Center MA right now, Thank you again, Secretary.
1:55:04
Speaker 22: So, following up on the themes that were just brought up.
1:55:07
Speaker 22: It seems to me that the most common sense answer
1:55:10
Speaker 22: in the least expensive way to house criminal aliens in
1:55:14
Speaker 22: the country is to not allow them to come here
1:55:17
Speaker 22: in the first place.
1:55:18
Speaker 3: Right, So it's whether.
1:55:19
Speaker 22: It's one hundred and sixty dollars a day one hundred
1:55:21
Speaker 22: thousand dollars a day.
1:55:23
Speaker 3: It should be zero per day.
1:55:25
Speaker 16: And I hope that my Democrat colleagues, let's just codify
1:55:29
Speaker 16: what President Trump has done and prevent criminal aliens or
1:55:33
Speaker 16: anybody from entering this country illegally.
1:55:35
Speaker 22: That seems like the most fiscally conservative things. I hope
1:55:39
Speaker 22: when you're talking about these questions and the Secretary, that
1:55:41
Speaker 22: we just say, let's just stop allowing people to come
1:55:44
Speaker 22: into the country illegally.
1:55:45
Speaker 3: By the way, that.
1:55:46
Speaker 22: Doesn't mean we don't want people to come here legally.
1:55:50
Speaker 22: That's the hypocrisy. I just don't understand when you're becrying
1:55:54
Speaker 22: the cost of housing criminal aliens, but you turn the
1:55:59
Speaker 22: blind eye ten million people come into this country.
1:56:02
Speaker 3: Illegally, shifting gears real quick.
1:56:04
Speaker 22: You were a governor, it surprised you to learn that
1:56:08
Speaker 22: you're rated one of the top five most fiscally conservative
1:56:13
Speaker 22: frugal governors in America last year.
1:56:17
Speaker 6: No, it wouldn't surprise me.
1:56:18
Speaker 5: I worked hard at making sure we were accountable to
1:56:20
Speaker 5: our taxpayer.
1:56:21
Speaker 22: So you are going to commit, and I think it'd
1:56:23
Speaker 22: be obvious that when you are appropriated money through the
1:56:28
Speaker 22: reconciliation process to help you do what you need to do,
1:56:31
Speaker 22: that you're going to be as fiscally prudent with that money.
1:56:35
Speaker 3: Correct.
1:56:36
Speaker 12: That is correct?
1:56:37
Speaker 3: All right, So let's talk about what they need.
1:56:38
Speaker 22: Certainly there's a wall, but wall by itself, to Senator
1:56:41
Speaker 22: Peter's point, doesn't accomplish the mission. There's all kinds of
1:56:45
Speaker 22: advanced technology. I was visiting Anderill. They have some incredible
1:56:49
Speaker 22: technology for detection that makes the border patrol agents.
1:56:52
Speaker 3: Liz, you're looking at technology like that, right, Oh.
1:56:54
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
1:56:55
Speaker 5: That's one of the discussions that we've had quite often
1:56:58
Speaker 5: with members of Congress and in these committee hearings is
1:57:01
Speaker 5: just the wall will look very different based on where
1:57:03
Speaker 5: it is. Plus, the wall was never finished. Even where
1:57:06
Speaker 5: you have a steel ballred wall, many times they erected
1:57:09
Speaker 5: the steel ballard wall but didn't build out the technology
1:57:11
Speaker 5: to support it and to keep individuals from throwing rotor
1:57:15
Speaker 5: or ladders and ropes over them. There's a whole system
1:57:19
Speaker 5: that was designed to operate together. And even when the
1:57:22
Speaker 5: wall was built, President Trump was never given the opportunity
1:57:25
Speaker 5: to complete the system that would actually secure it much
1:57:29
Speaker 5: better than just simple infrastructure.
1:57:31
Speaker 3: Sure, so physical barrier, title detections.
1:57:34
Speaker 6: Yes, technology technology, and some.
1:57:36
Speaker 22: Of these technologies can determine a difference between an animal
1:57:40
Speaker 22: and a human, can direct border pertrollasan safely let them
1:57:43
Speaker 22: know what they expect when they're there.
1:57:45
Speaker 3: So those are all the technologies. Let's talk about another
1:57:47
Speaker 3: part of what I would call the wall, which is
1:57:49
Speaker 3: the human element.
1:57:51
Speaker 22: How was the morale the border Pertroasians when you got there,
1:57:54
Speaker 22: when you took over day one and you visit them,
1:57:56
Speaker 22: kind of described briefly.
1:57:57
Speaker 3: What that was like.
1:57:59
Speaker 5: Well, they were very just couraged. If you remember many
1:58:01
Speaker 5: of us I think fouraged, Well we were. They were
1:58:05
Speaker 5: not allowed to do their jobs. They were they hired
1:58:08
Speaker 5: on to border patrol and ice. I would say, it's
1:58:11
Speaker 5: the same story to do a job, and they weren't
1:58:14
Speaker 5: allowed to do that by the last administration.
1:58:15
Speaker 3: So now there so there's recruitment chops.
1:58:18
Speaker 6: Oh absolutely there was, but not anymore. I mean border patrol.
1:58:22
Speaker 22: We have to make sure we pay them properly, So
1:58:24
Speaker 22: that's part of the money right that we have raises
1:58:26
Speaker 22: to them. Near and dear to my heart is the
1:58:29
Speaker 22: automobiles that they used there. Describe the insanity of the
1:58:34
Speaker 22: kinds of vehicles that Biden and Majorcas was giving. These
1:58:38
Speaker 22: are the most rugged terrains in America, boulders and rocks
1:58:42
Speaker 22: and hills, and they were sending F one fifties out
1:58:46
Speaker 22: there with seventeen inch wheels, And how many of the
1:58:49
Speaker 22: fleet was down just because of total and complete inability
1:58:53
Speaker 22: to accomplish a mission.
1:58:54
Speaker 5: At times it was upwards to thirty to forty percent
1:58:57
Speaker 5: of the fleet just was unusable, not able to be made.
1:59:00
Speaker 5: It would times the percentage would increase based on the
1:59:04
Speaker 5: conditions to which they were deployed as well.
1:59:06
Speaker 22: And I know you and I have talked about this,
1:59:08
Speaker 22: but I just want to reinforce it on a record.
1:59:10
Speaker 22: We have a great company that builds cars in Ohio
1:59:13
Speaker 22: called Jeep. They make a gladiator that would put giant
1:59:16
Speaker 22: tires and wheels on a car and they would be
1:59:19
Speaker 22: an amazing border patrol agent. And I think even our
1:59:23
Speaker 22: chairman would love to see new automobiles so that the
1:59:26
Speaker 22: border patrol agents can do their job, and that's certainly
1:59:29
Speaker 22: part of the funding.
1:59:29
Speaker 3: Would that be something that you look.
1:59:31
Speaker 5: At, Yes, it's something that we need to address. We
1:59:33
Speaker 5: have to in order for them to do their jobs,
1:59:35
Speaker 5: they have to have the right equipment.
1:59:37
Speaker 3: Is there last question?
1:59:38
Speaker 22: Is there anything else that we might not have asked
1:59:41
Speaker 22: you that you think is important for this.
1:59:42
Speaker 3: Committee to know?
1:59:44
Speaker 5: Well, I think that you've covered a lot of the components.
1:59:47
Speaker 5: We haven't discussed the Secret Service, and I know that
1:59:49
Speaker 5: that's been a big topic for this committee in the past.
1:59:52
Speaker 5: I have the ability and the responsibility to oversee the
1:59:55
Speaker 5: Secret Service, and I just want you to know that
1:59:57
Speaker 5: we've gone away from the DEI recruitment directive that the
2:00:01
Speaker 5: Biden administration has utilized to recruit agents and what their
2:00:04
Speaker 5: purposes are, and we've made sure that they have the
2:00:08
Speaker 5: ability to do their job and protect the most powerful
2:00:10
Speaker 5: And one of the statistics I think you would find
2:00:13
Speaker 5: to be helpful is we have an over two hundred
2:00:16
Speaker 5: percent increase in applications to work for the Secret Service
2:00:19
Speaker 5: because of the work that Sean Current and his team
2:00:21
Speaker 5: have done to really tell the mission and story of
2:00:23
Speaker 5: what they do every day and how important it is.
2:00:25
Speaker 2: Thank you sooner, Bluventhal, Thank you, Secretary Nome.
2:00:30
Speaker 10: On May fifth, the Customs and Border Patrol Border Protection
2:00:36
Speaker 10: CPP quietly rescinded. I'm not sure it's even been reported.
2:00:42
Speaker 10: They're quote processing of pregnant and postpartum non citizens and
2:00:47
Speaker 10: infants end quote policy, which was issued on January twenty eighth,
2:00:52
Speaker 10: twenty twenty two, citing it as quote obsolete or misaligned
2:00:58
Speaker 10: with current agency guidance and immigration enforcement policies. That January
2:01:04
Speaker 10: twenty eighth policy memorandum followed years of inadequate care, documented
2:01:10
Speaker 10: by a report from the Inspector General of the Department
2:01:15
Speaker 10: of Homeland Security showing that the treatment of pregnant, postpartum
2:01:20
Speaker 10: and nursing women and infants was just horrendously and horrifically inadequate,
2:01:29
Speaker 10: and a recent site visit by Senate Judiciary Committee staff
2:01:38
Speaker 10: confirmed that this problem is continuing that pregnant women being
2:01:44
Speaker 10: detained do not have access to adequate healthcare. Do you
2:01:48
Speaker 10: agree or disagree that babies and pregnant women within CBP
2:01:53
Speaker 10: and ICE custodies should receive care that are tailored to
2:01:57
Speaker 10: their specific needs and why in God's name would that
2:02:01
Speaker 10: policy be rescinded?
2:02:04
Speaker 3: Providing that care.
2:02:06
Speaker 5: Well, Senator, I will look at the specifics of that
2:02:08
Speaker 5: policy and what was changed as of May fifth, I
2:02:11
Speaker 5: would say that everybody that's incarcerated or is brought into
2:02:17
Speaker 5: custody and is in a detention center is receiving appropriate care,
2:02:21
Speaker 5: and that we are making accommodations for individuals that have
2:02:24
Speaker 5: different physical.
2:02:24
Speaker 11: Situations or pregnancy happening.
2:02:27
Speaker 5: And so I will look at the specific policies as
2:02:30
Speaker 5: to why one of the requirements may have been changed
2:02:33
Speaker 5: or adapted. If you have a specific to point out,
2:02:36
Speaker 5: that would be fantastic.
2:02:38
Speaker 10: I don't know about this policy.
2:02:39
Speaker 5: I do know about the policy change, but I've looked
2:02:41
Speaker 5: at the guidelines of how we handle.
2:02:43
Speaker 11: Individuals that are changed.
2:02:45
Speaker 3: How could you allow you to happen?
2:02:47
Speaker 20: Well?
2:02:47
Speaker 6: Well, sir?
2:02:48
Speaker 5: What are you finding wrong with what we do with
2:02:50
Speaker 5: individuals who are pregnancy pregnant that are in our detention centers.
2:02:54
Speaker 5: Is there concerns I should be addressing.
2:02:56
Speaker 10: Women who are pregnant or who have just had a
2:02:59
Speaker 10: child and their infant babies are not receiving adequate medical care.
2:03:04
Speaker 5: Everybody receives medical care because everybody receives medical care that
2:03:08
Speaker 5: is in our custody, and even if they're going to
2:03:10
Speaker 5: be even if they're going to be returned back to
2:03:13
Speaker 5: their home country, we are making sure that they have
2:03:15
Speaker 5: medical care in their home country before they are sent there.
2:03:19
Speaker 5: So that is something that we do very diligently, is
2:03:22
Speaker 5: to make sure that anybody who has a medical issue,
2:03:24
Speaker 5: a concern, something that needs to be addressed.
2:03:27
Speaker 6: Is taking.
2:03:29
Speaker 3: You're factually untrue.
2:03:31
Speaker 11: No, it's actually more important.
2:03:34
Speaker 6: You follow everything to.
2:03:37
Speaker 10: Be rescinded that provides for adequate care because it was
2:03:41
Speaker 10: quote obsolete or misaligned with your agency's guidance and immigration
2:03:48
Speaker 10: enforcement priorities. How can you sit here and tell us
2:03:52
Speaker 10: that caring for pregnant women or infants or women postpartum
2:04:00
Speaker 10: is misaligned with your priorities.
2:04:04
Speaker 5: Yeah, every one in our mind, everyone who's in our
2:04:09
Speaker 5: care and in our detention centers its care that is
2:04:12
Speaker 5: appropriate to them in their specific condition.
2:04:15
Speaker 10: Absolutely, you're about to lose a fifth of your workforce
2:04:19
Speaker 10: in FEMA.
2:04:21
Speaker 3: Correct.
2:04:22
Speaker 5: There are individuals in FEMA that are no longer working
2:04:25
Speaker 5: with us. They may have taken early retirement or or
2:04:27
Speaker 5: your reirement.
2:04:28
Speaker 10: Meet the needs of our constituents in Missouri or Connecticut
2:04:35
Speaker 10: which suffered floods recently. I saw FEMA in action. Then,
2:04:38
Speaker 10: as I've seen them over the years, they are dedicated,
2:04:41
Speaker 10: vigorous public servants. They appear and spend hours and days
2:04:46
Speaker 10: and weeks caring for people. You're losing a fifth of them,
2:04:49
Speaker 10: including most of the leadership.
2:04:51
Speaker 5: What's your plan to reply that many people in FEMA
2:04:54
Speaker 5: that do very good work every day taking care of
2:04:56
Speaker 5: people that are in a crisis situation, that are experience
2:05:00
Speaker 5: seeing the worst day of their lives. The problem is
2:05:02
Speaker 5: is that over the years and under the Biden administration,
2:05:05
Speaker 5: they failed the American people.
2:05:06
Speaker 3: You're not my.
2:05:07
Speaker 10: Question, I absolutely am. How are you going to replace
2:05:10
Speaker 10: a work for you?
2:05:10
Speaker 5: You can't convince me that any federal government agency does
2:05:13
Speaker 5: a better job just because it has.
2:05:15
Speaker 2: More more people.
2:05:16
Speaker 6: That is not equal.
2:05:17
Speaker 11: You're not going a better job.
2:05:19
Speaker 6: Better job is accountability to people.
2:05:21
Speaker 10: And making sure anywhere in the country. If you don't
2:05:25
Speaker 10: have the dedicated public servants in FEMA and you're losing them.
2:05:30
Speaker 2: Thom has expired.
2:05:31
Speaker 15: Senator Kim, thank you, Chair Medam's secretary. I saw the
2:05:35
Speaker 15: proposed budget and it showed a decrease for FEMA non
2:05:39
Speaker 15: disaster grants. It was a proposed cut of about six
2:05:43
Speaker 15: hundred and forty six million dollars, but it didn't clarify
2:05:45
Speaker 15: what programs you thought that needed to be cut, So
2:05:48
Speaker 15: I guess I just wanted to ask, is the nonprofit
2:05:51
Speaker 15: security grant program one that you're considering cutting.
2:05:55
Speaker 5: Well, we're having discussions with the White House on grants
2:05:57
Speaker 5: that will be continued in the future. The President firmly
2:06:00
Speaker 5: believes that FEMA needs to be eliminated as the way
2:06:03
Speaker 5: it stands today, that it needs to be reformed, and
2:06:06
Speaker 5: that states and local governments should do emergency response with
2:06:09
Speaker 5: the support of the federal government. So he believes it
2:06:12
Speaker 5: shouldn't be in the long term recovery. Twenty years later,
2:06:16
Speaker 5: still waiting to make claims to go out and many
2:06:19
Speaker 5: of the grant programs within FEMA were moved over into
2:06:24
Speaker 5: climate change priorities.
2:06:25
Speaker 6: They were moved over into.
2:06:26
Speaker 5: Building bike paths and shade infrastructure and planting trees, when really,
2:06:31
Speaker 5: if it is a disaster and if we need to
2:06:33
Speaker 5: mitigate something happening in the future, we should be building
2:06:36
Speaker 5: better roads and bridges and putting in bigger culverts in
2:06:40
Speaker 5: areas that need to be addressed, not necessarily planting shade
2:06:43
Speaker 5: trees and parks with disaster recovery dollars. And that's what
2:06:47
Speaker 5: people need to remember is all of these dollars that
2:06:49
Speaker 5: come from these grants, many times they're pulling out of
2:06:51
Speaker 5: that disaster recovery fund. So I think this evaluation of
2:06:54
Speaker 5: every single grant is appropriate. Many of them, after they're
2:06:57
Speaker 5: evaluated and are found to be a pro b it,
2:07:00
Speaker 5: they're deployed.
2:07:01
Speaker 6: But that that examination is something I.
2:07:03
Speaker 5: Take very seriously that I need to do to make
2:07:05
Speaker 5: sure it's on task for why that grant was established.
2:07:08
Speaker 15: Look, I'll just say a point blank I think the
2:07:11
Speaker 15: answer should have been a clear no. And I think
2:07:13
Speaker 15: that there is very strong bipartisanship here in Congress, especially
2:07:17
Speaker 15: in the Senate to protect a nonprofit security grant program.
2:07:20
Speaker 15: It's literally the best tool that people in New Jersey
2:07:24
Speaker 15: are telling me is needed to be able to counter antisemitism.
2:07:28
Speaker 15: You know, I can't tell you the number of synagogues
2:07:30
Speaker 15: and temples that are are lined up to try to.
2:07:34
Speaker 14: Get this type of funding.
2:07:36
Speaker 15: In fact, you know, given the rise of anti Semitism
2:07:38
Speaker 15: that we have in our country right now, you know
2:07:40
Speaker 15: we should be surging resources, not cutting. So you know,
2:07:44
Speaker 15: I would hope that you'd have a more declarative no
2:07:47
Speaker 15: in that vein, And because you know I'll be honest
2:07:49
Speaker 15: with you, I've been trying to see if we can
2:07:51
Speaker 15: dramatically increase funding to the nonprofit Security Grant Program to
2:07:55
Speaker 15: try to fight this scourge of antisemitism. So I guess
2:07:58
Speaker 15: I just want to ask you, would you be open
2:08:00
Speaker 15: to supporting an increase in funding to the nonprofit Security
2:08:03
Speaker 15: grand Program if I'm able to work with some of
2:08:05
Speaker 15: my colleagues to be able to do that.
2:08:07
Speaker 6: We definitely have seen the value in that program and
2:08:11
Speaker 6: are willing to discuss discuss this with you.
2:08:15
Speaker 5: What I would say is that we have to do
2:08:16
Speaker 5: an evaluation to make sure those dollars are going to
2:08:19
Speaker 5: the appropriate entities that they were intended. So they have
2:08:23
Speaker 5: been very important for many different people in different communities,
2:08:26
Speaker 5: and I recognize that this evaluation, so I will work
2:08:29
Speaker 5: with you on how that program can be improved will
2:08:31
Speaker 5: be very important.
2:08:32
Speaker 15: Well, look, I want to engage with you on this
2:08:34
Speaker 15: further because when I'm here, when we're hearing this language
2:08:36
Speaker 15: about abolishing FEMA and whatnot, you know, one of the
2:08:39
Speaker 15: elements that people have raised most concerns about is what
2:08:42
Speaker 15: does that mean for the nonprofit Security Grand Program, So
2:08:45
Speaker 15: I really do urge you to work with me in
2:08:46
Speaker 15: this committee to have a declarative stance on that so people,
2:08:50
Speaker 15: especially those concerned about anti Semitism, can have clarity on
2:08:54
Speaker 15: what comes next. You did raise the FEMA Review Council,
2:08:58
Speaker 15: which you said is going to be meeting for the
2:08:59
Speaker 15: first time today. I just wanted to see, because we've
2:09:02
Speaker 15: talked about this before, about what comes next. I wanted
2:09:05
Speaker 15: to see if you would commit to working with this
2:09:07
Speaker 15: committee and hearing our perspectives as part of the Council's
2:09:11
Speaker 15: work and giving us an opportunity to engage before the
2:09:15
Speaker 15: committee concludes their work and finalizes recommendations. Is that something
2:09:18
Speaker 15: you can commit to?
2:09:19
Speaker 6: Yes, absolutely.
2:09:20
Speaker 5: There are several things that FEMA does that need your input,
2:09:24
Speaker 5: statutory requirements. This is a reform process that most certainly
2:09:29
Speaker 5: will include you in this committee.
2:09:30
Speaker 15: Yeah, that's something I know we talked about before you
2:09:32
Speaker 15: were confirmed, and I hope you can follow up on
2:09:35
Speaker 15: that because I think it's incredibly important. Everyone here recognizes
2:09:38
Speaker 15: that reforms are needed, but now the question is just
2:09:41
Speaker 15: how it is situated, and I certainly have some thoughts
2:09:43
Speaker 15: I want to reflect from the folks in New Jersey.
2:09:46
Speaker 15: As mentioned earlier, hurricane season is upon us. Do you
2:09:49
Speaker 15: have a sense of when the White House is going
2:09:51
Speaker 15: to announce a full nominee for FEMA administrator.
2:09:55
Speaker 5: It should be soon, but I'm not going to put
2:09:57
Speaker 5: a timeframe on President Trump.
2:09:59
Speaker 15: I just you know, again, we want to have confidence
2:10:02
Speaker 15: and that we have the leadership in place to be
2:10:04
Speaker 15: able to do this last thing I'll do.
2:10:05
Speaker 5: We do have a leader in place, and I can
2:10:07
Speaker 5: connect you with him as well.
2:10:09
Speaker 15: I'm sure we make sure be good to have that
2:10:11
Speaker 15: formal nomination the last thing, and maybe we'll just do
2:10:14
Speaker 15: this in a QFR. But there has been a cut
2:10:17
Speaker 15: to reports of cuts to the National database tracking domestic
2:10:21
Speaker 15: terrorism DHS cut into funding. I just wanted to ask,
2:10:24
Speaker 15: is that correct and is there any way that you
2:10:26
Speaker 15: could reconsider that and see if we can make sure
2:10:29
Speaker 15: we're tracking domestic terrorism rise in the country.
2:10:31
Speaker 6: I can follow up with you on that and get
2:10:33
Speaker 6: you that information.
2:10:34
Speaker 14: Okay, thank you, Seck.
2:10:35
Speaker 2: Here, you're almost done.
2:10:37
Speaker 1: You've outlasted everyone but mean and you don't have to
2:10:40
Speaker 1: necessarily answer this.
2:10:41
Speaker 2: You can comment if you want.
2:10:42
Speaker 1: But I think one of the problems I've always had
2:10:45
Speaker 1: with discussion of the border is that people who often
2:10:48
Speaker 1: are conservative and talk about physical conservatism, once we start
2:10:52
Speaker 1: talking out of the border, then it's alluthed out the window.
2:10:55
Speaker 1: So the estimates on the wall, I think are important.
2:10:57
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a very conservative estimate. It's more
2:11:00
Speaker 1: like thirty million dollars a mile as opposed to CBP
2:11:04
Speaker 1: says six. You said twelve for current It's somewhere in there.
2:11:08
Speaker 1: But I also would say that you're controlling ninety five
2:11:10
Speaker 1: percent of the border without a wall right now. So
2:11:12
Speaker 1: that's an argument that maybe you don't need a wall,
2:11:14
Speaker 1: you need a willpower. And I give President Trump great
2:11:19
Speaker 1: compliments for what he's done and what you have done.
2:11:22
Speaker 1: I mean, ninety five percent of the control, no new bill,
2:11:24
Speaker 1: no new money. I'm not saying no new money is needed.
2:11:27
Speaker 1: I think you need more border patrol, and you're going
2:11:29
Speaker 1: to need more money for that, but I think it
2:11:31
Speaker 1: should be within reason now. If I were in charge
2:11:34
Speaker 1: of the border, though, and I wanted immediate control, and
2:11:36
Speaker 1: I wasn't quite there yet, I would put one hundred
2:11:40
Speaker 1: helipads down concrete about fifty yards by fifty yards, and
2:11:44
Speaker 1: I'd put one hundred helicopters on the border every ten miles,
2:11:48
Speaker 1: and I'd simply use the technology to patrol the border,
2:11:51
Speaker 1: and I'd pick anybody and everybody up who crosses the
2:11:54
Speaker 1: border illegally with the helicopters, and I think you could
2:11:57
Speaker 1: do that, and you probably do it for five hundred
2:12:00
Speaker 1: million versus forty six pillion. So I know the wall
2:12:04
Speaker 1: is a great symbolic value, but I think we should
2:12:07
Speaker 1: reassess what both the costs what we want to do
2:12:10
Speaker 1: and how much it costs since we are controlling ninety
2:12:13
Speaker 1: five percent of the border. I think part of it
2:12:15
Speaker 1: is you've moved some money forward that needs to be replaced.
2:12:19
Speaker 1: So I'm not against or calling for no money, but
2:12:22
Speaker 1: I do think that the forty six billion dollars is
2:12:25
Speaker 1: not justified unless we see.
2:12:27
Speaker 2: Something else in the administration.
2:12:30
Speaker 1: Thank you for your time today and your commitment to
2:12:33
Speaker 1: work with the committee. The hearing record will remain open
2:12:35
Speaker 1: until five pm May twenty first, twenty twenty five, for
2:12:38
Speaker 1: the submission of statements and questions for the record.
2:12:40
Speaker 2: The hearing is adjourned.
2:12:41
Speaker 6: Thank you, Thank you for sureman
2:19:00
Speaker 11: Assas