[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ENTRY-EXIT SYSTEM: STILL WAITING AFTER ALL THESE
YEARS
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 13, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-54
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan
Wisconsin JERROLD NADLER, New York
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT,
LAMAR SMITH, Texas Virginia
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina
SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama ZOE LOFGREN, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
STEVE KING, Iowa HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona Georgia
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico
JIM JORDAN, Ohio JUDY CHU, California
TED POE, Texas TED DEUTCH, Florida
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania KAREN BASS, California
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana
MARK AMODEI, Nevada SUZAN DelBENE, Washington
RAUL LABRADOR, Idaho JOE GARCIA, Florida
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York
GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia
RON DeSANTIS, Florida
JASON T. SMITH, Missouri
Shelley Husband, Chief of Staff & General Counsel
Perry Apelbaum, Minority Staff Director & Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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NOVEMBER 13, 2013
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary 1
The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress
from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on
the Judiciary.................................................. 3
The Honorable Trey Gowdy, a Representative in Congress from the
State of South Carolina, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary 4
The Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Texas, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary......... 4
The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary.... 6
WITNESSES
Janice Kephart, former Special Counsel, Senate Committee on the
Judiciary, former Counsel to the 9/11 Commission
Oral Testimony................................................. 9
Prepared Statement............................................. 11
James N. Albers, Senior Vice President of Government Operations,
MorphoTrust USA
Oral Testimony................................................. 67
Prepared Statement............................................. 69
Julie Myers Wood, President, Compliance, Federal Practice and
Software Solutions, Guidepost Solutions
Oral Testimony................................................. 80
Prepared Statement............................................. 82
David F. Heyman, Assistant Secretary, Office of Policy, U.S.
Department of Homeland Security
Oral Testimony................................................. 92
Prepared Statement............................................. 94
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Listing of Material submitted by the Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, and
Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary........................... 139
IMPLEMENTATION OF
AN ENTRY-EXIT SYSTEM:
STILL WAITING AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2013
House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:20 a.m., in room
2141, Rayburn Office Building, the Honorable Bob Goodlatte
(Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Goodlatte, Coble, Smith of Texas,
Chabot, Bachus, King, Gohmert, Poe, Chaffetz, Marino, Gowdy,
Labrador, Farenthold, Holding, Conyers, Scott, Watt, Lofgren,
Jackson Lee, Johnson, Chu, Gutierrez, DelBene, Garcia, and
Jeffries.
Staff present: (Majority) Shelley Husband, Chief of Staff &
General Counsel; Branden Ritchie, Deputy Chief of Staff & Chief
Counsel; Allison Halataei, Parliamentarian & General Counsel;
Dimple Shah, Counsel; Kelsey Deterding, Clerk; (Minority) Perry
Apelbaum, Minority Staff Director & Chief Counsel; Danielle
Brown, Parliamentarian; Tom Jawetz, Counsel.
Mr. Goodlatte. Good morning. The Judiciary Committee will
come to order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to
declare recesses of the Committee at any time.
I will begin with my opening statement.
Successful immigration reform must address effective
interior enforcement. An important component of interior
enforcement is dealing with legal immigrants who violate the
terms of their visas and thus become unlawfully present in the
United States.
The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility
Act of 1996 first required the creation, within 2 years of the
date of enactment, of an automated system to track the entry
and exit of all travelers to and from the United States. Since
that time, Congress has reiterated and expanded on this
requirement over half a dozen times, mandating an exit
monitoring system at all air, land, and sea ports of entry.
In 2004, Congress added the requirement that the exit
program be implemented using biometric technology. Yet despite
numerous pieces of legislation enacted by Congress, these
statutorily mandated requirements have never been implemented
by either present or past Administrations.
In the meantime, numerous estimates indicate that as many
as 40 percent of all individuals unlawfully present in the
United States entered the country legally and violated the
terms of their visas by overstaying. To make matters worse, in
July of 2013 the General Accountability Office found that the
Department of Homeland Security has more than 1 million
unmatched arrival records; that is, arrival records for which
the DHS does not have a record of departure or status change.
The ability to effectively track who arrives in and
subsequently departs from the United States is a necessary
first step for immigration reform. An effective exit tracking
program must help identify all of those who arrived lawfully
but remain in the U.S. in violation of the law.
To compound matters, experts say that terrorist overstays
are also a significant issue which under the current system can
be tracked down only through difficult, tedious, and time-
consuming investigations. Recent reports indicate that
terrorist overstays include Hosan Smadi, a Jordanian national
who plotted to blow up a Dallas skyscraper in 2009, and Amine
El Khalifi, a Moroccan whose visa expired in 1999 and who was
arrested in an attempt to bomb the U.S. Capitol in 2012.
Not having an exit system in place led the former
commissioners of the 9/11 Commission to conclude in 2011 that,
``The Department of Homeland Security, properly supported by
the Congress, should complete, as quickly as possible, a
biometric entry-exit screening system. As important as it is to
know when foreign nationals arrive, it is also important to
know when they leave. Full deployment of the biometric exit
should be a high priority. Such a capability would have
assisted law enforcement and intelligence officials in August
and September 2001 in conducting a search for two of the 9/11
hijackers who were in the United States on expired visas.''
Seventeen years after Congress required an entry-exit
system, no exit system is in place. This Administration and
past Administrations had plenty of time to get this done, yet
they continue to make excuses as to why it cannot be completed.
In fact, this Administration has openly violated the law.
The Department of Homeland Security has moved to implement
biographic exit contrary to law even though former Department
of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told the GAO
that she has no confidence in the current biographic data
system. Biographic systems are especially vulnerable to fraud.
Unfortunately, not only does the Administration continue to
ignore statutory mandates, but numerous congressional proposals
actually seek to roll back current law with respect to a
biometric exit system at all ports of entry. For example, the
Senate bill erodes enforcement mechanisms in current law by
requiring biometric exit initially at the top 10 international
airports and a total of only 30 airports within 6 years,
although there are 74 international airports in the United
States and 34 international seaports. The bill does not even
address land and sea ports.
It is estimated that the majority of the millions of people
who come to the United States each year come through the land
ports of entry, and the GAO found that roughly one-third of all
overstayers came through land ports of entry. No single
proposal effectively addresses this issue with the exception of
H.R. 2278, the SAFE Act. Mr. Gowdy's bill, via Mr. Smith's
amendment, contains the only language that requires a biometric
entry-exit system at all ports of entry within a definite time
period. In order to be effective, any entry-exit provisions
must have a definite and prompt timeframe for total
implementation. If not, we will send the message that Congress
is not serious.
The SAFE Act shows how to avoid the mistakes of the past
with regard to immigration law enforcement. I look forward to
hearing from all of our witnesses today and thank Mr. Gowdy for
introducing this game-changing legislation, and Mr. Smith for
his crucial amendment to reassert that Congress is serious
about ensuring a fully functioning exit system at all ports of
entry.
It is now my pleasure to recognize the Ranking Member of
the Committee, the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Conyers, for
his opening statement.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Chairman Goodlatte.
Members of the Committee, we are here today to find out and
learn what the Department of Homeland Security is doing to
implement a system that tracks who enters our country and who
leaves our country. We are pleased to have the Assistant
Secretary for Policy of the Department here with us.
The Department is required by law to establish an entry-
exit system that relies upon the collection of biometric data.
Many of my colleagues are frustrated that the system,
particularly the biometric exit system, is not yet in place.
Nevertheless, we should recognize that today we are more
able than ever to screen people who are applying for visas or
requesting entry into our country. We now collect fingerprints
from people at each of these stages, and we have a biometric
entry system at our land, sea, and airports. We are also better
able to confirm whether people have left the country or
overstayed their visas. Airlines share information from
passenger and crew manifests before aircraft doors are secured.
So we have a pretty good idea who is on an international
flight before the plane leaves the gate, and we can now use
that information to identify people who have overstayed their
visas and to run that information through our various security
checks.
We also have a very productive exchange of information with
Canadian authorities that helps us identify exits along our
northern land border.
But, of course, there is still more that can be done, and
that is why today's hearing allows us to hear from the
Department of Homeland Security itself, as well as other
witnesses who will share their perspectives on the topic.
But I have to observe one thing before I yield back my
time. It is now the middle of November, and the House of
Representatives has done almost nothing to fix our broken
immigration system. The Senate passed S. 744, a bipartisan
immigration reform bill, in June, 139 days ago. Republican
leadership in the House called it ``dead on arrival.'' Our
colleague, Joe Garcia of this Committee, introduced another
bill, H.R. 15, last month, and already the bill, to date, has
191 co-sponsors. Republican leadership has pledged to take no
action on the bill. And now press reports that Republican
leadership intends to bring no immigration bill to the floor
before the end of the year because there isn't enough time on
the calendar.
The very first hearing that the House Judiciary Committee
held in the 113th Congress was on the need for immigration
reform. My hope at the time was that the hearing signaled the
beginning of an open dialogue focused on the creation of an
immigration system that serves American businesses, families
and security. Instead, I read time and time again that House
Republicans oppose comprehensive immigration reform but support
a piecemeal approach to fixing the problem.
We keep hearing that five bills are ready for consideration
and more are being drafted. Where are they? If House
Republicans oppose comprehensive immigration reform but support
a piecemeal approach to fix our immigration system, show us. Do
something. We have been trying to fix our broken system for
well over a decade, and I believe we are closer together today
than we have ever been before. But now is not the time for more
talk, talk, talk. Now is the time for action.
Mr. Chairman, let's work together to bring immigration
legislation to the floor immediately to fix our broken system.
I thank you and yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, Mr. Conyers.
And I will now turn to the Chairman of the Subcommittee on
Immigration and Border Security, the gentleman from South
Carolina, Mr. Gowdy, for his opening statement.
Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Before I yield to Mr. Smith, I couldn't help but note, when
our colleague from Michigan was talking, that from 2008 to
2010, when our colleagues on the other side of the aisle
controlled every single gear of government, no comprehensive
immigration reform package was put together.
Now, I have some colleagues like Luis Gutierrez and Zoe
Lofgren that have worked their entire lives for it, but let's
don't rewrite history and blame this Committee for what a
Democrat-controlled Committee didn't lift a finger to do from
2008 to 2010.
With that, I would be pleased to yield to the gentleman
from Texas, former Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Lamar
Smith.
Mr. Smith of Texas. I am tempted not to say anything at
all, but I appreciate the gentleman from South Carolina, the
Chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee, for sharing his time.
Over 40 percent of immigrants in illegal status came here
legally but overstayed their visas. A recent Bloomberg poll
shows that 85 percent of Americans support a system to track
foreigners that enter and leave the country. This scores higher
than any other immigration question.
New biometric technology has reduced the cost of
implementation significantly. Five-year-old cost estimates that
some opponents of biometrics cite are clearly out of date.
Congress required the use of biometrics instead of
biographic data to track foreign nationals because biographic
information is very susceptible to fraud, and I want to thank
Chairman Goodlatte and Subcommittee Chairman Gowdy for
including biometric entry-exit language in H.R. 2278, the SAFE
Act, at our mark-up in June. Our language is the only proposal
being considered by Congress that requires a definite
implementation deadline for a biometric entry-exit system at
all ports of entry.
It has been 17 years since the entry-exit system was first
enacted in a 1996 immigration bill I introduced. We are long
overdue in fully implementing a biometric tracking system.
Again, I thank the gentleman from South Carolina for
yielding me time and yield back at this point.
Mr. Gowdy. I thank the gentleman from Texas. He is correct.
Seventeen years ago the Illegal Immigration Reform and
Immigrant Responsibility Act was enacted. The law requires an
automated system to track the entry and exit of visitors to and
from the United States. Despite Congress reiterating its
mandate for an exit system over the past 17 years, DHS has
failed to execute the law. The law's entry mandate was
completed in a reasonable amount of time. However, exit has
never been completed.
This is problematic for myriad reasons. Not only should we
be concerned with who is entering the country, but just as
importantly we need to know who is exiting or not exiting our
country, and not knowing who resides here is an issue of
national security. As many as four of the 9/11 hijackers had
either overstayed or violated the terms of their visas, and
several other high-profile terror plots have originated with
aliens who entered the country legally and overstayed.
The 9/11 Commission was keenly aware of the problem, Mr.
Chairman, in their report issued over 9 years ago. The
Commission recommended the Department of Homeland Security,
properly supported by Congress, should complete as quickly as
possible a biometric entry-exit screening system. It is
estimated that as many as 40 percent of undocumented immigrants
come to the United States on temporary visas and remain in
violation of the law. A biometric exit screening system would
provide a means to know which temporary visitors failed to
adhere to our immigration laws, and we could begin to tackle
the issue of visa overstays.
In Fiscal Year 2012, ICE arrested 1,374 individuals who
overstayed their visa, and for those who may have thought I
misread that, 1,374. However, they have estimated there are 2.3
million people who have overstayed their visas in the United
States. So 1,374 out of 2.3 million is not very good.
So where are we? Seventeen years after Congress mandated an
automated entry and exit system to track all travelers coming
into and departing the United States, 13 years after Congress
reaffirmed that mandate and extended it to high-volume land
border points of entry and exit, and 12 years after the Patriot
Act mandated the entry-exit system be biometric, we are
precisely where we started in 1996, Mr. Chairman, which is we
have no automated system to track existing foreign visitors.
I hope the witnesses before the Committee today will
provide information on the challenges preventing the
implementation of a biometric entry-exit system and ideas for a
way forward.
And with that, I would yield the remainder of my time back
to the Chair.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, Mr. Gowdy.
And I would now like to recognize the Ranking Member of the
Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, the
congresswoman from California, Ms. Lofgren, for her opening
statement.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I don't think anyone opposes the idea of keeping track of
when people enter and exit the country. With that knowledge, we
would be able to determine when people had overstayed their
periods of authorized admission and were present in violation
of the law. We would be able to make informed decisions about
how to use our limited enforcement resources to apprehend and
remove such people, and we would also be able to make changes
to improve our visa issuance practices, the visa waiver
program, and a host of other things.
So I hope today we will learn precisely what DHS has done
over the years to set up our current entry-exit system, what
work the Department is doing to improve that system, and what
we can expect to see in the future.
As has been mentioned, Congress first mandated the creation
of the automated entry-exit system in 1996, and we built upon
that mandate several times. The ultimate goal is to establish a
system that is realistic and cost-effective, that promotes
national security and compliance with immigration law, and that
does not overly disrupt the legitimate flow of persons and
goods through our ports of entry. That flow represents billions
of dollars in freight and travel each day and is an essential
part of our Nation's economy and job market.
We know this is a challenge. I remember a witness from the
Heritage Foundation pointed out in a hearing in 2011 before the
Subcommittee, and this is a quote, ``If this was a mandate that
could have been easily fulfilled, it would have been fulfilled
back in the 1990's when it was first implemented.''
Despite the challenge, I think we have made progress over
the years. It is true we do not have a biometric exit system at
our land, sea and airports. I suspect this has already been
mentioned--that will be a major focus of the hearing. But I
would like to also focus on what has been done.
We have improved our ability to identify visa overstays and
to track people exiting the country through deployment of
biometric entry systems and enhancements to our biographic exit
systems. We have made improvements in data sharing capabilities
and we have an innovative cooperative agreement with the
Canadian government, our partner to the north.
Let me say one thing further about the development of a
biometric exit system. Many of us have long believed that the
Department's goal should be to fulfill its statutory obligation
to establish a biometric exit system at land, sea and airports.
That was my position after reviewing the 9/11 Commission
recommendations, and I still believe that is something we
should continue to explore.
I have been frustrated with the lack of progress, but I am
also pleased to hear the Department continues to pursue this
objective and that it is poised to test and pilot a variety of
new technologies and approaches to the problem in the next
couple of years.
It is one thing to complain that the Department has not
made progress toward that goal, and it is another to understand
exactly what it would take to get there. And that is why I
think when it comes to biometric exit, the three important
questions for today's hearing are: one, is it possible for us
to have a biometric exit capability at every land, sea and
airport; two, if it is possible, how much would it cost, how
long would it take, and what would have to happen to make it a
reality; and three, what would we get from a fully deployed
biometric exit system that we would not be able to get through
an enhanced biographic exit system and cooperative partnerships
with neighboring countries?
We need answers to these questions because we must know
whether the task before the Department is achievable. If it is,
we must all have a realistic understanding of what it will take
to get there. This will be expensive.
Several years ago, the Department concluded that
implementing a biometric exit system at airports would cost $3
billion over 10 years. At land ports, the cost would be
exponentially greater and require not only a large increase in
personnel but also very large investments in port
infrastructure. For a Congress that is intent on cutting
spending at every turn, that just narrowly avoided a default on
the Nation's debt, that actually shut down the government for a
period of weeks because of an intent not to pay bills that had
already been incurred, these costs must be front and center in
our discussion.
Finally, we need to understand what marginal improvements a
biometric exit system would have over an enhanced biographic
system paired with our Beyond the Borders agreement with
Canada. I am a fan of technological solutions. I come from
Silicon Valley. But I also want to know exactly what problem we
are trying to solve and how the new solution is better than
what we currently have.
I hope we can get answers to these questions today. I look
forward to the witnesses. But before I close, let me just say
how disappointed I was to hear the news that the House is not
intending to consider immigration bills before the end of the
year. I think we have an historic opportunity before us to work
together to improve our immigration laws.
I thank the Chairman of the Subcommittee for his kind
comments about myself and Mr. Gutierrez. I am mindful that we
did not do immigration reform in a comprehensive way when we
had the majority. As Democrats we were actually, in the House,
deferring to the Senate, hoping that they could have bipartisan
agreement, and they ultimately failed. The gentleman was not a
member of that Congress, but we did pass the Dream Act when
Democrats were in the majority, and it fell short in the
Senate.
I just believe that we can put our hands across the aisle
and work together and improve our laws. I would hope that the
spirit and intent to do that has not faded on the part of the
majority. Certainly I would hope to continue to work with the
majority to solve this problem for our country, and I yield
back.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair thanks the gentlewoman for her
statement.
And I also appreciate her closing comments and her gesture
and her long-time work, along with other Members of the
Committee, on this issue, and I want to assure you that you
have my commitment and many Members on my side of the aisle's
commitment to continue to work to try to advance immigration
reform. It is something that is badly needed, and we are going
to be very dedicated to continuing to work in that direction.
Without objection, other Members' opening statements will
be made a part of the record.
And at this time I would like to welcome our panel of
witnesses. As is customary with this Committee, if you would
all rise, I will begin by swearing you in.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you very much. Let the record reflect
that all of the witnesses responded in the affirmative.
I will begin by introducing Janice Kephart. Ms. Kephart
recently returned from a Special Counsel position with the
Senate Judiciary Committee, where she advised and supported
work during the Committee's consideration of immigration
legislation. Ms. Kephart also served as counsel to the 9/11
Commission and was a key author of the staff monograph, ``9/11
and Terrorist Travel,'' as well as the immigration-related
Facts and Recommendations in the 9/11 Commission Report. Ms.
Kephart holds degrees from Duke University and Villanova School
of Law.
Mr. James Albers is the Senior Vice President of Government
Operations for MorphoTrust USA, a company that provides
identity solutions in biometrics, background checks, and secure
credentials. In this role, Mr. Albers is responsible for all of
MorphoTrust's Federal business operations across the three
market segments--enterprise, identity, and services. Prior to
joining MorphoTrust, Mr. Albers served as Vice President of
Government Operations for Sarnoff Corporation and was President
at Frequency Engineering Laboratories. Mr. Albers graduated
from George Washington University with a degree in political
science.
Ms. Julie Myers Wood is the President of Compliance,
Federal Practice and Software Solutions at Guidepost Solutions
LLC, an immigration investigation and compliance firm. Ms. Wood
served as the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland
Security at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, for
nearly 3 years. Under her leadership, the agency set new
enforcement records with respect to immigration enforcement,
export enforcement, and intellectual property rights. Ms. Wood
earned a Bachelor's degree at Baylor University and a J.D. cum
laude from Cornell Law School.
Mr. David Heyman currently serves as the Assistant
Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security, where he focuses on terrorism, critical
infrastructure protection, bioterrorism, and risk-based
security. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Heyman served in a
number of leadership positions in academia, government, and the
private sector. He was the Founding Director of the Homeland
Security Program and a Senior Fellow at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies. Mr. Heyman holds an M.A.
in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced
International Studies and a B.A. in Biology from Brandeis
University.
Each of the witness' written statements will be entered
into the record in its entirety, and I ask that each witness
summarize his or her testimony in 5 minutes or less. To help
you stay within that time, there is a timing light on your
table. When the light switches from green to yellow, you will
have 1 minute to conclude your testimony. When the light turns
red, that is it. It signals that the witness' 5 minutes have
expired.
And it is now my pleasure to welcome all of you and to
recognize first Ms. Kephart.
TESTIMONY OF JANICE KEPHART, FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL, SENATE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, FORMER COUNSEL TO THE 9/11
COMMISSION
Ms. Kephart. Than you. Thank you, Chairman Goodlatte,
Ranking Member Conyers, for the opportunity to testify about a
biometric immigration departure or exit system for foreign
nationals, an issue that spans eight statutes and 17 years.
With the Terrorist Screening Center tracking 10,000 to
20,000 suspected foreign terrorists inside the U.S., knowing
who is coming and who is going is critical to our national
security and our law enforcement needs.
The 9/11 Commission did not recommend a name-based exit
system because it can never fully verify that people are who
they say they are, nor negate human error. Nine years later,
this past April, the Commission's biometric exit recommendation
was justified again when the JTTF lost a critical lead prior to
the Boston Marathon bombing when terrorist Tamerlan Tsarnaev,
the lead perpetrator, managed to slip out of the U.S. unnoticed
because his name was misspelled on the outgoing airline
manifest to Russia. If a biometric exit had been in place,
Tsarnaev's departure as a foreign national would have been
known to the FBI more than a year before lives were lost and
others changed forever.
Today, the core issue should not be whether to have or not
to have a biometric exit system but whether a biometric exit
system is cost-effective and feasible. My testimony concludes
that it is.
As to an air/sea exit, DHS established feasibility in 2009
when two pilots, one in Detroit and the other in Atlanta,
concluded, and I quote, ``Overall, the air exit pilots confirm
the ability to biometrically record the exit of aliens
departing by air.'' In that pilot, only one in 30,000 persons
refused the biometric, nobody missed a flight, and more than 1
percent of those processed hit watch lists.
Today, feasibility is evident around the world, where at
least 16 Nations are using biometrics to manage entry and exit
of foreign nationals. Let me provide a few examples.
In 2011, Indonesia installed a biometric border solution at
nine airports and one seaport. Indonesia's largest airport
handles 10 million international passengers annually. That is
nearly as busy and second in place to JFK, which handles 12
million annually. Indonesia's system fuses real-time biometric
matching with watch-list vetting, all compiled into one person-
centric file that eliminates fraud. That was done in 6 months.
New Zealand just rolled out its second generation of
biometric borders at its largest airport, Auckland
International, where immigration processing and boarding passes
are combined into one single step.
Both Argentina and Nigeria are implementing biometric
borders now, and Nigeria is doing it with the U.S. help.
So while I commend the work CBP is doing to begin testing
of an air biometric exit in January, that still means we lag
behind the rest of the world in using cutting-edge, efficient
biometric solutions to manage both entry and exit.
Moving on to cost, a careful analysis shows that first-year
implementation costs for all air and sea ports, even assuming
cost overruns of 50 percent, would range from about $400 to
$600 million. These numbers are derived from DHS' 2008
Regulatory Assessment on this exact issue, but my numbers are
six times lower because of newer, faster, better solutions that
require no airport infrastructure changes, no air carrier
involvement, and require little manpower to operate. With a
little ingenuity, implementation can be budget neutral.
One solution is to simply increase visa and security
application fees by $10 on the 40 million foreign visitors that
come by air. That is not asking a lot when Brand USA, by law,
gets $10 per applicant now to promote tourism. This alone would
generate about $400 million, enough to probably cover most, if
not all, of air exit deployment.
Let me turn to land borders, which I know is of great
interest to the Committee. A more nuanced approach is necessary
here, but I think it is doable. Step one is pretty easy. For
pedestrians at land borders, replicate the air/sea solution
inside land ports. That is quick.
Step two, enable those truckers and individuals already
enrolled in Trusted Traveler programs that exist at the 39
busiest ports of entry and represent 95 percent of crossings to
use their Trusted Traveler cards not just for entry but for
exit too. That would mean replicating Trusted Traveler for
entry to exit lanes, a quick and proven solution already in
place that folks understand and works pretty well.
Step three is to basically replicate a Trusted Traveler
into sort of a trusted everyone where you are replicating the
Trusted Traveler technology used in the cards into visas,
border crossing cards, and other travel documents over time.
Verified departure would be recorded and relayed to the
arrival/departure systems.
On the northern border, DHS could leverage the good work of
the shared biographic system with Canada that David will
testify about and worked so hard on. The goal would be to treat
land border exit as close as possible to Trusted Traveler entry
to speed commerce, meet the statutory requirement, with proven
cost-effective technologies that already exist on the land
border.
I hope that helps. Thank you, and I am happy to take your
questions afterwards.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Kephart follows:]
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__________
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, Ms. Kephart.
Mr. Albers, welcome.
TESTIMONY OF JAMES N. ALBERS, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF
GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS, MORPHOTRUST USA
Mr. Albers. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Conyers, other distinguished Members of the Committee. Thank
you for having me here today. I greatly appreciate it. As you
heard, I work for MorphoTrust, which is one of the leaders in
the biometrics industry. I have been working in the biometrics
industry for 11 years, about as long as there has been a
biometrics industry.
I am going to focus as a member of industry on the
technology and the state of the technology that is out there
right now, and I would basically like to make three points,
some of which Janice already made very well. Biometrics will
offer superior results when compared to biographic only. Costs
for implementation, integration, operation and maintenance are
much lower than they were a few years ago. And this situation,
this solution is well proven around the world. Multimodal
biometrics is in play at a number of borders and airports
throughout the world.
Biometric exit offers greater security than biographic
only. Biographic data, such as a person's name, date of birth,
are all vulnerable to fraud. This information and documentation
can be falsified and stolen. Biographic information is also
inconsistently presented around the world. We are all familiar
with birth dates going day/month/year, backwards. Names can be
presented the same way, and in our culture, first/last/middle.
Biographic information, biographic data is fraught with errors
because it depends on human collection, as opposed to biometric
data, which is based on NIST and international standards and is
collected using robust, highly reliable collection technology.
Biometric exit controls can provide a higher degree of
identity assurance than biographic exit controls alone.
Furthermore, this can be done in a cost-effective manner
without disrupting operations at airports, seaports, and other
ports of entry and exit.
As far as costs are concerned, I believe that the $3
billion-plus cost estimate in the 2008 report commissioned by
DHS for implementing a biometric exit system at airports and
seaports is out of date and an order of magnitude too high.
Since 2008, biometrics has moved into the commercial arena, and
the costs associated with biometric capture devices has dropped
dramatically, while the convenience and accuracy of these
devices continues to improve.
I recommend a multimodal biometric solution which has
already been implemented throughout the Federal and some state
governments. The Department of Defense uses multimodal
biometrics--that is face recognition, fingerprint, iris
recognition, and a fusion algorithm--as standard operating
procedure. The FBI has used fingerprints for more than a
century, and the next-generation identification program is now
adding face recognition and iris recognition. The State
Department runs the largest facial recognition database in the
world. There are over 100 million images in there and the visa
database, including many of those folks that we are talking
about that overstayed their visas.
I believe that DHS should change the collection process and
collect additional biometrics from visitors: fingerprints for
sure, like we do now; high-quality face images that can be used
with face recognition systems; and iris images compliant with
NIST standards. Collecting multiple biometrics at the time of
entry will provide CBP with more options upon exit. DHS
agencies could then take advantage of the relative benefits of
each biometric identifier and method of capture such as
accuracy, passenger throughput, convenience and cost.
Fingerprints would continue to be collected, allowing for a
comparison to IDENT and to NGI, while face and iris images at
the time of entry could be collected and used against the FBI,
State Department, and DOD databases.
This solution is proven and low cost. Today, more than 70
international airports throughout the world have biometrically-
enabled systems. My company alone has deployed over 150 eGate
systems across eight countries within 24 international
airports, processing over 1 million passengers per month. Other
companies in the industry have done the same thing. These
biometrically-enabled systems use a variety of biometrics--
fingerprint, face recognition, and iris recognition--to verify
the identity of the traveler quickly and efficiently, with a
very high accuracy.
In conclusion, I would like to say that MorphoTrust speaks
for the biometric industry when we say that a fully functioning
biometric exit system is affordable, can be implemented today
without disrupting legitimate trade and travel. We stand ready
to work with Congress, the Department of Homeland Security and
other stakeholders to develop a biometric exit program that can
be deployed within a short period of time and at a reasonable
cost, thus making Americans safer while improving the traveler
experience.
Thank you for the opportunity to address the Committee
today on these issues. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Albers follows:]
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__________
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, Mr. Albers.
Ms. Wood, welcome.
TESTIMONY OF JULIE MYERS WOOD, PRESIDENT, COMPLIANCE, FEDERAL
PRACTICE AND SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS, GUIDEPOST SOLUTIONS
Ms. Wood. Thank you so much, Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking
Member Conyers, Members of the Committee. I appreciate the
opportunity to testify this morning about the enforcement
implications of an entry-exit system.
Efforts to ensure that we secure the border and reform our
immigration process must include efforts to transform overstay
enforcement and do it more effectively, and exit is a big piece
of this.
Although the lack of an adequate exit program was
highlighted by the 9/11 Commission and mandated by Congress
over many years, DHS struggled with how to effectively
implement it, and really focused on biographic methods and
refinement of data. Although this was very frustrating to law
enforcement interests, both inside and outside of DHS, it was
somewhat understandable given cost restraints, capacity, and
the technological limitations of the time.
Now, however, biometrics are part of mainstream industry
and security efforts. They are available on everything from
your iPhone and utilized in locations as diverse as casinos and
amusement parks. Biometrics should also be utilized to
determine exits of foreign nationals from the United States.
While a biographic exit program is better than no program
at all, the lack of biometrics leaves a significant gap for
criminals and others to abuse. Instant verified biometric exit
data would be extremely useful to law enforcement both for
terrorism cases and for routine immigration enforcement. As the
Chairman noted, significant national security risks often try
to leave the country unnoticed. Biographic-centered systems do
little to prevent these determined individuals from escaping
the Joint Terrorism Task Force or other law enforcement
efforts.
ICE's routine enforcement efforts also would be enhanced
with an effective biometric exit program. Currently there are
only 300 dedicated counter-terrorism compliance enforcement
unit agents. They prioritize leads based on information
provided from the law enforcement and intelligence community.
But because we don't have an effective exit system, oftentimes
these ICE agents are chasing leads for individuals who have
already left the country when they could be spending time on
higher-priority individuals who are still here.
I have to note, however, and despite the many benefits of
exit, the overall value of a robust biometric system is greatly
diminished if the enforcement agencies will not enforce
violations that such a system identifies. To ensure that we
have successful immigration reform, a commitment to build exit
must also be accompanied by a commitment to enforce the law.
ICE HSI currently spends only 1.8 percent of its enforcement
hours on enforcement against overstays, and with improvements
in the biographical data provided to law enforcement, ICE has
been getting more and more leads every year. Yet, the number of
cases that ICE deems worthy of opening for investigation
continues to go down.
In 2005, for example, 13,000 non-priority leads were sent
to ICE, and the agency opened 4,600 for investigation. In 2012,
over 212,000 non-priority leads were sent to ICE, but they
opened only 2,800 investigations.
Other parts of ICE, including ERO, could have logical
responsibility for overstay enforcement. But as they recently
told the GAO, few records of potential overstays meet ERO's
priorities--not HSI's priorities, not ERO's priorities.
Overstays are no one's priorities, and when they are no one's
priorities, they become everyone's problem because they
undermine the integrity of our overall immigration system.
To put it somewhat in perspective, if you think about
20,000 border patrol agents, they are focused on only 60
percent of the problem. We have 300 ICE HSI agents to focus on
the other 40 percent. Such a low level of enforcement suggests
that even with biometric exit in place, the number of overstays
may continue to grow unabated due to a lack of enforcement,
resources and direction.
Enforcement, of course, always requires resources and
appropriate prioritization, and any immigration reform bill
must include appropriate resources to address these needs so
that we have an immigration system that works, so that the
benefit of a biometric exit does not surpass the immigration
components that it needs most to do its job.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify before you
about the enforcement implications, and I would be happy to
answer any questions after the testimony is completed. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Wood follows:]
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__________
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, Ms. Wood.
Mr. Heyman, welcome.
TESTIMONY OF DAVID F. HEYMAN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, OFFICE OF
POLICY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Heyman. Thank you, Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member
Conyers, and distinguished Members of the Committee. I
appreciate the opportunity to be here this morning.
We want to talk about DHS' role in implementing an exit and
entry system. I also want to dispel a few myths about biometric
entry and exit.
We all agree that a fully functioning entry-exit system is
crucial for immigration control, law enforcement and national
security. Tracking the arrival and departure of foreign
visitors to the United States is important for enforcing the
terms of admission for non-immigrants, identifying and
sanctioning overstays, and for managing our visa waiver
program.
To function properly, a system needs a number of things. It
needs to capture arrival and departure information of travelers
coming to and leaving the United States. It also needs to
record immigration status changes, determine if criminal
warrants exist, and identify overstay priorities for
enforcement action.
The first myth I want to dispel is the notion that if we
aren't using biometrics on the departure, we don't have a
working entry-exit system. That is not true. The fact is that
DHS today manages a fully functioning entry-exit system in the
air and sea environments using a combination of biometric and
biographic components. The system was built over the last
decade. The Department collects biometric and biographic
information on entry and biographic information on all
individuals who are physically on a departing airplane or sea
vessel through our Advanced Passenger Information System, or
APIS.
In 2010, DHS began deployment of enhancing the exit system,
which improved our ability to automatically match the
information from an individual's passport or other travel
document upon arrival and departure, information that can be
captured electronically so we take human error out of the
system.
As a result of these efforts, since April of this year, the
Department is now able on a daily basis to identify and target
for enforcement action those who have overstayed their period
of admission and represent a public safety or national security
threat. I want to repeat that. On a daily basis now, the
Department identifies and targets those who have overstayed
their period of admission. This is a significant improvement
over our prior capabilities. And while more work needs to be
done to integrate a biometric component into this system, it is
incorrect to say the Department lacks a functioning entry-exit
system just because we have yet to implement biometrics into
the exit processes.
The second myth is that biographic-centered exit systems do
little to prevent determined individuals from escaping law
enforcement. Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber,
is an example of a determined individual who tried to flee the
country after his failed bombing attempt, but our exit system
prevented him from escape. Some hours after his vehicle bomb
failed to detonate in New York, Shahzad bought a one-way ticket
to Pakistan. When CBP ran the APIS manifest looking for who was
departing the U.S. on that flight, Shahzad was identified,
matched, and taken off the flight into custody.
The third myth is that DHS is resisting calls to implement
a biometric solution on exit. DHS knows full well the
congressional mandate requiring biometric exit, and we are
working toward it. DHS has piloted various biometric exit
programs in order to determine when a biometric exit system
will be cost-effective and feasible. These have been done in
previous Administrations as well as this one. Through these
pilots, the Department concluded that implementation would
require over $3 billion in investments. If implemented
prematurely, particularly without the support of airlines, we
would see disruptions to passenger travel and likely drive the
costs higher.
Right now, however, the Department's Science and Technology
Office is leading an APIS project called Air Entry Exit
Reengineering Project. The purpose of this project is to
analyze, develop, and test-pilot and evaluate integrated
approaches to biometrically confirm the departure of non-U.S.
citizens at U.S. airports. S&T and our CBP are also
establishing a physical test facility that mimics real-life
port scenarios. That facility will be operational in early 2014
and will be used to test the latest technological advancements
which my colleagues here on the panel have testified to in
biometrics to match departure information arrivals, and I would
invite anyone here to come see the operation once we have it up
and running next year.
Let me conclude by saying that despite significant
challenges, DHS has implemented and currently manages a full
functioning entry-exit system in the air and sea environments.
The Department is mindful that any exit system must confirm the
identity of foreign nationals, ensure the individuals depart
the United States, facilitate enforcement, while also not
causing disruptions to the flow of passenger travel or airline
and airport operations. DHS remains committed to implementing a
biometric exit system that achieves all these goals and will
continue to make substantial progress in the year ahead.
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Heyman follows:]
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__________
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, Mr. Heyman.
I will begin the questioning with a question to you
regarding your comments there about the exit systems that are
administered.
You indicated that you have a biographic system. Isn't it
true that more than a million people are unaccounted for in
that system as to whether or not they have exited the country?
Mr. Heyman. The number that you are referring to dates back
to 2 years ago when there was an identification of backlog in
our overstay processing, and it was about 1.6 million at that
time.
Mr. Goodlatte. Let me ask you about your land exit system.
Do you collect biographic data from individuals departing the
country by land ports?
Mr. Heyman. There is no infrastructure on the border to
collect biometric information. On biographic, we have a pilot
in the northern border right now with Canada that allows us to
receive data from Canada every time somebody leaves the United
States and enters Canada. An entry in Canada counts as an exit
in the United States. And so we are now piloting that with
great effect.
Mr. Goodlatte. Well, I am glad you have that pilot. With
regard to the southern border of the United States, I take it
that even though that has a very large percentage of the total
number of people who exit the United States each day, there is
no biographic or biometric data collected.
Mr. Heyman. We are in conversations with the Mexican
government to do something similar to what we are doing on the
northern border, and we have begun some pilots to look at the
biographic system down there as well. Thank you.
Mr. Goodlatte. Good. Thank you. And I hope you will keep
the Committee informed of that effort.
Mr. Heyman. Absolutely.
Mr. Goodlatte. Ms. Wood, thank you very much for your
testimony. I was struck by your comment that while 35 to 40
percent of people who are unlawfully present in the United
States are overstays who enter the country legally, that ICE is
only spending 1.8 percent of its man hours in terms of dealing
with that 35 to 40 percent of the illegal immigrants in the
United States. It seems to be a very disproportionate ratio
there.
Ms. Wood. It certainly does. I mean, ICE has a lot of
statutes that it has to enforce. This number, 1.8 percent,
comes from evidence and information they provided to GAO during
the GAO review. You would think that perhaps ERO, which is
another part of ICE, would also enforce against overstays, but
they have said they don't have the funding to do it and that
those individuals also are not priorities.
So when you think about how do we go forward and get a
workable immigration system, someone has to address kind of the
problem of people who will continue to overstay.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you.
Mr. Albers, is a biometric exit system feasible, and can it
be completed at land ports, including vehicles, which I
understand is the greatest challenge, within a reasonable
amount of time?
Mr. Albers. I believe that a biometric exit system for air
and sea could be completed within 2 years. I think there are
challenges with land. I will tell you that my company and a lot
of the biometrics industry really started in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and we have proven that biometrics works in the
toughest of environments over there. So I feel very strongly
that DHS is proposing a pilot program and then rolling
biometric controls onto exits at land borders over a period of
time. I think that is a wise approach. But I do think it can be
done.
Mr. Goodlatte. And what has changed in terms of the
technology in the 17 years since we first asked for this and
the 9 years since we first asked for it to be biometric that
makes it more feasible today?
Mr. Albers. Well, I am glad you asked that question, Mr.
Chairman. When I first got involved in this business, I worked
for a company called Sarnoff, which was the research facility
for RCA for years, and we developed the first Iris on the Move
program. That program probably cost $2 million, and the first
prototypes that rolled off the platform there were about
$250,000 each. Now, they were put together by a bunch of
Ph.D.s, so it was pretty expensive.
What has happened in the 7 years since that time is a
number of companies, including Aoptics, which is in Ms.
Lofgren's district, have developed Iris on the Move and Face on
the Move systems that you can buy for $10,000 or $15,000. So
not only has the technology gotten way better than it was 7
years ago, it has gotten a lot cheaper.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you.
Ms. Kephart, you were on the staff of the 9/11 Commission,
and that commission recommended ``the Department of Homeland
Security, properly supported by the Congress, should complete
as quickly as possible a biometric entry-exit screening
system.'' Why did the Commission make that recommendation?
Ms. Kephart. When we were investigating the terrorist
travel patterns, which was my job on the commission, we learned
in our work with others on the commission staff that there were
two hijackers in August of 2001 who were watch-listed. We knew
they had come into the country, but we did not know where they
were at the time of late August 2001. The FBI could not figure
out from immigration records if they had ever left. They came
under the assumption, after about a week of work and having a
lot of other investigations to do, that it wasn't worth their
time because they didn't know whether they were here or
overseas and figured they had left. They indeed had not left,
and 9/11 happened.
So, you know, not to put it all on those two watch-list
items, but that was the reason that we looked at name-based and
the fraud. And remember, too, the hijackers had about 300
different aliases. They had any means of name change to use.
They had gotten new passports and new visas before they came to
the United States. There were so many ways to trick the system
into entry-exit data that was not exactly real.
So we decided and the commissioners decided to take up the
recommendation that you need to use a physical verifier that is
fraud-proof, and that is why we recommended the biometric exit.
Mr. Goodlatte. Let me ask you one more question, if I may.
You recently issued a report entitled ``Biometric Exit
Tracking: A Feasible and Cost-Effective Solution for Foreign
Visitors Traveling By Air and Sea.'' In this study, you
discussed numerous statutes that have been in place since 1996
mandating an exit system. Given that there are numerous
statutes in place, what, if anything, do you think can be done
legislatively in order to ensure biometric exit system is
implemented at all air, land, and sea ports?
Ms. Kephart. Thank you for that question. It is something I
spent quite a bit of time on when I was special counsel over in
the Senate a few months ago, working on the immigration reform
legislation and really thinking about that question hard.
I don't think a lot needs to be done. There are eight
statutes on the books already. The 2004 Intelligence Reform Act
lays out the mission and requirements of the exit very, very
well. What needs to be done, however, is there are some
contradictions that are left because there are so many statutes
on the books.
So one of the biggest contradictions is the 2013 Homeland
Security Appropriations Act requires that Customs and Border
Protection implement biometric exit, which I think is the right
way to go. The 2007 Act requires that the air carriers
implement the requirement. That has caused a tremendous amount
of problems. There is no need for the air carriers to be
involved with it.
So, one, air carriers need to be out of the equation
statutorily. Number two, the airports are a stakeholder in this
and need to be in the legislation proactively. Number three, we
need to fund it. You can't expect DHS to do this without either
authorization for fees or an appropriation. It is not fair to
them. And number four, you need to have a deadline, I think,
going forward, because we have too many statutes on the books
where the deadlines have already been overrun by years.
So a reasonable amount of time to get this done, and I
think air and sea is pretty quick, and land requires a little
more time and effort.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you very much.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan, Mr.
Conyers, for his questions.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, sir.
I thank all of the witnesses.
Secretary Heyman, I wanted to get your understanding about
the bipartisan immigration reform bills that are still pending
in Congress. Now, the other body, the Senate, has already
passed their immigration bill, and the House bill, one House
bill has 191 co-sponsors, but we haven't had a hearing yet on
it. And both bills contain provisions requiring the Department
to make progress implementing such systems.
What I am wondering is how do you think this comprehensive
entry-exit system fits into the larger scheme of comprehensive
immigration reform?
Mr. Heyman. Thank you, Mr. Conyers. The comprehensive
immigration reform is a critically important piece to our
security, to our immigration system, and frankly in the context
of this conversation and the concern about overstays, perhaps
one of the biggest acts that Congress could do is to pass it so
that we take away the prospect of overstays and eliminate that
to the extent that we can, or at least mitigate it compared to
where we are today, which is obviously a concern of this
Committee and the reason why we are having this hearing.
So in terms of the entry and exit system, we are going to
continue to move forward with that. There are statutes on the
books to do that, and in the air and sea environment we have
made substantial progress. We will continue to do that, as I
have testified. I do think that taking away the magnet to the
United States, ensuring that we have greater border security,
elements of the comprehensive immigration reform that the
Senate has passed would be helpful to helping reduce overstays.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you.
Ms. Myers Wood, I am not sure if you are accurate in saying
that the Times Square bomber evaded a biographic-only exit
system when, in fact, he was apprehended on the runway, taken
into Federal custody. And he was apprehended, it seems to me,
because the passenger manifest was provided by the airline to
Customs and Border Protection, and his name came up in a search
of Federal databases. So I interpret that as a biographic exit
success story. Would you agree with me on my analysis of this
particular situation?
Ms. Wood. Yes, certainly I think we were very fortunate
that we were able to apprehend him on the runway, and that was,
in fact, because of the biographic systems. I think earlier
than the runway, if it was biometric, we would have caught him
earlier than the runway. But I would agree with you, we were
very fortunate that we caught him on the runway, and the
biographic systems, law enforcement uses them every day, and
they catch a lot of individuals, and DHS is working hard
through the pilots and other things to improve those systems.
Mr. Conyers. Mr. Secretary, again, what steps has Homeland
Security taken to enhance the U.S. exit systems for purposes of
immigration enforcement and enhancing national security?
Mr. Heyman. Thank you, Congressman. Just on your last
question, biometric would not have helped Shahzad. He was a
U.S. person, U.S. citizen, and therefore would not have been
part of the biometric system as they are not screened.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you.
Mr. Heyman. The improvements that we have done over the
last 3 years, in 2010 we made a decision to enhance the
biographic system. What did not exist until April of this year
was the ability to automate the linkages between the numerous
systems that must be accounted for to determine if you have
overstays and to determine whether they are national security
concerns. Whether it is a change in status because of
immigration changes and linked to the USCIS systems, whether it
is a review of a national security concern and linking to our
CBP targeting capability, all of those linkages were put in
place over the last 2 years. Our matching algorithms were
improved. We have piloted the land border that I mentioned.
And actually, all of this came out of--the Chairman asked
the question about the overstays. This all came out of our
review of those overstays, the backlog, the 1.6 million, and we
recognized in doing that review that the automation and
increased linkages of the databases so that we could do real-
time overstay identification, tracking and sanctioning, that
was the beginning of that, and it laid a foundation for the
entry-exit system that we now have in place as of April of this
year.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you very much for your comments.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
North Carolina, Mr. Coble, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good to have you all with us, folks.
Mr. Albers, I was going to ask you about the feasibility of
the biometric system. I think you and Chairman Goodlatte pretty
well discussed that, so I won't revisit that.
Ms. Wood, what problems do you foresee if legalization
occurs without biometric exit in place?
Ms. Wood. I think that without biometric exit, ICE and CBP
and other enforcement agencies are still going to have kind of
continued difficulty both in their routine enforcement and in
identifying terrorists and other individuals that are trying to
leave the country. I do think DHS has made a lot of progress,
but I think given the advances in technology so wonderfully
highlighted by the other witnesses here, I think DHS is at a
point now where they have to move forward and give law
enforcement really what it needs so that we can keep our
country secure.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, Ms. Wood.
Ms. Kephart, you and the Chairman may have discussed this
one. I was going to ask you about if you believe that complete
biometric exit of all ports of entry would be a useful national
security tool. I think you may have addressed that earlier, did
you not?
Ms. Kephart. Not head-on, sir, so I would be happy to
address it again if you would like.
Mr. Coble. How about trying it?
Ms. Kephart. All ports of entry is an interesting question.
My view is, and the thing that I have always emphasized in my
work since I worked on the 9/11 Commission, and even before
that when I was doing terrorist work prior to the 9/11
Commission, is that terrorists will use, like any criminal,
will use any vulnerability that there is in the system to get
through. So as long as there is something open, they will use
it.
So to the extent that we can build out, we certainly have
our priorities on biggest ports of entry, for example, that we
need to do first. But as we move it out and as we see the
expense and we are able to level that expense out, I think you
need to include every port of entry down the road. I don't know
if we can do that in 2 years, every single one, but I think all
air and sea you can. I am not sure about land, but all air and
sea you can, for sure.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, Ms. Kephart.
Mr. Chairman, I am going to yield the balance of my time to
the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. Smith of Texas. I thank my friend from North Carolina
for yielding.
Let me say at the outset that, in my view at least, we are
simply not going to have other immigration reforms until we
secure our borders and secure the interior. So there is, in my
view, good reason to have bipartisan support for an entry-exit
system. And I am encouraged by the fact that all of our
witnesses today seem to be looking for ways to implement such a
system rather than looking for reasons not to implement such a
system.
Ms. Kephart, let me just follow up on your last response
and just reemphasize the point that you have already made, and
that is we are simply not going to be able to either deter or
detect the visa overstayers unless we have an entry-exit system
at all ports of entry, including land, air and sea. Is that
correct?
Ms. Kephart. Yes, sir.
Mr. Smith of Texas. And then it hasn't been too long since
the Department of Homeland Security estimated, for example,
that on sea and air, the cost would be something like $3
billion. I think we now, with modern technology, have really
gotten to the point where it is about one-sixth of that cost,
several hundred million dollars, not several billion dollars.
How did we get to that point? What is it that is reducing the
cost of the entry-exit system, whether it be air, land or sea?
Ms. Kephart. There are a number of factors, and I think Mr.
Albers can help me with this as well.
Mr. Smith of Texas. I am going to ask him next, right.
Ms. Kephart. Yes. There are a number of factors. The
solutions right now are much less expensive, and they are much
better than they were a number of years ago. This is a young
industry that hasn't fully matured yet, and it is maturing, so
you have lots of opportunity.
There is another piece of it, too. Even in the 2009 pilot
that worked extremely well, you had about 60 seconds per
person, whether it was TSA or CBP, conducting the biometric. It
took about 60 seconds. Now fingerprints, iris, can be done in 2
seconds. You can do multimodal face-hands-iris in combination
in 20 with a travel document, 20 seconds. So it is very quick.
Think about the time you spend in a TSA line and all the
manpower that goes into that, versus that quickness. A lot of
these are kiosk or eGate solutions. If you decide to go that
route, the manpower costs come down substantially. That is
where the hub of your cost is going to be, is on the manpower.
The 2008 assessment had both air carriers and CBP doing work on
this. Now, if you don't have the air carriers and you only have
one-eighth the number of CBP folks in your best possible
scenario of an eGate, that is significant reduction in cost.
So you have a lot of networking and et cetera, you don't
have to go through the air carriers to bring the data in. You
are going to go directly government to government. That is also
a cost saving. There are lots of places and nooks and crannies
in this 2008 assessment where the costs really have come down
significantly.
Mr. Smith of Texas. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Kephart.
I am going to yield back and then resume my questions.
Mr. Coble. I reclaim and yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Virginia, Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Heyman, let me nail down the amount of money it would
cost to get this program up and running. We have had a couple
of different numbers. Is the number $3 billion?
Mr. Heyman. The numbers that we are citing that everybody
is using to evaluate are the numbers based upon a 2009 study.
So the reason we stood up a test facility is to actually
evaluate what the real costs are today. Our goal has always
been to get those costs down.
What is really important for Congress to appreciate is it
is not just putting technology someplace and making it work. It
is a concept of operations which we need to test. What
technology are we talking about? Are we talking about iris? Are
we talking about fingerprinting? Are we talking about facial
recognition? And how is it used?
Mr. Scott. I was looking for a number.
Mr. Heyman. We don't have an up-to-date number because
technology costs have gone down, but the labor costs may be
maintained, and how you put that technology in the facility
makes a difference.
Mr. Scott. Are you anticipating a universal coverage, not
just the high-volume ports and airports and what-not? I think
Ms. Kephart just suggested if it is not universal, if it had
some holes in it, that is where people are going to go.
Mr. Heyman. You are going to want to put it in air
terminals at every departure gate, I believe, where there is an
international departure. If you don't put it in the departure
gate, one of the proposals here is to do it at the TSA check-
in. People can come in to the check-in and leave the departure
area without actually departing the United States, and you
don't have assurances.
So again, the concept of operations is really important. So
departure gates, and they are distributed across airports. So
you can't just put 25 eGates in one place and have one guy
watching it. Our airports were not set up for exits, so they
are distributed across the entire airport. You are going to
have to have people manning those.
Mr. Scott. How accurate are the biometric screens? Do you
get false positives or false negatives?
Mr. Heyman. So the technology has been significantly
improved since our pilots four or 5 years ago. False positives
are down. Again, it depends upon which technology you choose,
whether it is facial recognition, which are a little bit higher
and problematic, versus iris scans or fingerprinting, where
false positives are much lower.
Mr. Scott. Can you implement this plan without adversely
affecting the flow of commerce at ports?
Mr. Heyman. We wouldn't want to implement it any other way,
but that is the question. What is your concept of operation?
Once we find out what technologies work best, we have to put
them in play, and the test facility will allow us to do that,
to check the flow rates, to check the ease of use, to determine
if you are putting it on the jetway, if vibrations are setting
off cameras so that you are not getting accurate reads. The
environment matters, the operation matters, and so that is what
we are going to do the test facility for next year.
Mr. Scott. You mentioned you are working with Canada and
will be working with Mexico on coordinating. Are you using any
other foreign ports of demarcation? I know with port security,
we are screening some of the containers at the foreign ports.
Are you thinking about doing that with the biometrics?
Mr. Heyman. So we are talking about people leaving the
United States across the land border. They either do it by
walking across or driving, principally. There is no
infrastructure right now on our southern border, and in some
senses on our northern border, for either fingerprinting
somebody or getting their iris. You would have to get out of
the car to do it, which would slow down the entire system; or
you would have to develop something, whether it is a toll booth
concept or otherwise. But even with a toll booth concept, you
don't want people sneaking into the car and not knowing if it
is the person holding the technology. So if you are doing a
fingerprint, it has to be the right person holding the
technology. And two, are they hiding? Who is going to be
watching to make sure somebody is not hiding and trying to
leave the country?
Mr. Scott. What biographic and biometric information is
gathered?
Mr. Heyman. Where, sir?
Mr. Scott. Coming or going.
Mr. Heyman. We cover all departing air and sea ports. We
capture all biographic information. We capture both biographic
and biometric on all entry to the United States.
Mr. Scott. What does ``biographic'' mean? What do you mean
by ``biographic''?
Mr. Heyman. Biographic, like a travel document, a visa, a
passport. The passports these days are now secure passports so
that you can scan them in with a machine and take the human out
of the equation and have the biographic information much more
accurate.
Mr. Scott. And biometric, are you talking about
fingerprints and iris? Anything else?
Mr. Heyman. On biometric, we are looking at------
Mr. Scott. Facial?
Mr. Heyman [continuing]. Facial, vascular. Vascular is your
blood capillary networks that are unique. They are like a
fingerprint. But principally, the key ones are iris,
fingerprints, and facial recognition. People should realize,
though, that if we do decide to go with something other than
fingerprints at the exit, that will have a significant impact
on costs on entry because you will not have--remember, we do
fingerprinting on entry, and if we are deploying the new
technologies on exit, we will have to go back to State
Department and consular affairs around the world where they
capture fingerprints to do another capture for making sure that
we link those biometrics using the new technology.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair thanks the gentleman.
Before the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas,
actually let me recognize him and ask him if he would yield to
me for a second, and then ask him to come and take the Chair so
that I can attend to a meeting outside. But if you would yield
to me------
Mr. Smith of Texas. I would be happy to yield to the
Chairman.
Mr. Goodlatte. I just want to set the record straight on a
couple of things. First of all, and I am sorry that the Ranking
Member is not here because he mentioned one piece of
legislation that has been introduced in the House and said that
we had not held a hearing on that particular piece of
legislation. But I want the record to be very clear that we did
hold a hearing in this Committee, the full Committee, on the
Senate immigration bill, and the House bill is based upon--in
fact, I think it is virtually identical to the Senate bill,
with the exception of the addition of provisions from one bill
passed out of the House Homeland Security Committee, which is
not the jurisdiction of this Committee, with the exception of
some parts of it, including the entry-exit visa system, which
we share jurisdiction, and of course we are holding a hearing
on that today. So I want to be very clear on that issue.
Secondly, I just want to note for the record that what we
are talking about here are foreign nationals that we need to
keep track of. So while it is commendable that Mr. Shahzad was
apprehended on the runway in that particular case, being a
United States citizen, that is a different system and a
different issue than it is for us to know of the several
million people who are illegally present in the United States,
who they are, where they are, and why they are remaining here
after their visas have expired, and a biometric entry-exit
system will help to solve that problem and assure that we are
more comprehensively addressing the problem of people who are
unlawfully present in the United States than what is currently
being done by the Department, and we encourage their continued
work.
But it is far from complete and far from a situation where
we could say that we would not be making the same mistake we
made in 1986 when, on the promise of a lot of new enforcement
measures, we granted an easy pathway to citizenship to nearly 3
million people and then found that those enforcement measures
never took effect. In fact, in spite of additional legislative
efforts over that period of time, we still do not have those
appropriate enforcement measures, and therefore this hearing is
about how to avoid the problem that was created by the 1986 law
and never addressed.
And now I will ask the gentleman to come here and take the
Chair and use his time.
Okay, Mr. Bachus is going to take the Chair, and he will
yield to the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. Smith of Texas. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will
proceed with my questions.
Mr. Albers, let me direct my next question to you. Thank
you for your very expert testimony. This goes to the subject of
the experience of airports in other parts of the world, and you
have some knowledge of that. Other airports around the world
have introduced the biometric entry-exit system. Have they
incurred any substantial delays as a result of the biometric
entry-exit system?
Mr. Albers. The answer is not to my knowledge. If you look
at, for example, our program called the Global Entry, that is a
biometrically-enabled program that speeds people back into the
country. So we believe that with the introduction of multimodal
biometrics which could be grabbed even faster than a
fingerprint, you could actually expedite the process for people
with that.
Mr. Smith of Texas. You know what also occurs to me,
thinking about vehicular traffic where you had those lines, you
could also have an agent just walking down with a handheld
device and speeding up the process there as well.
Mr. Albers. That is actually a very good point.
Fingerprints still require, for the most part, the people to
put their fingers down on a sensor. Face recognition and iris
recognition does not require that. Our company and a number of
companies are doing face recognition on iOS devices or Android
devices now so you can do face recognition.
Mr. Smith of Texas. Oh, that's right.
Mr. Albers. I think of the restaurants that walk up and
down using a device like this now to check people in. That kind
of thing could certainly be done at an airport when there is a
queue to start expediting people like that.
Mr. Smith of Texas. Okay. Thank you.
Let me go to another subject, biograhpics. Both you and Ms.
Wood have testified to the great disadvantage of relying upon
biographics. You both agreed that it might generate a high
incidence of fraud, among other things. Ms. Wood actually said
it was a threat and a danger to Americans to have that kind of
entry-exit system.
I don't know if you want to elaborate on it or not. You
went into some detail. But the point is, I think, biometrics is
far superior to biographics.
Ms. Wood, do you want to comment on that?
Ms. Wood. Certainly. I think law enforcement needs every
tool at its disposal to identify those who are trying to harm
the United States. I want to just clarify with respect to the
Times Square bomber, I was speaking of just how individuals
evade biographic data. Certainly, he would not be covered under
an exit program because that is for foreign nationals.
I think it is important, as the criminal organizations
become more sophisticated and the cost of technology goes down,
the Department continue to evolve and look to see how can they
use the new technology. I think DHS has actually made a lot of
progress. If you think about where we were when the Department
was formed, first two fingerprints, then 10, then working
along, I think the time is now to look at all these new
advances in technology and see what we can do, and I think our
law enforcement agencies need this.
Mr. Smith of Texas. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Wood.
Let me go to Mr. Heyman and address a couple of questions
to you real quickly. By the way, I was at the homeland security
hearing on this same subject a few weeks ago, and you were not
the Department of Homeland Security witness, so don't take this
personally, but it was a rare occurrence for me to hear the GAO
actually being critical of DHS for not making a good-faith
effort to implement more entry-exit systems more quickly. In
fact, the Government Accounting Office said that I think DHS
could implement them about three times as fast as the testimony
we heard back then. You don't need to comment on it except that
I think it can be expedited.
If I understood you correctly, though, a few minutes ago,
you said that the Administration was actually identifying a
fair number of visa overstayers, and if so, it would be roughly
5 million people in the country who are visa overstayers. What
percentage of those individuals can you now identify?
Mr. Heyman. So the changes that we put in place over the
last two-and-a-half years have allowed us to do a near-real-
time, if not real-time overstay identification tracking and
sanctioning for enforcement. So on a daily basis, we are
sending to the field, to our ICE enforcement officers------
Mr. Smith of Texas. Okay, but my question is what
percentage of the roughly 5 million people who are overstayers
are you able to identify today?
Mr. Heyman. We spent the last 2 years looking at the
overstay backlog. After going through those 2 years ago, we are
now current on a daily basis------
Mr. Smith of Texas. If you won't give me a percentage, can
you give me a number?
Mr. Heyman. Well, 100 percent currently. We are 100 percent
currently able to identify overstays on a daily basis.
Mr. Smith of Texas. Again, of the 5 million people in the
country who are overstayers, what number, what percentage can
you identify?
Mr. Heyman. We have gone through all of them, all the ones
that we went through------
Mr. Smith of Texas. So you know who those 5 million people
are and where they are?
Mr. Heyman. 1.6 million we have gone through. Over half of
those have left the country. Another third of those, I believe,
were change of status, and------
Mr. Smith of Texas. So you are saying that of the 5
million, you can identify 1.6 million of the 5 million? Is that
what you are saying?
Mr. Heyman. We have gone through the 1.6 million overstay
backlog 2 years ago, yes.
Mr. Smith of Texas. Right, and you know who they are, where
they are, and their status.
Mr. Heyman. There are a few that we do not know where they
are.
Mr. Smith of Texas. So roughly a third of the people in the
country who are overstayers you can identify.
Mr. Heyman. No. We have gone through all of them. We know
who all of them are now.
Mr. Smith of Texas. I don't------
Mr. Heyman. The overstays backlog, the------
Mr. Smith of Texas. I don't want to go over my time, but I
don't think we are talking about the same thing.
Mr. Heyman. Maybe not. I am sorry, sir.
Mr. Smith of Texas. I am sorry. Okay, my time has expired.
But it sounds to me like, at most, the figure would maybe be a
third of the people who are in the country you know who they
are, where they are, and their status, about 1.6 million.
Okay, I will let others explore that. Thank you.
Mr. Heyman. Sorry, Congressman.
Mr. Bachus [presiding]. Thank you.
Ms. Lofgren is recognized for 5 minutes for questions.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you. I do think that this has been a
helpful hearing. The testimony you have just given, that you
can actually for 100 percent you have identified who has left,
who hasn't left, who is adjusting legally under some other
provision of law and identified who is a problem. Is that what
your testimony is, sir?
Mr. Heyman. So, yes. On a daily basis, we are now able to
identify who has overstayed. Now, there are in-country
overstays and out-of-country overstays. What we send to the
field is the folks who we believe are in-country overstays who
are national security and public safety risks, and we go after
those folks.
Ms. Lofgren. Okay. I really don't have a lot of patience
with the airline industry's resistance to this. I mean, I know
that they have not been celebrating the idea of a biometric
exit, and I just think that--I am just not sympathetic with
that. We need to have that, but I agree that we need to do
tests. I mean, I remember how much money we spent on SBInet, a
technology that never worked. I think it would make a lot of
sense to do some tests before we lay out that kind of cash to
make sure that what we are pursuing actually will get the job
done, and I hope that we learned a lesson from the SBInet
catastrophe.
Having said that, it is clear that doing something at the
TSA line is not going to work, because you can go through the
TSA line and then you can leave. So you really have to have
some technology deployed at every single gate in every airport
eventually, and it has to be something that we can afford to do
so you can't get on the plane and leave unless you have done
that. Is that really what you are looking at, sir?
Mr. Heyman. The airports, I don't think you can do every
airport, just the ones with international departures.
Ms. Lofgren. Of course, yes. I mean, it wouldn't make sense
if it------
Mr. Heyman. But, yes, on the jetway where people are
actually departing, that is the most likely place we will do
it.
Ms. Lofgren. I have always believed, based on the testimony
we have received not only in this Committee but during my 10
years of service on the Homeland Security Committee, that the
major obstacle is at our land borders. Right now, we have
backups at the southern border. I mean, people trying to come
in and leave, it can take hours and hours, half a day. We want
to have a safe country, but we also want to have commerce that
works. I mean, Mexico is one of our biggest trading partners,
and you have a very important economic connection between our
two countries.
It was suggested in Mr. Albers' testimony that we have face
and iris scans, and I would love to be able to see that. Have
you analyzed that proposal, what the impact would be in terms
of delay at the border of people leaving?
Mr. Heyman. There were a couple of pilots that were done at
the border but with--I believe it was with fingerprint
technologies, and this was several years ago, and it was
largely pedestrians.
Ms. Lofgren. Right.
Mr. Heyman. So the answer is that the new technologies will
need to be tested. But I do agree. I think the responsible
thing to do is to get it working first in the air and sea
environment and then look to land after you have that fully
functional.
Ms. Lofgren. Would you--I mean, I wouldn't ask for a
commitment today, but would you take a look at the potential
for piloting the kind of technology that Mr. Albers has talked
about in terms of facial recognition or iris scan at the border
and see if it actually aggravates the delay that we are seeing?
Mr. Heyman. So you definitely need a concept of operations,
how is that going to work. An iris scan, you need somebody to
get out and actually do that. So you can't do it remotely.
Ms. Lofgren. But facial recognition would be different.
Mr. Heyman. Facial recognition you can do and stand off
some distance. As I said, the impact of what you do on exit
will affect what you do on entry.
Ms. Lofgren. Right.
Mr. Heyman. Or if you are looking at new technologies, you
will have to be mindful of the costs that will go into entry.
Ms. Lofgren. Right. But this will be costly, and if we
don't appropriate the funds, we can complain all we want but we
should really be looking in the mirror about who is
responsible.
Mr. Heyman. Right. What we have done on the northern border
I think merits great attention because it really does allow us
for the first time--and people didn't think we would be able to
do this--to actually get the data from our Canadian partners
and have now full------
Ms. Lofgren. Right, every exit from us is an entry to them.
Mr. Heyman. Right, and you will have the visibility in the
northern border in full next summer.
Ms. Lofgren. A final question. If we were to deploy in a
ubiquitous manner facial recognition technology at the border,
for example, I want to know what thought we have given to the
privacy rights of Americans, whose data--and we have had a
bipartisan concern about NSA surveillance, the government
getting all the information about Americans. What standards
would we need to be thinking about in terms of the privacy
rights of U.S. persons with that kind of technology deployment?
Mr. Heyman. That is absolutely the right question. You want
to do that actually with all technologies, wherever you
deploy--air, land, or sea.
Ms. Lofgren. I see my time has expired.
Mr. Bachus. Mr. Heyman, you got your Bachelor's degree in
Boston at Brandeis? Are you a Boston Celtics fan?
Mr. Heyman. Sir, I grew up in Washington, D.C. I am a
Washington Wizards fan. But you get converted when you are up
there for a few years. The Celtics are great.
Mr. Bachus. Have you ever heard of M.L. Carr?
Mr. Heyman. Absolutely, great ball handler.
Mr. Bachus. He is a great--he played for the Pistons,
played for Boston Celtics. He was coach and general manger of
the Boston Celtics and really brought it back. I happen to be a
friend of his, and he has written a little book called
``Winning Through Persistence'' which is 49 pages long, and it
is one of the best books on leadership.
One of his best quotes--and I looked up some quotes. This
is Homeland Security, not directed at you personally. But
Benjamin Franklin said, ``He did as good for making excuses as
is seldom good for anything else.'' George Washington Carver:
``Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have
had the habit of making excuses.'' George Washington: ``It is
better to offer no excuse than a bad one.''
I think you have been put in a bad situation by having to
testify about why we hadn't put a biometric exit system as a
country on our border. So I don't--to me, you have an
impossible job of trying to explain why we don't even have one
now.
But M.L. Carr I think has the greatest quote on excuses. He
said, ``I don't accept excuses.'' And I think after 17 years,
that is what Congress ought to say to those that have been
charged by numerous statutes to implement a biometric system.
And let me just read one paragraph, and this is Ms.
Kephart's testimony on page 6. I think we don't need to know
anything else. ``The results of a 2009 DHS evaluation report
that tested biometric exit solutions at two large U.S.
international airports is further evidence that a biometric
exit is feasible now. Moreover, at least 14 Nations have or are
deploying biometric border solutions at airports, and 3 Nations
have or are deploying biometric guest worker tracking programs.
Some Nations have had biometric solutions at all air, land and
sea ports for a decade, and superb results in data integrity
and border control.''
And we have heard Nigeria, Indonesia. Mr. Albers'
testimony, I mean, he lays out how you do it. The technology is
better than it has ever been. It is cheaper than it has ever
been.
Mr. Heyman?
Mr. Heyman. Sir, I appreciate the opportunity to comment. I
was a Larry Byrd fan, not so much an M.L. Carr fan.
Mr. Bachus. And they played on the same team.
Mr. Heyman. Yes, they played on the same team.
Look, persistence does matter. You are right to be
frustrated with 17 years of predecessors of mine standing here
and testifying for you.
Mr. Bachus. Oh, and I am not laying the blame. Nothing
personal.
Mr. Heyman. I don't take it personally, sir. I just want to
say that despite 17 years of effort and not getting it done, we
believe we are getting it done today. And rather than waiting
for the funding or for the feasibility of biometric to be
workable, in 2010 we moved forward with enhancing the exit
system so we have a full functioning system today. You need
that as a foundation to add in the biometrics. So we have that
as a prerequisite for getting biometric exit, and we are moving
ahead today, as I said, with a test facility that will allow us
to test concepts of operations.
I just want to make one correction. I looked into the
international requirements here, and you mentioned Nigeria.
Nigeria is only------
Mr. Bachus. I don't want to--Nigeria is probably not who I
want to compare us to. Ten years ago we toured--in fact, I
think Mr. King was on it with me. But we toured Europe, and
Germany demonstrated a system 10 years ago, and some of the
Scandinavian countries.
Mr. Heyman. But these biometric entry-exit systems are
largely biometric entry systems. The exit piece of it, no one
has done anything like what we are contemplating doing here in
the United States. The rare exceptions of exit are based upon
the notion that in all likelihood the government owns the
airport or they designed and built it to do exit system, which
we haven't done.
Mr. Bachus. Sure. Yes, I understand. But if I were M.L.
Carr, I would just say no more excuses, and I am not talking
about you. I am talking about all of us. Everyone knows I very
much want an immigration bill and a comprehensive fix, but this
is one reason that the House is taking more time, because
people keep saying I am not sure we are going to get border
security, I am not sure, and this is Exhibit 1. GAO says we can
do it in 18 months. But again, I appreciate your candor, I
really do, and you have just been put in an impossible spot.
Ms. Kephart, real quickly.
Ms. Kephart. Yes, let me respond to the fact that there are
not exit systems deployed around the world. The UAE has been on
the forefront of this issue since 2004. Let me read you from
the last page of my testimony. It is page 57. This shows a
picture of Qatar right now. This particular installation that
they show in this picture dates to 2011. ``Every point of entry
in the State of Qatar relies on an iris system enabling entry
and exit at every point of entry, 80 lanes of air, land and
sea. Every person entering and leaving the state uses the
system. More importantly, processing times for the individuals
is less than 5 seconds per person.'' I think that hits on
facilitation, that hits on location if you look at the
photograph, and that hits feasibility, and that hits ability.
So I just wanted to add that in.
Mr. Bachus. Thank you.
At this time, I recognize Ms. Judy Chu, the gentle lady
from California, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Chu. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I understand, Mr. Heyman, that we have an agreement with
Canada to exchange entry records so that the land entries of
one country serve as the exit records of the other. And we have
72 million travelers that are entering the U.S. through the
border with Canada. And with this pilot program, that you were
able to match 97.4 percent of records received from Canada to
existing entry records.
How would you evaluate this program? It sounds successful.
And could a similar agreement be done with Mexico?
Mr. Heyman. So most people have thought for years that
maybe we could do air and sea but we would never be able to do
the data exchange for any kind of exit tracking on our northern
or southern borders. So the fact that we are able to do it is
actually remarkable, and the fact that it is actually now over
98 percent matching is also exceptional.
This is a huge success, and that is why we are looking at
trying to do something similar on our southern border and have
begun conversations with the Mexican government as well.
Ms. Chu. And can you say how far along these talks are?
Mr. Heyman. We began those talks with the new Mexican
administration, so they are in the beginning stages.
Ms. Chu. And are there any other countries that would be
logical partners for this type of agreement?
Mr. Heyman. I mean, I guess if the whole world did that,
you would have the system that you wanted, but I am not
proposing that. I think those two countries are the ones that
you would want to do it, and then the rest you have air and sea
capability that we are building in right now, which is what we
are all talking about in terms of the biometric system.
Ms. Chu. Ms. Kephart, you were talking about the other
Nations and what they are doing as far as implementing
biometric systems, and I understand that there are 16 other
Nations that are in the process of implementing biometric
processing of foreign air travelers. Are there any lessons we
can take away from their successful experiences?
Ms. Kephart. Sure. I think, first of all, that it is
feasible; second of all, that it doesn't slow down commerce;
third of all, there is another uptick for this, which is that
airline processing is starting to take place with biometrics as
well. They are actually starting in some Nations and some
airlines to use biometrics as the boarding pass to ease flow-
through, to get rid of paper and lower the cost for the
airlines, too.
So you are seeing a lower level of cost once it is
implemented that helps everybody. And in some airports, for
example, they are seeing more commerce in the jetways because
people are spending less time on processing. For example, if we
had something more biometric at TSA's security lines, imagine
how much better that would be. We are talking about 5 to 20
seconds to gather very important information for immigration
integrity, and we spend anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour in a
TSA security line.
So I think when you make that balance and you look around
the world, you see how efficient, how quick, how accurate. For
example, in the UAE right now, that system has been in place
since 2004. Two hundred and forty million irises are in that
system. It takes 2 seconds to do a verification. That is
amazing.
Ms. Chu. But my question is, why is it that these 16 other
Nations are able to do it and we have taken all this time, 17
years? And, Mr. Heyman, I would like you to comment on that,
too. Why is it that the other Nations were able to progress?
Ms. Kephart. Well, I think in fairness to DHS, and Julie
mentioned this earlier, the technology wasn't there 10 years
ago to do this well and cost effectively. It just wasn't. But
it is there now. We also had a lot of confusion because we had
so much statutory language layered on top, and then in 2007 we
put the onus on the air carriers when every other Nation in the
world has the government do it, and the government just
implemented as it wants. We have more bureaucracy here, and
that is part of the problem too, and the statutory language is
a little bit conflicting, and it needs to be streamlined.
Ms. Chu. Mr. Heyman?
Mr. Heyman. In the United States, we don't own the
airports, the government doesn't have authority over the
airports, and the infrastructure wasn't built for exit in mind.
In new airports, particularly in countries that have the wealth
to build new exit facilities, they can line it up, like we do
on entry, and it makes it much more feasible and cost
effective. In fact, if we had a system like that, we would be
much more able to do that.
So I think in the rare instances where there are exit
facilities internationally, and it is rare, it is because they
probably had the resources and the ability to design the system
from scratch.
Ms. Chu. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Bachus. Thank you.
Mr. King is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank the witnesses here. It has been really an
interesting testimony, and the questions I intended to ask have
moved along because you filled in a lot of blanks for me.
But I have this broad question that hasn't been addressed,
and it has to do with if we could get this all done exactly
perfectly with the technology that has been testified to,
especially even within the dollar figures that we are talking
about, maybe one-sixth of $3 billion and implement this, how
wonderful it would be to actually have a moving spreadsheet
calculation of the identification of everybody that came in,
everybody that left, and the sum total would be the people in
the United States of America. I haven't heard that said yet,
but that was the philosophy behind the entry-exit system that
we hoped to 1 day put in place.
Now, I just imagine that that can be done, and the
testimony here tells me that it can. We have the technological
ability to do that within a reasonable cost figure. In fact, it
occurs to me that you just sell those 1.6 billion extra rounds
of ammunition and we could easily fund this, Mr. Heyman, but
that is just my little facetious remark today.
But if we put this all in place in this way and we still
have an Administration that refuses to enforce the law, what is
the point? I mean, I would like to get this implemented for the
next president, but I have no hope that this president would
utilize the ability to identify the people that overstayed
their visas, let alone find a way to, I'll say, collect some of
those names as people that come and go in our land ports.
I have stood at the ports of entry and watched as people
will pull up, have their card swiped, see it show up on the
screen and verify that they are who they say they are, drive
into America, and an hour later the same car comes back, they
wave and they drive out. That is going on millions and millions
of times. We all know that.
But I look at the Border Patrol's nationwide illegal alien
apprehensions that go back clear to 1925, and it just averaged
the apprehensions at the border from 1980 until the beginning
of the Obama administration. The average apprehensions Border
Patrol number, 1,160,199 per year from 1980 until the Obama
administration, who averages 431,111. So it is a number, just a
little bit more than a third of the average apprehensions that
we have had.
So I don't have hope that there is going to be enforcement.
When I hear that the Gang of Eight's bill in the Senate is
somehow going to help us and that we are working down the line
of identification, tracking and sanctioning, the
identification, I believe that your testimony there is fairly
clear to me, Mr. Heyman. The tracking point is not. I don't
think we can track them. I don't think we know where they are.
And the sanctioning part, it is obvious, isn't taking place,
because even the border interdictions are just a little more
than a third of the average going clear back to 1980.
So this is a lot of exercise in what we might be able to
do, but if we give the resources that Ms. Wood has asked for,
we still have to have the will to implement them.
So I really wanted to turn my question over here to the
gentleman, Mr. Albers, and ask this. I saw some facial
recognition technology implemented that showed a man. He is
actually a naturalized American citizen, an immigrant from
Germany that had on his iPhone 355 facial recognition faces in
his storage, and in that he was able to instantly use that for
his security on his iPhone. If he would look at it, it would
turn on in an instant. If he would look away from it, it would
turn off in a couple of seconds. That kind of technology is
available to us and priced reasonably.
So can you explain that to us? I mean, is the vision in
your head how we might be able to set that all up and walk
people through with that kind of instantaneous response? Can we
build that spreadsheet so we know the net number and the
identification of the people? And then I am going to ask Ms.
Wood how we find them.
Mr. Albers. So let me answer the last question first. The
answer is yes. So the spreadsheet part I think is relatively
easy.
Let's step back a little bit, though, and talk about--and
Mr. Heyman actually mentioned this. Biometrics only works if
you have an enrollment image and then a match image. So right
now we have inferior images in the system. We are not doing
good face captures, and we are not doing iris captures at all.
The technology has improved now so that there are devices about
this size that will take a picture of a face and an iris in one
click, will not take a whole lot of time. USCIS happens to be
one of our customers, and we are talking to them about what if
you wanted to add? They take actually pretty good quality
pictures of a face; they don't do iris at all. But you could
add that to the process when you bring people into USIS right
now.
So to go back to your question, if you have quality images
in and you have quality matches out, you will have very high
rates of accuracy, and you can do it very, very quickly. Like I
said, the accounting part is pretty easy. You could tell
exactly how many people were in this country and were out.
Mr. King. Thank you.
And, Ms. Wood, then how would we find them?
Ms. Wood. Well, we would have individuals that are
dedicated to this, more than 300 ICE agents that are actually
focusing on this. If you think that in 2012 the agency only
opened 2,800 investigations into overstay enforcement for kind
of non-routine cases, that is not a lot, and only arrested
1,273 individuals, that is not very many. So ICE needs more
resources either in HRI or ERO that are designed to do routine
enforcement.
Mr. King. And the will, and the will?
Ms. Wood. And we have got to, then, do it right away. We
can't let individuals overstay here by years where they build
up a lot of equities, and then it causes a lot of difficulty.
So we need to have more routine enforcement, information coming
in very quickly to ICE and ERO, and that sort of investigation
and action being taken routinely, and that would give folks an
incentive to go home as well. If they know there is going to be
enforcement, they would actually leave. Here, I think people
know there is not going to be an enforcement. There is no
incentive to leave the country if you overstay at this point.
Mr. King. Nice word is ``self-deport.''
Can I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman can respond,
Mr. Albers?
Mr. Bachus. Yes.
Mr. Albers. Yes. I didn't want to denigrate my State
Department customers. They actually take very high-quality
pictures for visas.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Albers.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Bachus. Thank you.
Our next Member just returned from a GQ screening, I guess,
with the scarf and sunglasses. I wish folks could see that.
But are you next, Mr. Gutierrez? The gentleman from
Illinois is recognized.
Mr. Gutierrez. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I think it is important to note what happens within the
context of inaction on immigration. I have been in Congress for
more than two decades, and we have debated the merits of the
entry-exit system many, many times. This is not new. I support
the implementation of effective entry-exit system and have
included it in immigration bills that I have authored in the
past.
Biometrics is important. You can do biometrics tomorrow.
There is nothing in the law that says you cannot do biometrics.
Now, we might have a debate about whether you should be forced
to do biometrics, but there is nothing stopping us. Let's stop
kidding ourselves. We are having a hearing about nothing,
because nothing is going to happen until both sides of the
aisle get together and get serious about comprehensive
immigration reform.
So what? Wonderful testimony. We have heard it all before.
Great. You want to have a poll here? All of us will agree with
all four of you, biometrics is better. I bet you it will be
unanimous, biometrics is better. So what? What have we
accomplished here this morning? Absolutely nothing. Because
what we do is we have--you all know, and I am sure if I asked
you--well, what else could help?--you would say, well, if we
had an eVerify system, that would help too because maybe they
would leave quicker, because without an eVerify system, those
just overstay their visas and work in this country. You would
probably tell me, ``You know, Luis, maybe if we had a worker
system that had sufficient visas so that certain industries
could have the workers that they need, like 2 million people
that work in our agricultural industry every day, foreign hands
picking everything that everyone testifying there and everyone
on this side eats every day in this country.''
Shame on us. Shame on us. And what do we do? We come here
to discuss an entry-exit visa program. It will be unanimous,
435 to nothing. And you should do it at DHS. It is the right
thing to do. That is not really the problem here. It is like we
are going around the issue.
The issue is what do we do about the 11 million people that
are already here, and how is it that we fix that in the future?
I am for security. The first part of the bill that I
introduced, the first four paragraphs, Mr. Garcia was like,
``Luis, have you gone security crazy?'' Mr. Garcia just
introduced a proposal that has security, security, security,
security. But when do we get the compassionate part?
It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that any good, sound,
effective immigration policy is cohesive and it is
comprehensive, and it needs many of the inter-working,
interlocking parts in order to be effective. You can't do one
and really be effective with the other or you overburden and
overload the other part of the system.
Any good agent at the border--everybody says, well, we are
not enforcing. Well, sure, because we put 20,000 Border Patrol
agents, because that is the smart thing to do. But wait, stop.
Let's just throw 20,000 more Border Patrol agents, even though
we have heard here that 40 percent of our problem has 300
people. But we are going to put 20,000.
And what does the White House say? ``I'll sign that bill.''
What does everybody say? ``That is a great bill.'' Really? That
is a great bill that militarizes the border between the United
States and Mexico. That is a good bill, when we already heard
the 40 percent.
Look, I have to tell the Republican majority, Obama is not
here. I looked. He doesn't have a seat in the Judiciary
Committee. Last time I checked, he is not one of the 435
members of the House. Forget about it. I don't want an Obama
solution. I also don't want a Tea Party solution. I want an
American solution to our broken immigration system. We can have
all the hearings we want, but shame on us, on everybody for not
doing the work.
Now, look, I know everybody says ``I will admit it, we
could have done more as Democrats.'' But you know something? I
am the first one to say that. I said that repeatedly. So what
are you going to do? Follow in the tradition of do nothing on
the issue? ``Oh, you guys didn't do anything, so now''--you are
the majority now. You are the majority. But we had a referendum
on this issue.
And here is what I am going to end with. Look, the
political consequences of inaction on this issue are going to
be grave to the Republican Party. I know many of you don't
believe it, but mark my words, it will be grave. If you care
about regulatory issues, if you care about monetary issues, if
you care about any other issue, you had better take this issue
off the table, because until you do, you will never see a
presidency of the United States, you will never gain the Senate
again, and you will see the fight of a lifetime over the House
of Representatives on the issue of immigration.
I know it will come as a surprise to many. But remember--
and I just ask for 30 seconds more.
Mr. Bachus. The gentleman is yielded an additional 15
seconds.
Mr. Gutierrez. Thank you. And I will remind everybody,
November 6th of last year there was a referendum. Mitt Romney
said self-deportation, let's expand S.B. 1070, and he said he
would veto the Dream Act. He lost by 5 million votes. Everybody
was surprised, all of those people coming out to vote on the
issue of immigration. Well, they came out to vote, and they are
not going anywhere. Speaker Boehner can't have breakfast
without people coming.
Mr. Bachus. The gentleman is granted another 10 seconds.
Mr. Gutierrez. We will not go away. We will persist in this
issue.
Mr. Bachus. Thank you.
Mr. Gutierrez. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Bachus. Thank you.
Let me briefly respond just by saying this to the
gentleman. He has mentioned President Obama and Mitt Romney.
Let me just put the two of those together.
Mitt Romney. I talked about excuses earlier. The hearing is
about implementation of an entry-exit system still waiting
after all these years. That is what the hearing is about. And
Mitt Romney said leadership is about taking responsibility, not
making excuses, and I think that is a message that the
President ought to hear and this Congress ought to hear.
And a part of immigration reform is security. In fact, it
not only has to do with immigration, it has to do with
terrorism. This is why a lot of the testimony today comes from
the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks. That is another
reason that we don't need excuses, we need leadership.
Mr. Chaffetz is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Chaffetz. I thank the Chairman.
And the sad reality for the Democrats, who want to try to
portray that they have the high moral ground on this, is the
Democrats controlled the House, the Senate, and the presidency,
and they did nothing. I sat on the Subcommittee here. I
campaigned on this issue. I want to be part of the solution,
not the problem. But the reality is, when the Democrats had all
three levers of power, they did nothing, nothing. We didn't
even consider in the Subcommittee a single bill.
Mr. Garcia. If the gentleman would yield.
Mr. Chaffetz. No, I won't, not yet.
Go ahead, go ahead, I will yield to you.
Mr. Bachus. Mr. Garcia is recognized.
Mr. Garcia. You know, we can keep looking to the past, Mr.
Chaffetz. We can keep looking to the past, and there will not
be a solution.
Mr. Chaffetz. Reclaiming my time, I accept your------
Mr. Garcia. Will you let me finish?
Mr. Chaffetz. No, I would rather not. Reclaiming my time.
Mr. Garcia. Absolutely.
Mr. Chaffetz. You made your point, you can keep looking to
the past. Well, you want to blame us. We have actually taken
action in this Committee, and shame on the United States
Senate.
Now, I know the gentleman is new, but let's remember that
when Republicans took control of the House, because the point
was made in the previous questions and statements that
Republicans will bear all the brunt of the political
ramifications, let's remember it was this House of
Representatives in a bill that I sponsored and had broad
bipartisan support, including the gentleman from Illinois, the
gentlewoman from California and others, we passed a bill that
would have helped hundreds of thousands of people. It lifted
the per-country caps on family-based visas from 7 percent to 15
percent.
This would have had a real effect. And guess what? The
Senate, controlled by the Democrats, with no assistance from
the White House, did nothing about it. We had almost 390 votes
in the House of Representatives. It doesn't get much better
than that, to have that many people supporting that bill, and
it went nowhere in the Democrat-controlled, Harry Reid Senate.
Mr. Gutierrez. Will the gentleman yield to me?
Mr. Chaffetz. I will yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
Mr. Gutierrez. Thank you so much, Mr. Chaffetz.
Number one, I just want to say this. There are no senators
in this room and on this panel. The President is not here in
this room. I think you know, and I can say this to Mr.
Labrador, and I can say this to Mr. Bachus, I can say it to all
of you, you are all my friends. Let's work it out. That is all
I am saying. Let's sit down, and let's not say we can't do
anything. That is all I am saying. I know you are of good
faith. I just want to work toward a solution, please.
Mr. Chaffetz. Reclaiming my time.
Mr. Gutierrez. Thank you.
Mr. Chaffetz. To continue to make the case that it is only
the Republicans in the House that are holding back the problem
is not accurate. The Democrats could have brought up that bill
last term, last term. Granted, there are no senators in here,
but let us be united in saying that the United States Senate is
the problem, that Harry Reid refusing to bring up that bill is
a problem.
There are hundreds of thousands of people who didn't get
relief that we offered out of the House, and we did so in a
bipartisan way.
So let the record reflect, Mr. Chairman, it is not merely
House Republicans, as some would want to purport to say. We
actually took action because the first 2 years, at least that I
was here, the first 2 years under this President, when the
Democrats had the House, the Senate, and the presidency, they
did zero, and I do appreciate the sincerity and the
willingness, particularly of the gentleman from Illinois, to
work across the aisle, and I hope he understands that while we,
me personally, do not agree on 100 percent of the issues, we
probably agree on the majority of the issues.
You are, in part, making the case that I believe that we
ought to take an incremental approach. And what is terribly
frustrating is that, as the gentleman from Illinois said, we
are unanimous in the idea that we need this entry-exit program.
It is the law of the United States of America. It is the law,
and yet it hasn't been done by both a Democrat and Republican
administration.
So let me try to get at least one question in for Ms.
Kephart here. The estimate originally was some $3 billion that
this was going to take to implement. Do you know how much has
been spent so far? Do you have any idea how much it would cost
to do it now?
Ms. Kephart. To do it now, my estimate, after working with
some of the folks that worked on the 2009 successful US VISIT
pilot, is that it would be about $400 to $600 million, not
including the manpower costs, which I think could be pretty
minimal considering the technology possibilities today. The
range in cost is wide because of the biometric solutions that
are available.
Mr. Chaffetz. And given that we have something like a $3.7
trillion budget, Mr. Albers, we are going to run out of time
here, but I would appreciate perhaps in follow-up understanding
a little bit about multimodal biometrics, what that means, what
are its implications. Perhaps you can give us a quick answer to
that before we run out of time.
Mr. Albers. So the reason I make the point is because of
all the databases that are being built with the FBI and the
State Department that include multimodal--face, finger, and
iris. So to do an effective exit program, you would like to be
able to get those people upon entry when they enroll, find out
if they are in any of those databases, are they bad guys from
Iraq or Afghanistan, and then when they exit the country you
know they are going, and iris and face are very, very fast in
terms of the type of time it takes to capture them and hit the
database against them.
Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Bachus. Thank you. And for the record, I said that the
hearing, when I said it was about the implementation of an
entry-exit system, still waiting after all these years, I
quoted counsel for the National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks, Ms. Kephart. But it is important to know that it is
actually the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the
United States. We shouldn't leave that out. We are talking
about terrorist attacks on the United States, something that 17
years ago we said was necessary for the security of each and
every one of our constituents and citizens.
Mr. Garcia is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Garcia. Mr. Chairman, first I want to point out your
excellent fashion sense on pointing out my scarf. I greatly
appreciate that.
Mr. Bachus. The sunglasses also------
Mr. Garcia. They also helped. Thank you, sir.
When I speak, I speak to the broader point here. It is time
we stopped pretending to fix our broken immigration system. We
are sitting here rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Eleven million people are in our country without documentation;
we have done nothing. The Senate made historic progress,
finally reforming our immigration system. And you are right,
they have made mistakes in the past, and they hadn't moved. But
we are not there; we are here. Instead of building on that
progress, this Committee has passed four useless bills with no
chance of going anywhere.
My hometown is a gateway to Latin American travel. I
gravely understand the importance of this issue. But it is only
part of the problem. H.R. 15 provides comprehensive reform
while mandating the establishment of a mandatory exit system.
But whether we consider my bill or other legislation, it is
time to stop talking and start doing.
We keep hearing that legislation is coming. First we heard
that it was a top priority for this Committee. Then we were
told that we would see legislation in October. Now it is
sometime next year. Unfortunately, we hear too much, and it is
all talk and no action.
Today, from the Speaker, we hear we have no intention of
ever going to conference on the Senate bill. Well, Mr. Speaker,
this is how you make legislation. It is an essential part of
what we do. You go to conference. What is our bill? What is it
we are going to put forward? More than enough Members of the
House understand the benefits of immigration and understand
that it is necessary for our Nation's prosperity, and
understand that it is what we will do inevitably. In the
meantime, we fail.
But with every day that passes, this problem gets bigger.
The consequences of inaction become more costly to our economy,
to our country, to our people. This body needs to stop hiding
behind empty promises and start doing the job we were sent here
to do. We have been given an unprecedented opportunity. Now is
the time to pass immigration reform, and we can do the
biometrics. But it has to be part of a bigger solution.
And I understand the other side's frustration with this.
Negotiations are always tough. You are in power. You have a lot
of things pressing on you. But this is something that will not
wait. The time is now. The moment is now. You have our
attention. You have the world's attention.
The Senate passed a bill. It wasn't the bill I would have
passed, but they passed a bill. The President of the United
States said he would sign a bill. It wouldn't be what I would
want to sign if I was president, but you have his attention.
Now the ball is in our court. The time to act is now.
And, Mr. Chairman, I point out particularly that you have
been tremendously generous on this issue, and I know that you
have been trying to work with all of us on this, and I also
appreciate my colleagues on the other side because I know I
have called, cajoled, perhaps even harassed a few of you to try
to get you to join on H.R. 15. We need to go to conference,
gentlemen and ladies. We need to find a solution.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Bachus. Thank you. Let me say this. Members on both
sides are frustrated, because we do know that we have a broken
immigration system and it is not fair to our citizens, it is
not fair to the 12 million residents who are here and have been
here for sometimes decades. Mr. Labrador has worked very hard
on this, Mr. Chaffetz, and part of our frustration is inaction,
and part of that inaction is that we don't have an entry-exit
biometric system, although 30 other countries in the world do.
We are the can-do Nation. We are the leader of the free
world. And that causes frustration. But we also know that we
are not going to have--and Kevin McCarthy said yesterday that
we are going to address immigration reform. It would be on our
agenda--that was my understanding--early next year. We only
have 12 legislative days left. But it is a priority for many of
us.
At this time, I would recognize Mr. Marino, the gentleman
from Pennsylvania.
Mr. Marino. Thank you, Chairman.
I just came out of a hearing over at Foreign Affairs
concerning terrorism, and although I am a major supporter of
getting something done on immigration--I have been working with
my colleague, Mr. Labrador, on some language that we have been
discussing, reaching across the aisle, working with my
colleagues over there--I am a little frustrated today with the
pointing of the fingers and saying we are not going to talk
about this, but we talk about it.
I want to look at this from specifically why we are here
from a technical aspect, if I could maybe get us back on track,
perhaps, and I have several questions. I am not going to ask a
question of any one individual, but if you feel like you can
respond to this, which I am sure you can, please do.
The biometrics, we see it all over the place. Go to Disney
World, put my card in, put my finger in, hey, that is Tom
Marino, that is his card. Unlock my front door, lock my front
door, start my car, the whole nine yards. I know much of this
has been achieved over the last 10 years because we didn't have
the technology beforehand. We do have the technology now, and I
think it is getting better by the week, actually. I know my
kids, they are a prime example of it. Every time they get an
iPad or an iPod or an iPhone, it is 6 weeks later, ``Dad, a new
one came out, I want to get another one.'' I say, no, I am
sorry, we cannot afford this.
So given the fact that I will be the first one to admit
that we need to fund this--you cannot do the work that has to
be done without the proper funding--succinctly, where do we go
from here? What is the next step, and what do we need to do to
get this moving and get it moving quickly? Because I don't want
to be here next year or 2 years later talking about the same
thing. I get very frustrated. I am a prosecutor, 18 years a
prosecutor, and I do not like to wait for anything. My wife can
testify to that. So, please.
Mr. Heyman. Congressman, I will be happy to take that
question, and I appreciate the opportunity.
We all, I think, agree that the technology has evolved over
the last several years and provides great opportunity for us to
advance the biometric component of our entry-exit system. What
is needed is to identify what the concept of operations is, how
will you use it. You have national security law enforcement and
the interests of the traveling public at hand, and you need to
figure out where do you deploy that to best accomplish all of
those goals.
If you deploy it too early in the system at the TSA
checkpoint, you have a problem that people can enter the system
and exit the system without actually departing the United
States. Therefore, you look at the gateway or the jetway where
they are actually leaving onto the plane, and so you have that
concept which needs to be identified, and the technology needs
to be evaluated for the environment that it is in and for all
the circumstances.
We are about to do that right now. We are standing up a
test facility that will be operational at the beginning of next
year, and we will be looking at a number of technologies and
how you use them, what is the most cost-effective way, the
fastest throughput, ease of use, all of those things that need
to be evaluated. We will be doing that beginning next year.
Once that concept of operations is evaluated and you deselect
to what is the best one, you deploy those best solutions to the
field, pilot them in the field, and then subsequent to that you
begin to deploy the technology.
Mr. Marino. Anyone else? Anyone else want to address that?
Please.
Ms. Kephart. Yes, please. I think there is another piece of
this. David, of course, on the operational side has to deal
with the concept of operations, which is a little bit
complicated but totally doable, I believe. But there is another
piece of it which I have said before but I will repeat. We have
to provide a means to fund it. That is absolutely essential,
and I think you can do that through authorization of fees.
The tourism industry right now, Brand USA, gets $10 out of
$14 for the visa waiver fee. You add another $10 to that, I
think that is more than fair, and you can pay for a lot of
this. You can even increase it more, or you could appropriate
it. Either way. But I think in a budget situation we are in
now, it would be an authorization for fees.
The other piece of it is you need to make sure the airports
are a stakeholder in statutory law. They are not considered a
stakeholder right now, and DHS has a harder time doing its job
on exit because the airports are not a stakeholder. And then
you have to make sure that the air carriers are not in the
equation anymore because CBP, under the 2013 Homeland Security
Appropriations Act, has the ability to do that, but air
carriers are still in the law carrying the burden of
implementation.
So those things. I think statutorily this body, this
legislative body can do those things.
Mr. Marino. Well, we need that information from you people.
I know when we get elected to Congress, we get taller, smarter
and better looking, but we don't have the answers, all the
answers, and we need these technical answers from you folks. So
I appreciate any input that you can give us. You can call my
office. I am on Homeland Security as well, and this is an issue
that I am quite focused on.
So, thank you very much. I yield back.
Mr. Labrador [presiding]. The gentleman's time has expired.
I am glad that is working for you. It hasn't worked for all of
us, that we are getting taller and better looking.
The gentlewoman from Texas.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the distinguished gentleman.
Let me thank the witnesses and indicate that simultaneous
to this hearing was a hearing in Homeland Security, of which I
am a Member. So I thank you for your indulgence.
Let me welcome Ms. Wood. I have seen you appear before this
Committee in many years past as I was on this Committee, and I
am glad to see you back, and I know that you have some insight
that is very important.
If I could reflect for a moment on using a metaphor or a
rhetorical question that Martin King used to ask, ``If not now,
then when? How long? How long?'' I think, as we look at the
very serious questions of exit and entry, and in actuality an
issue that the Homeland Security Committee has addressed and
introduced a bill that I am an original co-sponsor of and
helped work on, H.R. 3141, which is the Biometric Exit
Improvement Act of 2013, which puts it right to the Department
of Homeland Security to enact in 180 days, to submit to
Congress a biometric exit system, we have studied this
exclusively and extensively, and I am grateful for the
collaboration of the House Judiciary Committee.
But I know that all of us take our work seriously. So we
have a bill ready to be marked up. We have also introduced H.R.
1417 that has been passed through the House Homeland Security
Committee, a bipartisan bill that deals with a reasoned and
reasonable response to the security of our borders, northern
and southern. I always make sure that I make mention of both
northern and southern.
So let me ask the question to Mr. Heyman, who deals with
policy issues. I know you are aware of these initiatives and
aware that there are vigorous discussions in the Department on
this concept of securing America, immigration reform, border
security, and you have just heard me give the words, ``If not
now, then when, and how long?"
How much better would we be with a comprehensive approach,
comprehensive immigration approach to this whole issue of
knowing who is in the country, knowing who is entering the
country, and knowing who is exiting the country?
Mr. Heyman. Thank you, Congresswoman, for the question. I
would support comprehensive immigration reform as a better
condition than we are in today. There is certainly no ability
to move beyond where we are today absent legislation, but there
is the prospect of a brighter future for the immigrant
community, for border security, for our economic well-being
with an immigration legislation that is passed.
In the context of knowing who is in the country, who is out
of the country, we have made substantial progress on that with
our entry-exit system that we have been enhancing over the last
several years. The biometric portion of the exit process we
have talked about extensively today. It is my view that
Congress and the government needs to be smart about
implementing it.
The hardest part is the land border. We need to be very
prudent and make sure that it works in the air and sea
environments first. That is a costly expense. It is going to be
even more costly in land, so let's get it right first.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let's get land first?
Mr. Heyman. No. I am saying air and sea first, ma'am, air
and sea first to make sure we get that right, and then we can
take a look at land. We are doing some very innovative work on
the land border which will allow us biographically to identify
exits. That has been piloted with our Canadian partners, to
great success. We are looking to do something similar on our
southern border.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me ask Ms. Wood, in terms of having
been at ICE before, what is your assessment of being able to
look at the biometrics in pieces, to be very honest with you,
getting pieces done, and then putting the whole together?
And then also, having been in ICE and knowing that you have
the internal enforcement, the value of having a comprehensive
approach so you will know and ICE will have the documentation
to know who should be detained and who should not, and be able
to be effective in making sure we are detaining the people who
will be here to do us harm?
Ms. Wood. Thank you for that question. I think certainly
ICE and all of law enforcement would take a piece-by-piece
approach. Obviously, law enforcement wants biometrics, and it
wants it not only at air and sea but also at land border. But I
think any improvement in the process, and there have been
improvements over the last few years, is very useful not only
to ICE but to the JTPF and all of law enforcement.
I think it is critical, however, that ICE has enforcement
resources and an enforcement mandate to enforce overstays at
some level. So when we think about comprehensive immigration
reform and making things different, having a system that works,
we have to make sure that ICE has the resources to do routine
enforcement going forward as well.
Ms. Jackson Lee. May I just say this, put a question on the
record? I thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman.
I think you are absolutely right. Resources are necessary
for enforcement, and I think that when I spoke piecemeal, I
just want to correct the record. I want to give comfort to my
friends on the other side of the aisle, that we need to pass
something so that we can move forward. When I say
``something,'' something constructive so that we can move
forward on a comprehensive approach that is killing this
country, killing America, killing those who are citizens and
non-citizens who are desperate for some regular order to make
this country the great country that it is.
Biometrics, we have a bill. It deals with land, and I
believe we can work on the land piece and the border security
piece out of Homeland Security, meaning legislation, and then
be able to match it with a very effective, comprehensive
immigration approach. And I would ask my colleagues not to stop
the movement and the progress of getting somewhere to be able
to stabilize, to work this system right and have a
comprehensive understanding of who is in this country to help
us and who is here to hurt us.
I hope that my good friend who is in the chair today will
take up the cause and the banner for this Committee and the
Speaker to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform.
And if he only needs a piece of a bill, then move forward on
3141, a biometric bill from Homeland Security, or 1417, and we
will be able to move forward on comprehensive immigration
reform. We will be able to do it now.
Mr. Labrador. Thank you.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I yield back, and I thank the gentleman
from New York.
Mr. Labrador. The gentle lady's time has expired, and I
yield myself 5 minutes.
I have been a little bit confused by some of the comments
today, and I want to ask Ms. Kephart, you were obviously
counsel to the Senate on Senate bill 744. Is that correct?
Ms. Kephart. Yes.
Mr. Labrador. And I keep hearing that the only way to get
biometrics done--I have heard this now several times--is to
have comprehensive reform. That makes no sense to me.
Now, I want a comprehensive approach to immigration reform.
I am here--I came to Congress specifically to fix the
immigration system. But I am confused by the statement, and Mr.
Heyman made it, a couple of other people have made it, that the
only way to proceed forward on figuring out what to do about
biometric entry-exit system is to have a comprehensive
immigration reform plan. Does that make any sense to you?
Ms. Kephart. Look, the immigration system is made up of
many, many pieces. It is convoluted. It is complicated. Each
piece has its value. Each piece can be dealt with in its own
comprehensive bubble. You don't need everything fixed at once.
This is a little different than the immigration reform that
is sitting here before us because we already have eight
statutes.
Mr. Labrador. Okay, let me stop you there. That is the
question that I have. We have had statutes for 17 years on the
books, right?
Ms. Kephart. Mmm-hmm.
Mr. Labrador. We haven't done anything to fix this system.
Now, I hear that we have done some things to make it better,
but we haven't done what the law says. The law says that we
need to have a biometric entry-exit system.
So the question that I have for all of you, I want to have
immigration reform done. I have asked that we have triggers,
and one of those triggers has to be a biometric entry-exit
system.
How long would it take the United States to have a
biometric entry-exit system at sea, land and air so we can have
a trigger in place so we can have this comprehensive reform
that some people are talking about?
Ms. Kephart. If you went by the law that is on the books
today and you put out requests for proposals tomorrow to
industry and let them battle this out for a concept of
operations, then I think you could have this very quickly. You
could have it------
Mr. Labrador. And what is very quickly?
Ms. Kephart. Well, if you look at Indonesia, they did a
comprehensive rollout that did everything, watch-list vetting,
person-centric system, everything, at their largest airport in
6 months' time.
Mr. Labrador. Mr. Albers?
Mr. Albers. If there were funding in place------
Mr. Labrador. Yes, and funding. We have to assume that,
absolutely.
Mr. Albers. If there were funding in place and a
contractual vehicle in place, we could do this in 18 months.
Mr. Labrador. Eighteen months.
Mr. Albers. So a part of that, the beginning, sometimes is
the long part. So getting the funding and getting the
contract------
Mr. Labrador. And you are talking total. If we decide
tomorrow that we are going to pass reform and we are going to
have a comprehensive strategy on immigration, but the trigger
is that we have to have an entry-exit system, you are saying 18
months.
Mr. Albers. Eighteen months--we call it ARO, after receipt
of order. So if an order is placed to start air and sea, we
could do that in 18 months. I think land will take a little
longer than that.
Mr. Labrador. How long?
Mr. Albers. Maybe within 2 years.
Mr. Labrador. Two years.
Ms. Wood?
Ms. Wood. I would defer to DHS for the estimate, but I
would note that getting the receipt of order is very difficult.
And so making sure that DHS has sufficient procurement
capabilities and moves out, and then actually moves on it. If
we think about what has happened to integrated six towers, for
example, or at CBP, there has not been a lot of activity. So I
think making sure DHS has enough resources, and then I would
defer to David on the specific time period.
Mr. Labrador. Mr. Heyman?
Mr. Heyman. Thank you. There are a number of statutes on
the table right now that we are trying to implement. We don't
have the funding, as you said, and we don't have the concept of
operations. So we are looking to have that within the next
year. So by this time next year, the concept of operations will
be going to the field for piloting. Sometime after that,
perhaps the 18 months would kick in for deploying the
technology to air and sea. I think the land is exceptionally
hard to look at, and I would suggest that there are enough
statutes out there that we don't need to tie this to
comprehensive immigration reform. You should do the best you
can with all the different challenges you have on that on its
own.
Mr. Labrador. But we don't need to tie it to it. I actually
think we already have the laws in place. But the problem is,
even if you look at the Senate bill, the Senate bill just
makes, again, the promise that we are going to have an entry-
exit system. It doesn't solve the problem. And according to the
estimates of the CBO, even under the Senate bill we are going
to have over 10 million people here illegally in the next 10 to
15 years.
So it doesn't fix the problem that we have, and that is
what I want to do. I want to fix the problem of illegal
immigration. I want to fix it now, and I am not going to allow
a bill to just pass so we can have this discussion again 10 or
15 years from now.
Mr. Heyman. So it is my view that an entry-exit system is
not going to solve your overstay problem. It helps you identify
it and it helps you to enforce it, but it is not going to solve
your overstay problem. Only immigration reform will solve that.
Mr. Labrador. That doesn't make any sense. How will only
immigration, when the CBO says that the Senate bill does not
solve the immigration problem?
Mr. Heyman. Because what biometric does is it allows you
to, with greater integrity, identify somebody who is leaving
the country, and to use that to match it to an entry so that
you can know whether they have overstayed or not.
Mr. Labrador. But Ms. Wood said if we have actually more
enforcement, then we can solve that problem. Isn't that what
you were saying, Ms. Wood?
Ms. Wood. Yes, I think pairing exit with enforcement.
Mr. Labrador. With enforcement.
Ms. Wood. You absolutely have to have enforcement. You
can't just have exit without enforcement.
Mr. Labrador. And I agree with that.
Mr. Heyman. We are enforcing today. Number one, we sanction
those who have overstayed the terms of their visa. Number two,
we revoke those.
Mr. Labrador. So you think 1,300 investigations is
sufficient?
Mr. Heyman. We obviously prioritize those in national
security. No, some of those have been a 30-year drunken driving
offense.
Mr. Labrador. Okay. My time has expired. I just think that
to come here and say that comprehensive immigration reform is
the answer when we are not even willing to do the enforcement,
we are not even willing to use the technology, is actually
misleading the American public, and I am just really confused
about that, and I hope that we can get this done. This has been
on the books for 17 years. Let's get this done. Let's make it a
trigger so we can do what all of us want, which is to actually
fix this broken immigration system.
My time has expired. The gentleman from Nevada has 5
minutes.
Mr. Jeffries. From New York.
Mr. Labrador. I am sorry, from New York.
Mr. Jeffries. Okay. Let me just thank the witnesses for
their testimony here today and for the information that has
been shared.
I want to just direct for the moment a few questions to the
Assistant Secretary, Mr. Heyman.
Is it fair to say that the fundamental purpose of a
comprehensive entry-exit system is designed to help this
country enforce our Nation's immigration laws and make sure
that those who are leaving and entering comply with those laws?
Mr. Heyman. Yes.
Mr. Jeffries. So in that context of immigration
enforcement, I am interested in exploring the notion of what
information DHS either currently collects or intends to collect
from permanent residents and United States citizens. Now, as it
relates to air-based entries and exits, what information do you
collect right now on either permanent residents or United
States citizens who are leaving the country or entering the
country via air?
Mr. Heyman. All individuals coming across our borders, we
identify who is coming and going, and we retain that
information.
Mr. Jeffries. Right. And what is the purpose of collecting
and retaining that information as it relates to permanent
residents who have lawful status here in the United States, not
subject to revocation or expiration, or even more significantly
United States citizens?
Mr. Heyman. Well, we do that for all of those individuals,
whether it is a U.S. citizen or otherwise, who come across our
borders. We do that for admissibility purposes for non-U.S.
citizens, we do that for security reasons and law enforcement
actions, and we do that for ensuring the safety and security of
our country.
Mr. Jeffries. Safety and security as it relates to the
entry and the exit of United States citizens?
Mr. Heyman. Well, United States citizens, if there is a
warrant out for their arrest, if they are a convicted felon, if
they are involved in any kind of felon activity, we would be
interested in identifying them coming back across our border or
leaving our country. It is an opportunity for law enforcement
to act.
Mr. Jeffries. Okay. Now, once you determine that there is
either no applicable outstanding warrant, this is not a felon,
this is not anyone who is currently in violation of any United
States statute, do you retain that information?
Mr. Heyman. There is a period of time when the data is
retained, yes.
Mr. Jeffries. And what is the duration of the retention of
that information?
Mr. Heyman. I would have to get back to you on that, sir.
Mr. Jeffries. Okay. But it is your testimony that
subsequent to the expiration of that period of time of the
retention of that information, the United States Government no
longer stores it within its electronic database capabilities?
Mr. Heyman. Yes. For all of the databases that we have,
there is a privacy impact analysis that is done and a statement
that is issued for the public.
Mr. Jeffries. Okay. So it is my understanding also, dealing
with land-based crossings, that an agreement was signed between
the President of this country and Prime Minister Harper, I
believe, on February 4th, 2011; correct?
Mr. Heyman. That is correct.
Mr. Jeffries. And there are three phases to that agreement;
correct?
Mr. Heyman. Yes.
Mr. Jeffries. And the third phase, which will be
implemented in June of 2014, will require the recordation and
exchange of information of United States citizens who cross
between the United States and the Canadian border; correct?
Mr. Heyman. Yes. Just like any border crossing, any arrival
and departure, we will have all citizens, all persons who
travel across the border identified.
Mr. Jeffries. Okay. Now, is that information shared with
any other government agency beyond DHS?
Mr. Heyman. If there is a law enforcement nexus to it for
criminal investigations, it might be shared.
Mr. Jeffries. Okay. Does the NSA have access to that
information?
Mr. Heyman. I do not know.
Mr. Jeffries. Okay. If you can report back to me or to this
Committee as to whether the NSA currently has access to that
information in terms of the crossings that take place on sea or
via air, or whether the NSA will have access to that
information once it begins to be recorded on June 14th or June
of 2014, that would be helpful.
Do you see any reason why, once it is determined that this
individual who has crossed the border and is either a permanent
resident or a United States citizen, there is no criminal
justice nexus, why the NSA or any other Federal Government
agency should have permanent access to that information?
Mr. Heyman. Well, as I said, on a case-by-case basis for
criminal investigations, if it becomes necessary for
understanding, for example, somebody's alibi--``I was out of
the country''--and they are in a criminal proceeding, that
would be helpful to them. If it is at the nexus of a criminal
action, it would be harmful to them, but that would be
corroborating information that would be in a criminal
investigation.
Mr. Labrador. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Jeffries. Thank you.
Mr. Labrador. Thank you very much.
I just have one quick question for clarification. I didn't
understand Mr. Heyman's answer earlier in the hearing. Ms.
Wood, maybe you can respond to this.
In April 2011, the GAO reported that there was a backlog of
1.6 million unmatched arrivals. Then later on we know, as of
2011, as of 2013, there is an additional million. But he stated
that we have 100 percent knowledge of the people that are here.
So I was confused about those two data points. Can you maybe
explain that?
Ms. Wood. Sure. With respect to the individuals that were
identified, the 1.6 million in the GAO report, DHS agreed to
review those records, and then this is what happened.
Approximately 863,000 of those individuals had already
departed, were in status, had adjusted, or there was some other
reason they could be removed. So then DHS had left 839,000
records, and they reviewed those records. They actually only
reprioritized 1,901 of those records, and they sent those out
to the ICE unit for further investigation. And of the 1,901
records, nine of them were arrested, 266 could not be located
and the investigation was closed pending new information, 481
were referred to enforcement and removal operations or ERO, but
ERO later told GAO that they didn't prioritize those, very few
of those. So we don't know, but we assume that it is a very,
very small number, if any, that were arrested from that. Forty-
three were previously arrested or were in proceedings. So it is
a very small number of individuals that were actually arrested.
DHS may have the ability to at least initially identify
what information people put on their records. But to say that
DHS knows where individuals are I think is a little bit of an
overstretch specifically because so few leads are actually sent
to ICE, and ICE is investigating so few of them.
Mr. Labrador. And, Mr. Heyman, you didn't mean to say that
you knew 100 percent of the people were here and where they
were.
Mr. Heyman. We knew what their disposition was, whether
they had overstayed. The reason you send them to investigations
is you are trying to find them.
Mr. Labrador. Thank you. Thank you very much.
This concludes today's hearing. Thanks to all of our
witnesses for attending. It was a great hearing.
Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days
to submit additional written questions for the witnesses or
additional materials for the record.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:53 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Listing of Material submitted by the Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, and Chairman,
Committee on the Judiciary
The information includes five GAO reports; a statement by Rebecca
Gambler before the Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, House
Committee on Homeland Security showing the DHS has not met the
requirements in implementing a biometric air exit system; a report from
Smart Border Alliance to DHS; two reports by Customs and Border
Protection; a letter report by the Office of the Inspector General; and
a Pew Research study that documents an increase in the number of
unauthorized immigrants in the country.
__________
GAO report entitled Homeland Security: Some Progress Made, but Many
Challenges Remain on U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator
Technology Program. DHS created this report to better ensure that the
US-VISIT program is worthy of investment and is managed effectively. To
better ensure the effectiveness of this program, DHS will fully
disclose in future expenditure plans its progress against previous
commitments and that it reassess plans for deploying an exit
capability.
Acessible at http://www.gao.gov/assets/250/245389.pdf
__________
GAO report entitled Homeland Security: U.S. Visitor and Immigrant
Status Program's Long-standing Lack of Strategic Direction and
Management Controls Need to Be Addressed. DHS has established a program
known as U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-
VISIT) to collect, maintain, and share information, including biometric
identifiers, on certain foreign nationals who travel to the United
States. By Congressional mandate, DHS is to develop and submit an
expenditure plan for US-VISIT that satisfies certain conditions,
including being reviewed by GAO. GAO reviewed the plan to (1) determine
if the plan satisfied these conditions, (2) follow up on certain
recommendations related to the program, and (3) provide any other
observations. To address the mandate, GAO assessed plans and related
documentation against federal guidelines and industry standards and
interviewed the appropriate DHS officials.
Accessible at: http://www.gao.gov/assets/270/265802.pdf
__________
GAO report entitled Homeland Security: Key US-VISIT Components at
Varying Stages of Completion, but Integrated and Reliable Schedule
Needed. DHS' U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology
(US-VISIT) program stores and processes biometric and biographic
information to amongst other things, control and monitor the entry and
exit of foreign visitors. Currently, an entry capability is operating
at almost 300 U.S. ports of entry, but an exit capability is not. GAO
has previously reported on limitations in DHS's efforts to plan and
execute its efforts to deliver USVISIT exit, and made recommendations
to improve these areas. GAO was asked to determine (1) the status of
DHS's efforts to deliver a comprehensive exit solution and (2) to what
extent DHS is applying an integrated approach to managing its
comprehensive exit solution. To accomplish this, GAO assessed USVISIT
exit project plans, schedules, and other management documentation
against relevant criteria, and it observed exit pilots.
Accessible at: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d1013.pdf
__________
GAO report entitled Homeland Security: US-VISIT Pilot Evaluations
Offer Limited Understanding of Air Exit Options. DHS' U.S. Visitor and
Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) program is to control
and monitor the entry and exit of foreign visitors by storing and
processing biometric and biographic information. The entry capability
has operated since 2006; an exit capability is not yet implemented. In
September 2008, the Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and
Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009, directed DHS to pilot air exit
scenarios with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and
airlines, and to provide a report to congressional committees. DHS
conducted CBP and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) pilots
and issued its evaluation report in October 2009. Pursuant to the act,
GAO reviewed the evaluation report to determine the extent to which (1)
the report addressed statutory conditions and legislative directions;
(2) the report aligned with the scope and approach in the pilot
evaluation plan; (3) the pilots were conducted in accordance with the
evaluation plan; and (4) the evaluation plan satisfied relevant
guidance. To do so, GAO compared the report to statutory conditions,
the evaluation plan, and relevant guidance.
Accessible at: http://www.gao.gov/assets/310/308630.pdf
__________
GAO report entitled Overstay Enforcement: Additional Actions Needed
to Assess DHS's Data and Improve Planning for a Biometric Air Exit
Program. This report addresses the current need for additional action
by DHS in order to fulfill its responsibility for identifying and
taking enforcement action to address overstays. Within DHS, U.S.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is tasked with, among other duties,
inspecting all people applying for entry to the United States to
determine their admissibility to the country and screening Visa Waiver
Program applicants to determine their eligibility to travel to the
United States under the program.
Accessible at: http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/656316.pdf
__________
Statement of Rebecca Gambler, Director of Homeland Security and
Justice for GAO, before the Subcommittee on Border and Maritime
Security, Committee on Homeland Security, House of Representatives;
Border Security: Additional Actions needed to Improve Planning for a
Biometric Air Exit System. Rebecca Gambler discusses DHS' efforts to
implement a biometric exit system, as well as the full range of
management challenges that DHS has faced in its effort to deploy a
corresponding biometric exit system. Since 1996, federal law has
required the implementation of an entry and exit data system to track
foreign nationals entering and leaving the United States. The
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 required the
Secretary of Homeland Security to develop a plan to accelerate
implementation of a biometric entry and exit data system that matches
available information provided by foreign nationals upon their arrival
in and departure from the U.S.
Accessible at: http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/658185.pdf
__________
Smart Border Alliance report to DHS: US-VISIT Increment 2C RFID
Feasibility Study Final Report. This document records the results of
the RF Feasibility Study as it was conducted in a simulated environment
(Mock Port of Entry). This, and the establishment of a Mock POE, must
successful prior to Phase 1, POC implementation at POEs. Based upon
successful completion of the Phase 1 Increment 2C POC, full operating
capability will be implemented in Phase 2. Upon completion of Phase 2,
a thorough evaluation will be conducted. Based upon the results of that
evaluation, further deployment will be determined.
Accessible at: http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/foia/US-
VISIT_RFIDfeasibility
_redacted-051106.pdf
__________
Entry/Exit Information System: Phase I Joint Canada-United States
Report. This report discusses the planned development of a coordinated
Entry/Exit Information system between the United States and Canada, as
part of the Beyond the Border Declaration and Action Plan agreed to by
President Obama and Prime Minister Harper in 2011.
Accessible at: http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/newsroom/
highlights/can
ada_usreport.ctt/canada_usreport.pdf
__________
Customs and Border Protection report entitled Comprehensive Exit
Plan. This report describes DHS' recent efforts to implement an
enhanced biographic exit system and biometric exit planning, to better
target foreign nationals who overstay their lawful period of admission;
the results of pilot programs at the land ports of entry along the
northern and southern borders; and efforts to align CBP's missions and
functions to meet the changes enacted in P.L. 113-6.
Link not available. This report is inserted at the end of this
list (see Attachment).
__________
OIG Letter Report: Department of Homeland Security US-VISIT Faces
Challenges in Identifying and Reporting Multiple Biographic Identities.
This Letter report written by the Assistant Inspector General of IT
Audits Frank Deffer to Robert Mocny, the Director of US-VISIT,
discusses two recommendations aimed at improving US-VISIT as deemed
necessary by the OIG.
Accessible at:
http://www.oig.dhs.gov/assets/Mgmt/2012/OIG_12-111_Aug12.pdf
__________
The Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project study: Population Decline
of Unauthorized Immigrants Stalls, May Have Reversed. This study
discusses how the sharp decline in the U.S. population of unauthorized
immigrants that accompanied the 2007-2009 recession has bottomed out,
and the number may be rising again. It further discusses the reasons
behind this trend.
Accessible at: http://www.pewhispanic.org/2013/09/23/
population-decline-of-un
authorized-immigrants-stalls-may-have-reversed
ATTACHMENT
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]