Press Briefing by Secretary Tom Ridge With John Walsh, Mike Garcia, and Asa Hutchinson

Release Date: 07/09/03 00:00:00

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
July 9, 2003

1:30 p.m.

SECRETARY RIDGE: (in progress) their streets and their communities and their families safe, and time after time, through John's program and his outreach and embrace of the country with this notion and with this information, we've made our communities and our streets safer.

So it's a great pleasure for us to introduce to you, although he needs no introduction, John Walsh.  John.

MR. WALSH:  Thank you so much.

Well, thank you all for coming, and as Ernie said so appropriately, this is a historic day.  My wife Reve and I have waited 21 years since our son Adam was murdered, our six-year-old son was murdered, to see this kind of concerted cooperation on the Federal level.  This is really historic.

This is something that needed to be done years and years ago.  This is something that I have seen and observed not being done firsthand, working on America's Most Wanted for 16 years, seeing different agencies battle with each other, turf wars, who gets credit for whatever capture.

I've never seen this type of program even conceived, and this is phenomenal today.

The SWAT team that's been put here together. Asa, I've known for years when he ran DEA, we did a lot of your cases on America's Most Wanted, the partnership with Ernie Allen and the National Center, John Rabin sitting here.

I think the choice by Secretary Ridge to partner with the National Center is a tremendous, loud gesture to the people who prey upon our children that we're not going to put up with it anymore.

And Secretary Ridge thanked Mike Garcia, but Mike, I just want to say, not as the host of America's Most Wanted, but as the father of a murdered child, this concept and what you're doing here, this SWAT team is revolutionary.

They brought the concept to us at America's Most Wanted, came up with their 10 most wanted, ICE's "Ten Most Wanted".  We fortunately had the good fortune and the partnership with the American public to nail nine out of the 10 right off the bat, which I thought was phenomenal.

I think this sends a loud message to pedophiles who know no borders, especially illegal aliens that come here, that molest our children, serve time in our prisons, and then are released, that you cannot stay in the United States, that this group will hunt you down, and you will be sent back to your country of origin and we won't put up with it.

They're also taking on the incredible task of trying to educate the public and the whole country about Megan's Law.  Now, I was there for the signing of Megan's Law years ago, and that's the Sex Offender Registry, and we've seen it work in certain states where we've actually caught people because they were forced to register and they re-offended, and they were in the registry.

But most local sheriffs, most local police agencies across the country don't know how to implement Megan's Law.  They don't know what they're supposed to do.  They don't know how to distribute the registry.  In many cases, they don't know how to put the registry together.  So to take that task on is monumental in itself.

But there are so many aspects to this concerted effort, that it's just incredible.  It just sends a loud message that the Department of Homeland Security will not put up with the exploitation of our children.

And if you are the parent of a murdered child or a missing child, if there's a predator in your area who's lurking and trying to grab kids in the school, vicinity of your school, that's a terrorist.  You would be terrorized.

That kind of terrorist is the top of my list, the terrorist who preys upon children, whether he comes from another country or he comes within this country, these are terrorists.  They're hard to catch.  They're organized.  They know what they're doing, and they've had an open season for years.

But now, with the putting together of these different Federal agencies, and ICE taking the charge here, it sends a loud message:  we are going to use the resources of the Federal Government and you will have nowhere to hide, that we will search you out from border to border, state to state, county to county, city to city.

And I'm just absolutely honored to be here today.  This is really a new undertaking, a Federal SWAT team to hunt down the predators of our children, and it's a long time in coming.  I hoped and prayed I would see it in my lifetime, and I am seeing it.

Secretary Ridge, I know you have a lot on your plate, but to take on this as part of your duties is something I'm proud to say that I know you and am a friend of yours, but to take this on, to protect our children on the Federal level and to put all these different organizations that don't necessarily work together, to make this concerted effort, I just thank you so much.  I'm so proud of it, proud and honored to be here today.

SECRETARY RIDGE:  I'm proud to work in partnership with you.  Thank you.  Actually, I think we probably should have let John make the announcement.

(Laughter.)

SECRETARY RIDGE:  I appreciate his passion, and obviously his commitment, and frankly, the comfort and the solace that he's brought to, unfortunately, a lot of families who have had to endure the same kind of tragedy that he and his wife have had.

So I'm grateful for everyone's participation, and will be happy to respond to - any of us would be happy to respond to any questions,

Yes.

QUESTION:  The part of this that is aimed at the foreign predators coming out of prison after they've served their term, and I'm not sure if this is for you or Mr. Garcia or what, but --

SECRETARY RIDGE:  If it's tough, it'll be for him.

QUESTION:  Okay.

(Laughter.)

QUESTION:  First of all, how can you be sure that you've fixed the problem of these guys getting out of jail and immediately being nabbed and deported?

 And I guess sort of the corollary to that, will you have enough resources?  Because traditionally, the Immigration agents just did not have enough resources in order to round up, you know, whether they were absconders or people having served their sentences.

SECRETARY RIDGE:  I think it's ?? you ask a question, I think, that highlights one of the benefits of taking these different agencies and putting them into one department.

Now, under the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau, we have literally hundreds more agents available to us if we target this mission in an area or region.  I mean, that is one of the benefits of putting investigators together and those involved in enforcement together.

So now, Mike has the personnel to do far more in this area than he's ever had before, and clearly, with the concerted effort, we know there are illegals on the street or those who have done their time who are back out on the street, and we go after them and deport them, and now with this concerted effort, when the last day of their sentence has expired, we'll meet them at the front door of the prison and escort them to the border.

So again, we bring these resources together and make sure the information is shared.  We've got more people to act on it.  We don't guarantee a fail-safe perfect system, but it is a real plus-up, is really an enhancement of our ability to enforce the law, deport those who, because of these crimes, having done their time here, are therefore eligible and should and must and will be deported, and again, Mike will have additional people to do it because of the merger of the agencies.

QUESTION:  It was announced before that today would be the day that the Department of Homeland Security would officially extend the temporary protective status for Salvadorians in this country, that would benefit 300,000 of them.

Is there an official announcement today on that?

SECRETARY RIDGE:  Not yet, but we're having a meeting on that either later on today or tomorrow, so there will be an announcement forthcoming.  Your calendar is pretty good.

Yes, please.

MR. WALSH:  I left out one important message that I wanted to send about this concerted Federal effort.

Years ago, on America's Most Wanted, we caught a serial pedophile.  He was a suspect in the murders of several children in Southern California.  And they confiscated a ton-and-a-half of child pornography from his house.

And the local sheriff in Southern California said, "Where do I send this child pornography?"

And my first thought was, number one, there are so many missing children, maybe we could identify some of those kids in that child pornography as having been kidnapped and used in child pornography, and thus add additional charges to this guy's number of charges; and number two, we can find out maybe what happened to these kids.

Do you know, back then, there was nowhere to send that child pornography?  No agency could do it.  It wasn't the FBI's job.  It wasn't the Marshals' jobs.  Customs and Immigration were good at catching the child pornographers, but no one was available to analyze that child pornography.

Guess what we have now?  We have ICE.  When you have a local sheriff who nails a child pornographer, we can look at those pictures and we can say, "This is a boy that's been missing for three or four years.  This - we can have additional charges."

There is somewhere to go now to maybe end the search for parents of missing children, someone to look simply at that child pornography and say this is what we should have been doing years ago when we caught a child pornographer.

That was an important component of what they're doing here I left out.  I'm sorry.

MR.. GARCIA:  Yeah, but in terms of resources, your question to the Secretary, I think also today's announcement is about prioritization.

So while we have 50,000 criminal alien absconders, we are now prioritizing those with violent crimes, those sexual predators, and particularly those predators who prey on children.

The same with the institutional removal program, where we go to prisons to make sure that violent felons don't hit the streets.  We're now prioritizing our efforts in that area, to target sexual predators, to target predators that prey on children, and make sure that those people do not leave the prison and go back out on the streets.

We're also helped by new Supreme Court law that says mandatory detention for those with violent felonies in deportation proceedings, aggravated felonies.  We're using that law.  We're not bailing these felons, and we're making sure they appear at their removal proceedings and are deported when ordered.

QUESTION:  Mr.. Secretary, could you talk about this library of images?  Does it now exist?  What will it be?

MR.. GARCIA:  It exists.  It's an ongoing process, developing process.  It serves basically two functions, as Mr.. Walsh alluded to.

One is to identify victims of these types of crimes, to see where we can make an effort to rescue children, to take them out of harm's way, to identify children who have been harmed.

Second, it serves an evidentiary function.  There's Supreme Court law that says in a child pornography case, a defense is that it's not a real child, it's an image, it's a virtual image.

Our data base is used by law enforcement agencies.  We used it recently in New York to say "Yes, the materials you've seized, the evidence you have, that is a real child.  That defense is not - is meaningless."  And we got a conviction recently in New York with our assistance.

QUESTION:  This is for some time?

MR.. GARCIA:  Some time.  It's an ongoing process of developing it, taking images, as Mr.. Walsh said, making sure they're catalogued and making sure they're available to law enforcement.

QUESTION:  Mr.. Secretary, I'm confused a little bit about the jurisdictional issues here, and Mr.. Walsh's example kind of highlights it.

If I was a local law enforcement official who had a cache of child pornography, I might be inclined to give it to the FBI.

Who should be - where does the FBI's responsibility end and yours begin, or where does your responsibility on these issues begin, and where does the FBI take over?

SECRETARY RIDGE:  Well, first of all, we've got a - we have join responsibility to deal with the problem, and in that situation, if you get it to the FBI, they'll get it to us, or you give it to us directly.

I mean, I think one of the advantages of the Department and our merger of law enforcement and our merger of our data bases, it will just frankly be a lot easier to work in partnership with our allies over at the FBI.  They will be dealing with disparate units within our department.  They'll be dealing with one, they'll be dealing with Mike Garcia.  So I -

QUESTION:  The FBI and the Justice Department also have the responsibility to investigate crimes of the very nature that you're talking about.

SECRETARY RIDGE:  They do, and they have - I'll let Mike, if you want to answer.

But, you know, they have focused much of their investigation on, I think, interstate trafficking of child pornographers and predators and some cyber crime.  They'll continue to do that.  We will, as well.

I mean, we have several units of the Federal Government who have targeted the exploitation of children.  We are not doing this to the exclusion of any of those.  We are doing it in collaboration with all of them. I'll let - Asa, would you care to -

MR.. HUTCHINSON:  Just let me elaborate.  I mean, that's part of the Federal system, is that there are jurisdictions that overlap.  When I was with the DEA, both the DEA and the FBI had concurrent jurisdiction for drug cases.  Customs also has that authority.

What is unique about this capacity is that there are unique enforcement capabilities of Immigration agents and Customs agents that have combined, and so we have a unique ability that can pursue these type of cases, that others do not have.

And so if local law enforcement, they could start in either direction, but if we communicate, and we're committed to communicating very carefully with the FBI through the National Center, as well, so that these are well-coordinated investigations, when there is an overlap.

MR.. WALSH:  But to answer your question specifically, the FBI, which I've worked with for years on America's Most Wanted, and we've caught 15 of their 10 most wanted, their jurisdiction and their main function is to catch the fugitive ?? to help local police prosecute them or catch the fugitive.

There aren't 30 FBI agents analyzing child pornography and going through the records of missing children and saying, "This child was missing from Minnesota, we can charge this guy maybe with abduction."  They don't have those resources.

The National Center (inaudible) those resources, and now ICE is going to have those resources, so they'll be able to help in that prosecution.  There's many, many multi-agency prosecutions, but the FBI really doesn't have the resources that this Department is going to give in the battle for hunting these predators down and (inaudible).

QUESTION:  If I could just get one more?  Will you be doing that even for non-deportable people?

SECRETARY RIDGE:  We will follow the evidentiary (inaudible), wherever it takes us.

I mean, again, there's a unique aspect to what Customs and INS does, and the data base will include both domestic predators and foreign predators, as well.

A PARTICIPANT:  Turn the heat back down.  Thanks very much, ladies and gentlemen.

 

This page was last modified on 07/09/03 00:00:00