<DOC>
[109th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:30529.wais]
GANGS, FRAUD AND SEXUAL PREDATORS: STRUGGLING WITH THE CONSEQUENCES OF
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 12, 2006
__________
Serial No. 109-189
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
http://www.house.gov/reform
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DIANE E. WATSON, California
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
DARRELL E. ISSA, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JON C. PORTER, Nevada C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina Columbia
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania ------
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio (Independent)
------ ------
David Marin, Staff Director
Larry Halloran, Deputy Staff Director
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman
PATRICK T. McHenry, North Carolina ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DAN BURTON, Indiana BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JOHN L. MICA, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota DIANE E. WATSON, California
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
CHRIS CANNON, Utah C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina Columbia
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
J. Marc Wheat, Staff Director
Dennis Kilcoyne, Professional Staff Member
Malia Holst, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on April 12, 2006................................... 1
Statement of:
Folwell, Dale, a State representative, State of North
Carolina; Thomas J. Keith, district attorney, 21st
Prosecutorial District, North Carolina; Debra Conrad-
Shrader, vice-chair, Forsyth Bounty Board of Commissioners;
and Brandon Holland, Forsyth County Director, Zero Armed
Perpetrators [ZAP] Program................................. 35
Conrad-Shrader, Debra.................................... 50
Folwell, Dale............................................ 35
Holland, Brandon......................................... 54
Keith, Thomas J.......................................... 38
Jordan, Jeffrey S., Special Agent-in-Charge, U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Department of Homeland
Security, Charlotte, NC.................................... 14
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Conrad-Shrader, Debra, vice-chair, Forsyth Bounty Board of
Commissioners, prepared statement of....................... 52
Foxx, Hon. Virginia, a Representative in Congress from the
State of North Carolina, prepared statement of............. 9
Holland, Brandon, Forsyth County Director, Zero Armed
Perpetrators [ZAP] Program, prepared statement of.......... 57
Jordan, Jeffrey S., Special Agent-in-Charge, U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Department of Homeland
Security, Charlotte, NC, prepared statement of............. 17
Keith, Thomas J., district attorney, 21st Prosecutorial
District, North Carolina, prepared statement of............ 42
Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana, prepared statement of.................... 4
GANGS, FRAUD AND SEXUAL PREDATORS: STRUGGLING WITH THE CONSEQUENCES OF
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
----------
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2006
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and
Human Resources,
Committee on Government Reform,
Winston-Salem, NC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in
the County Commissioners Meeting Room, Forsyth County
Government Center, 201 North Chestnut Street, Winston-Salem,
NC, Hon. Mark E. Souder (chairman of the subcommittee)
presiding.
Present: Representatives Souder and Foxx.
Staff present: Dennis Kilcoyne, professional staff member
and counsel; Scott Springer, congressional fellow; and Malia
Holst, clerk.
Mr. Souder. The subcommittee will come to order.
Good morning and thank you all for coming. Today, our
subcommittee will address some of the issues surrounding the
debate on illegal immigration, which you all know is a very
contentious topic. Congresswoman Foxx wanted to make sure that
I pointed out that we had settled on this topic some time ago,
we did not realize all the stories over the last couple of days
were going to focus on immigration. This has been a continuing
subject. Our committee has jurisdiction over all judiciary
issues as well as all drug issues. We do not have jurisdiction
over work force issues, so we are not going to be focusing on
work force questions today, because it is not in the domain of
our subcommittee.
I first want to thank your Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, who
is a member of this subcommittee and has been an energetic
advocate for greater border security and enforcement. I also
want to thank the witnesses who are here today to give us their
input. I will be introducing them shortly.
The House of Representatives has already passed legislation
aimed at halting the flow of illegal aliens across the border
and, as we know, the Senate just last week came close to
passing its own immigration reform bill. The Senate's failure
demonstrates the tremendous polarization on this issue. The
great majority of American people feel strongly that the
Federal Government is failing in its responsibilities to defend
our borders and the growing anger and frustration is palpable.
On the other hand, immigrants--many undoubtedly here
illegally--are taking to the streets in large numbers, waving
the flags of foreign nations and demanding that the Government
essentially continue to be passive.
This debate raises questions which are difficult, but which
we must fearlessly confront. Who are we as a people? Is it fair
for taxpayers and citizens in general, for us to massively
subsidize millions of illegal immigrants in our midst? Should
we continue to shrug our shoulders and discourage any talk of
the criminal elements among these illegal immigrants, lest we
be accused of being bigots? Or should we courageously and
responsibly confront these problems head-on?
Since 2001, the illegal immigrant population in this
country has been swelling by an estimated 700,000 annually.
After crossing the border, most illegal immigrants undoubtedly
would prefer to quietly find work and earn money--I would guess
as many as 90 percent--rather than participate in any
activity--maybe even as high as 95 percent--rather than
participate in any activity that might draw attention of law
enforcement. However, some may feel no such restraint, as many
Federal, State and local police agencies will attest.
It is in cities like Winston-Salem, as well as smaller
communities, that the presence of criminals who have illegally
entered the country is most keenly felt. In many cases, such
elements come together to form classic street gangs, staking
out territories and dedicating themselves to controlling the
local drug trade. In most cases, the drug trade is the engine
that drives other criminal activity, particularly property
crimes and robberies, as addicts who are unable to keep steady
employment choose a life of petty crime to finance their drug
addiction.
Recognizing the expanding threat from Hispanic street
gangs, as well as the fact that they are largely composed of
illegal aliens, the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement
[ICE] launched Operation Community Shield in February 2005 as a
comprehensive initiative to disrupt and dismantle
transnational, violent street gangs. We will be hearing more
about this vital project, which promises to be very helpful to
State and local authorities in controlling and shutting down
criminal gang activity by illegal aliens.
For local law enforcement in places like North Carolina,
such help is not coming a moment too soon. Local police lack
the authority to hold suspects on immigration violations and
have had to release them when lacking probable cause for other
crimes. With Operation Community Shield in place, they now
provide ICE with intelligence on gang organization and
leadership learned through their investigation of general
crime, which enables ICE to arrest, prosecute and/or deport
individual gang members. Since the Operation was launched, ICE
agents have arrested over 160 such gang members in North
Carolina.
In the same vein, ICE's Operation Predator, which targets
rapists, pedophiles, human traffickers and those who traffic in
pornographic images of children, has been focused on foreign
national sex offenders, some of whom have, unfortunately, come
to North Carolina. Sexual predators who are here illegally
present different challenges to local law enforcement, and ICE
agents bring valuable investigative tools and authority to
their efforts to stop foreign sex predators from victimizing
their children.
Additionally, illegal immigration is straining Government
at all levels throughout the country as schools, hospitals and
welfare agencies, as well as law enforcement, are pressed to
respond to the needs of new populations that are consuming far
more in tax revenue than they pay.
Few States have had to struggle with this burden as much as
North Carolina. Its illegal alien population is approaching
half a million, and it had the highest Hispanic population
growth of any State in the 1990's. During the 1990's, the
immigrant population of Forsyth County exploded by 515 percent,
meaning that two-thirds of the county's foreign-born population
had entered in just 10 years. The State government estimates
that each illegal Hispanic immigrant is saddling it with a net
cost of $102 annually. Medicaid costs due to illegal
immigration have doubled in 5 years. The State is spending over
$200 million annually to educate the children of illegal
immigrants, a more than 2,000 percent increase in 10 years.
Across the State, the criminal justice system is disrupted as
courts and law enforcement struggle, particularly in rural
counties, to find translators to assist in investigations and
court proceedings for Spanish-speaking defendants. Too many
stresses and strains on State and local Government are
accelerating at once, and there is clearly a need for
government at all levels to decisively reverse these trends in
some fashion.
This hearing will examine these problems, probe the
response of Federal, State and local Governments and solicit
solutions.
For our first panel, we are joined by Mr. Jeffrey S.
Jordan, Special Agent of the U.S. Immigrations and Customs
Enforcement [ICE].
For the second panel, we are joined by Thomas J. Keith,
district attorney for the 21st Prosecutorial District; Mr. Dale
Folwell, currently your State representative and formerly of
the Forsyth County School Board; Ms. Debra Conrad-Shrader,
vice-chairman of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners; and
Ms. Barbara Holland, director of the Zero Armed Perpetrators
Program of Forsyth County.
We thank all of you for joining us today and we look
forward to your testimony.
I want to repeat again, this is not precisely about the
immigration bill. We are going to have differences. I voted
against the immigration bill, and did not believe that an
interior enforcement provision without work permit was
workable; however, I drafted many amendments through the
Homeland Security Committee because I believe strongly in
stronger border enforcement and we need to work out the
internal. This is to talk about the practical implications and
how we have to deal with some of the side consequences of the
illegal immigration. How we handle the question broader is not
in the purview of this hearing.
I will yield to Congresswoman Foxx.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 30529.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 30529.002
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Chairman Souder. I really appreciate
you coming to Forsyth County and to the Fifth District of North
Carolina to hold this hearing. As you said, we have been
planning this for many weeks and did not realize the timeliness
in terms of what is happening nationally. But we are glad to
have everyone here who is concerned about the issue.
During the decade I served as a member of the North
Carolina State Legislature and during my first 15 months in the
U.S. Congress, I have found that few issues trouble my
constituency as much as illegal immigration, and for good
reason.
There truly is no issue more important to our Nation than
the safety and security of our constituents and the American
way of life. And border security is the starting point for
ensuring that security. If we do not keep Americans safe at
home, then the dozens of other issues we debate in Congress
simply will not matter.
The terrorist attacks on our homeland highlighted the
potential disastrous effects of porous borders and the need to
bolster border security, but the problem of illegal immigration
also has additional far-reaching dangerous effects. Ultimately
it punishes all who follow the laws of the United States.
Immigration affects virtually every aspect of life in
America. With millions of legal and illegal immigrants settling
in the United States each year, a level higher than any other
time during our Nation's history, illegal immigration has a
major negative impact on education, health care, Social
Security, taxes, employment, wages, the environment, crime and
countless other areas of American life.
I sympathize with those who desperately wish to live the
American dream here on American soil. I understand their desire
for liberty, free markets, property rights and guaranteed
freedoms. The demand for access to America is a resounding
testament to the greatness of our Nation. However, immigration
laws exist to provide the necessary steps for safe and legal
entry into this country.
Illegal immigration must be stopped, but we cannot and
should not close our doors to those who wish to enter the
country legally. We must achieve our efforts to achieve closed
borders with open, guarded doors. We have an immigration
process in place that simply must be followed. It also must be
strictly enforced, much more rigorously than is being enforced
now. We are a Nation of immigrants, but we are first a Nation
of laws.
Expedited identification of illegal immigrants, enhanced
and increased border patrol and stiff penalties for employers
and businesses that knowingly employ illegals are all necessary
to secure our borders and successfully combat illegal
immigration. Our border patrol and law enforcement agents
should be empowered to crack down on illegal immigration and
protect our borders.
My constituents and local law enforcement officers all echo
the same concern, that we must move from our unfortunate
current policy of inaction in relationship to dealing with
illegal immigrants, to one that ensure there are consequences
for illegal behavior. They are especially frustrated that we do
not swiftly deport illegal immigrants, especially those who
commit other crimes. As Members of Congress, we must be
receptive to their concerns and cannot lose sight of this major
problem. We must do all we can to establish and enforce a
thorough and fastidious system for deterring, identifying and
dealing with illegal immigrants. Illegal immigration is a
multi-faceted problem that will require a multi-faceted
solution.
A major part of that solution must include educating the
public about the real costs and consequences to America of
illegal immigration. That is why we are here today. I have long
fought for tighter immigration controls, reflecting the
sentiments of my constituents. The testimony these witnesses
are about to offer is necessary to shed light on just how
serious the problem truly is. Our counties and communities, now
saturated will illegal immigrants, are spending billions of
dollars on public health and education, law enforcement and
social services for people who are not even legally allowed to
be here. Every dollar spent on an illegal immigrant is a dollar
that was diverted away from a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen.
The burden of dealing with illegal immigration largely
falls on the shoulders of the officials who will testify today.
The responsibility for solving the problem of illegal
immigration at a national level largely falls on the shoulders
of the U.S. Congress. The purpose of this investigatory and
oversight hearing is to expose and address the problem, educate
the committee and work toward crafting the most appropriate
solutions.
Chairman Souder and I held a field hearing similar to this
one in Caldwell County yesterday to discuss the horrible
problem of methamphetamine use in North Carolina's mountain
counties. I have been working with local law enforcement for
many years to eradicate meth production and we have had
dramatic success. However, since we have driven local meth labs
out of the area, the illicit drug is now being smuggled into
North Carolina from the Mexican border. In fact, over 80
percent of meth in North Carolina now comes from Mexican
sources. This leads to dramatic increases in violent crime and
wreaks havoc on our law enforcement personnel. Just when we had
nearly eliminated the supply portion of the supply and demand
equation relating to the meth crisis, a brand new supply
presented itself with crystal meth being smuggled into our
communities from Mexico.
With drugs comes crime--violent crime. And increased
violent crime poses a very dangerous problem for our
communities, not only directly but also indirectly as police
forces normally preventing crime become diluted in responding
to crime. Several of the mountain counties I represent are
unfortunate examples of such a problem. These counties
generally enjoy a very low crime rate. However, in recent
years, they have had several methamphetamine related homicides
and violent robberies. This drug is wreaking havoc in our local
neighborhoods and is endangering the lives of many, including
our innocent children and our brave law enforcement officials.
Illegal immigration is consistently the No. 1 topic that my
constituents write about and call my office with their
concerns. It is also the No. 1 problem expressed to me by many
of the local officials I represent, some of whom you will hear
from today. Politics must be set aside so that we can
concretely identify the severity of the problem and begin to
craft solutions. The very freedom that attracts immigrants to
our great Nation will erode if we do not take action to enforce
and protect our laws. I look forward to constructive dialog,
thank the chairman and our panelists for joining me today.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Virginia Foxx follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 30529.003
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 30529.006
Mr. Souder. Before we hear testimony, I need to take care
of some procedural matters.
First, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5
legislative days to submit written statements and questions for
the hearing record and that any answers to written questions
provided by the witnesses also be included in the record.
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Second, I ask unanimous consent that all exhibits,
documents and other materials referred to by Members and
witnesses may be included in the hearing record, that all the
Members be permitted to revise and extend their remarks. And
without objection, it is so ordered.
Before I proceed, let me explain briefly what our committee
does. A lot of people are not familiar with the Government
Reform Committee. In the Constitution, basically the first and
foremost thing that was given to the House of Representatives
was tax and revenue questions. The Senate was given--they have
to confirm Supreme Court Justices, all treaties and foreign
policy. So foreign policy starts in the Senate, the House does
some of that, but we control the purse strings. Because we
control the purse strings, the second group of committees
formed in Congress were oversight committees, Government
Reform. Then after time, we created authorizing committees.
So if you look at the different issues, say take education,
No Child Left Behind would start in an authorizing committee,
then move to an appropriating committee to fund what the
authorizing set as upper limits and the policy. Then the
Government Reform Committee, in this case, ours has criminal
justice, drug policy and human resources, so we also have
oversight over the Education Department. We would then review
to see that No Child Left Behind is being implemented in the
way that the government intended. That leads us a lot of times
in doing more controversial oversight in looking at difficult
questions.
For example, much of the time during the Clinton
administration, we were looking at the travel office, at
Whitewater, at China, at gambling, at all sorts of questionable
uses of money in addition to the regular oversight we did over
drug policy and all the different subcommittees. At the full
committee, we would handle major issues. Waco, for example, we
did a lot of oversight on that.
Probably the best known thing we have done in this Congress
was the steroids policy in baseball, Mark McGwire, when he said
that he did not want to talk about the past in front of our
committee, made a lot of news. And of course, that is what the
Government Reform Committee does, we talk about the past, so we
can learn about what legislation needs to be done and figure
out how to address the problems. So that is a little history of
our committee.
Now as part of that, because we are an oversight committee,
we swear in all of our witnesses. We have only had a few cases
of prosecution for perjury, so hopefully we will not have any
today. But, for example, that is why Mark McGwire spent 3 days
trying to duck a subpoena from the committee, moved actually to
two different States. Finally the subpoena was served on him
and then the reason he did not want to talk about the past is
because his testimony could have in fact made him liable in any
stadium in America if he had said he had used illegal steroids,
he could have been liable for prosecution in any stadium in
America.
Now I did not mean to intimidate any witnesses, we have
never had any cases in any field hearing, but I wanted to
explain why I have to do the swearing in of each witness.
So our first panel, as is the tradition of this committee,
as a Federal oversight committee, the first panel, if we have
Federal branch witnesses, are always on the first panel, then
other witnesses in the proceeding panels. So if Mr. Jeffrey
Jordan could come forward and I will administer the oath.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that the witness responded
in the affirmative.
We have a little clock here that is 5 minutes for
witnesses. The yellow light comes on at 4; as I said yesterday
at the hearing, since it is a field hearing, we will do this
with a little bit of a Southern drawl, and if you go over your
5 minutes, we are not going to have big concerns here.
Thank you for coming today, Mr. Jordan, and we look forward
to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF JEFFREY S. JORDAN, SPECIAL AGENT-IN-CHARGE, U.S.
IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY, CHARLOTTE, NC
Mr. Jordan. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for providing me the opportunity to
speak with you today about U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement's efforts to combat illegal immigration in the
State of North Carolina.
ICE is the largest investigative agency within the
Department of Homeland Security. Working overseas, along our
borders and throughout the Nation's interior, ICE agents and
officers are demonstrating that the newly emerged customs and
immigration authorities constitute an effective tool against
those who attempt or succeed in penetrating our borders.
ICE continues to initiate enforcement programs to identify
and arrest those who pose a threat to our communities. Examples
of such programs include Operation Community Shield and
Operation Predator. Operation Community Shield identifies
violent transnational gang members that are subject to arrest,
prosecution and removal from the United States. Operation
Predator focuses on protecting our Nation's children from
sexual predators. This includes identifying and arresting
aliens who have been convicted of sex offenses against
children. Transnational gang members and child predators often
engage in immigration identity and benefit fraud to remain or
work in the United States or to conceal their true identities.
ICE uses its authorities and resources on organizations and
individuals who fraudulently obtain immigration benefits to
further their illegal activities.
In the last decade, the United States has experienced a
dramatic increase in the number and size of transnational
street gangs such as Mara Salvatrucha, commonly known as MS-13,
one of the most violent gangs of its kind. These gangs have
significant foreign-born membership and are frequently involved
in human and contraband smuggling, immigration violations and
other crimes with nexus to the border. Like many street gangs,
they also have a propensity toward violence. Their members
commit such crimes as robbery, extortion, assault, rape and
murder.
An example of this violence occurred just a few miles from
this hearing. On February 28, 2006, ICE agents, working with
the Fuquay-Varina, NC Police Department, arrested Jose Carlos
Peralta-Morales, a Surenos gang member who was observed beating
an individual on the head with a baseball bat in a Wal-Mart
store. An investigation revealed that the suspect had been
previously deported in May 2005. Further investigation revealed
that Peralta-Morales had been convicted of robbery and
accessory after-the-fact in connection with an incident in
which gang members robbed a returning Iraqi war veteran at
gunpoint upon departing a local restaurant with his girlfriend.
In addition to State assault charges, Peralta-Morales is facing
Federal criminal prosecution for illegally re-entering the
United States.
Operation Community Shield has resulted in the arrest of
over 2,400 gang members. Of those arrested, 52 have been
identified as leaders of gangs. More than half of those
arrested have violent criminal histories with arrests and
convictions for crimes such as robbery, assault, rape and
murder. In North Carolina alone, ICE agents have arrested over
160 violent street gang members in the Charlotte, Raleigh and
Winston-Salem metropolitan areas.
ICE's efforts to protect public safety are not limited to
gang enforcement. Through Operation Predator, ICE aggressively
pursues those who prey on our most vulnerable in society, our
children. In addition to our efforts in combatting the
distribution and transfer of child pornography via the
Internet, Operation Predator identifies and arrests criminal
aliens that have been convicted of sex crimes against children
and are subject to removal proceedings. These sex offenders
pose a significant threat to our communities while they remain
illegally in the United States to prey on innocent children.
Operation Predator vigorously investigates all forms of child
exploitation such as the smuggling of children into the country
for sexual exploitation or prostitution or the travel of U.S.
citizens or lawful permanent residents to foreign countries to
engage in sex tourism with children. These individuals often
return to the United States with photographs and videos of
their criminal activity.
Operation Predator has proven to be a tremendous success.
Since the inception of Operation Predator, ICE has arrested
over 7,600 child predators. In North Carolina, ICE agents have
arrested 100 suspects as part of this operation. Of those
arrested in North Carolina, 79 are non-U.S. citizens and 62 of
these have since been deported from the United States.
Operation Predator will continue to be a priority program for
ICE.
Many of those apprehended by ICE as part of Operation
Community Shield, Operation Predator or other enforcement
efforts procured their immigration status through fraudulent
means. Immigration fraud exposes the United States to criminals
and terrorists who gain entry into this country to carry out
their criminal and dangerous agendas.
Examples of how immigration benefits can be abused by the
criminal element can be found in investigations conducted by
ICE here in North Carolina. For instance, ICE investigated a
Charlotte, NC immigration attorney who filed fraudulent
applications and petitions to assist her clients in obtaining
immigration benefits. The immigration attorney advised her
clients, who included students from Nepal, to circumvent legal
immigration procedures by arranging marriages to U.S. citizens.
The foreign students admitted to the United States to pursue
various educational programs were told to marry a U.S. citizen,
often a fellow student in need of additional cash, to remain in
the United States legally. Some of the foreign students had
previously failed in their attempt to obtain asylum. The
attorney did this without regard for her clients' intentions or
criminal records. In March 2005, she pled guilty to conspiracy
to defraud the U.S. Government and was sentenced to Federal
imprisonment.
ICE may initiate removal proceedings for those aliens who
are encountered and arrested for immigration violations during
Operation Community Shield or Operation Predator. The alien
would be served with a notice to appear or other charging
document that would contain information on the charges being
filed against him or her. The alien would be scheduled for
removal hearing before an immigration judge who would
ultimately determine whether or not the alien would remain in
the United States. Removal hearings for North Carolina are
generally conducted at an immigration court in Atlanta. ICE
generally details aliens from North Carolina at county
detention facilities under the intergovernmental service
agreements. However, most aliens are transferred to detention
facilities in Georgia. Should ICE determine that an alien is
not a flight risk or a threat to public safety, the alien may
be released pending the immigration hearing. ICE carries out
the final decision of the Immigration Court, whether that is an
order of removal or a grant of discretionary relief.
I want to thank the distinguished members of this committee
for the opportunity to speak before you today. I look forward
to answering any of your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jordan follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you very much.
As Congresswoman Foxx mentioned, we are increasingly seeing
the interconnection as we move to even higher percentage of
crystal meth and the meth focus moves off of the mom-and-pop
gangs, mom-and-pop, Nazi labs to the gang organizations and
other distribution networks. It will be interesting as we start
to pursue this, because we have not, as a subcommittee, done
much with gangs certainly since I have been chairman. I had
worked with this in my previous life to some degree, when I was
a staffer for Senator and Congressman Coats.
So I want to ask a couple of preliminary questions about
the gangs themselves. Is gang a term that is used up to a
certain age and then it becomes a network? In other words,
historically the Bloods and the Crips have been used. At what
point, if they are 50 years old, are they still considered a
gang? At what point do they become a narcotics distribution
organization, a sex distribution organization?
Mr. Jordan. I believe that gang could be used for older
individuals as well. I lived in southern California at the
time, and we encountered gang members that were 32 years of
age. So a gang, the term gang is defined as a collection of
individuals. I think older--I guess you could in fact call a
gang a network of criminals, because in fact that is what it
most likely is.
Mr. Souder. I know I am asking, to some degree, national
questions and you, like most people in Federal agencies, have
been in multiple locations, but your experience is here. If the
ICE headquarters wants to add anything additional or you want
to add anything additional, feel free to do so, but I am trying
to get a range, because we often hear of family organizations
distributing narcotics. In trying to discuss who the coyotes
are and the criminal organizations that move individuals, in
your office, how do you determine what is a gang, what is a
drug criminal organization, what is another type of criminal
organization? At what point, does a gang designation differ
from your other designations of criminal organizations?
Mr. Jordan. Well, in North Carolina, there are five top
gangs in North Carolina, the top being Mara Salvatrucha, MS-13,
and Surenos.
Mr. Souder. What I am trying to get at is would you have
other drug distribution networks that you would refer to as not
gangs?
Mr. Jordan. Yes. Yes, if they are not members of this
identified gang, if we have no evidence that they are in fact
members of this identified gang, they are in fact drug
networks. Do we have drug importation networks in North
Carolina? Absolutely.
Mr. Souder. And sometimes they are referred to as families
or whatever. At what point is it a family rather than a gang?
The marks are different, there is not an initiation rite?
Mr. Jordan. I am not familiar with those specifics, you
know, determining or differentiating factors in a family. Now
drug smuggling organizations, specifically Mexican drug
smuggling organizations, are tight-knit networks and we have
seen in North Carolina, they typically do not trust others
outside their domain, their family members, their extended
family, so the trust level is held within there. So we say it
is within the family, that is what we define as the family, the
extended family. I am not familiar with the differentiation in
terms between a family vice a gang.
Mr. Souder. If there was an individual who started
smuggling young girls for prostitution and developed a network,
would that individual--how would he become defined as a gang as
opposed to somebody who was employing people on the line, being
hooked together as a network?
I went through this report that showed--in other words, I
understand gang symbols, gang colors, have worked with all
that. What I am trying to figure out is how do we determine
what the other groups are called, because gangs, generally
speaking, while I think some gang members may age, I do not
think--I wondered whether age is part of that or the method of
distribution, they do not have a tattoo on them.
Mr. Jordan. We call those criminal organizations vice
gangs. There are those members that are in those traditionally
recognized gangs, whether it be predominantly U.S. citizens or
foreign-born nationals. And then there are criminal
organizations, criminal networks that operate within North
Carolina.
Mr. Souder. Where this becomes relevant for the Federal
Government, as you know, the President has proposed and we have
been implementing new dollars for gangs, which really is just
redistributing dollars inside the Justice Department
predominantly to focus on gangs. I am trying to figure out
where those dollars then move from. In other words, if we say,
does this lead them at the field level to people designating
other organizations as gangs that previously were not called
gangs. Does it mean that--what is the practical impact on the
field when we say we are going to give money for gangs but not
for criminal organizations? You know, how do we sort out what
that actually means when they come to us? Because we know what
we want to stop, we want to stop criminal behavior. And it
seems to me, quite frankly, as somebody who has been involved
in government for some time now, that gangs almost are a term
that goes with popularity around funding streams and whether
somebody wants to promote a new program.
As an oversight committee, part of our challenge before we
plunge into the details of this is to figure out precisely what
we are talking about. We know what certain earmarks of a gang
are when it is clear cut. The question is at what point do we
get to that?
Mr. Jordan. Well, gangs, they are associated by the
ritualistic--you know, they basically have the tattoos and all
the sort of inner workings of this gang, so there is somewhat
of a secretive society. They have the hand signals, the
tattoos, all that kind of stuff. They have their own set of
rules of behavior. Criminal organizations do not have that.
Their commonality is just that, the criminal behavior. The
commonality in gangs is their brotherhood thinking, mentality
of the gang signs, of that brotherhood type organization.
Mr. Souder. Have you seen--do gangs tend to be more urban?
Mr. Jordan. In North Carolina, they are urban, but they
have suburban tentacles as well. They tend to do their crimes
in urban environments, but it is not uncommon for them to
reside in the suburban and outreaching areas.
Mr. Souder. And do gangs--I know the Bloods and Crips did
because one of the fundamental things is they were based out of
L.A., and then to try to break up the prison population, we
thought it was a bright idea to scatter them in the midwest and
other places into prisons, and then they recruited into other
cities and spread the Bloods and Crips into Chicago and Kansas
City and through the midwest. Do gangs tend to recruit more in
the prisons and is that how some of the extension goes into the
tentacles out of the urban area?
Mr. Jordan. I do not have any direct knowledge on the
recruitment procedures inside detention facilities, but outside
the detention facilities, gangs fill a void that certain people
are looking for, that sense of commitment, that sense of
involvement, that sense of belonging. And they use that as a
great resource, a great tool in their recruitment procedures.
They bring them on in and now they feel welcome, now they feel
attached to some organization. Basically a void that the
parents do not fill. The gangs here in North Carolina use that
extensively as a tool, a sense of belonging is a major
recruitment tool.
Mr. Souder. Now M-13 is basically Salvadoran. Is it
Salvadoran when it hits here or are they recruiting into the
Mexican population as well?
Mr. Jordan. MS-13 gangs, by the time it gets to North
Carolina, most of them are not Central American, most of them
are Mexican, of Mexican nationality. So that detachment
detaches, it just becomes more of a--and we have not found any
direct links from the leaders right here directly down to a
Central American organization, so by the time they get it, it
has been spun off so much that they are in fact, the majority
of MS-13 gang members are Mexican nationals.
Mr. Souder. So MS-13, while they may have a national name,
do you sense that they report in to a national system or are
they regionally independent?
Mr. Jordan. I do not sense that--I do not get that sense
through our investigations, that they report to a national, one
international leader akin to a drug smuggling or a drug lord or
something. No, I do not get that sense from the folks that we
encounter here in North Carolina.
Mr. Souder. Have you seen any Guatemalan gangs here?
Mr. Jordan. I have some data on----
Mr. Souder. One of the things that happens is a lot of
people call people Mexican and they are not necessarily
Mexican. And I just wondered in this area, in North Carolina,
whether you have much Central American or even a lot from
southern Mexico, which is kind of a different population
cluster.
Mr. Jordan. Our ICE agents do a real good job of
determining their nationality, their country of origin. We have
the percentages here. In our gang enforcement efforts so far in
North Carolina, we have arrested and identified four
Guatemalans. Again, the majority being Mexican nationals.
Mr. Souder. And as far as border security question, even
the Central Americans are coming across the border. Now when
you deport someone, at San Ysidro, which is of course the main,
No. 1 crossing, the last time I was there, they had just
apprehended some Brazilians who were hiding in the top of the
van, who, other than being tremendously disguised were not
particularly subtle, they had Brazilian shirts on and
everything else, and did not seem particularly upset about
being apprehended. My understanding was that in the case of
OTMs, other than Mexicans, because a lot of people want to send
everybody back to Mexico, but if they are not from Mexico,
there is no reason that Mexico wants them either. In this case,
we detailed them and my understanding is that, hopefully, up
until recently we were releasing them on their own
recognizance, which unless they are pretty stupid, they do not
show back up again. But we started to detain more and ICE and
the Department of Homeland Security has reacted to some degree
with funding to the pressure on OTMs.
But if you get somebody who has a criminal violation, who
is an OTM or Mexican--let us do Mexicans and OTMs, but I am
going to pursue to case of Brazil--my understanding is they get
shipped back to Brazil at our expense.
Mr. Jordan. Well, first, if they are criminal aliens, first
and foremost, we attempt to prosecute them to the fullest
extent of the law that we can in the United States, whether it
be through the Federal or State or local jurisdictions. Having
none of those resources or they are not amenable to those
prosecutions, they are in fact returned--they are incarcerated
and they are returned to their country, their native country.
Now they stay incarcerated until we get the travel documents
and all the other clearances that we need to remove them, but
they are in fact returned to their country.
Mr. Souder. OK. So given my question was so convoluted, let
me break it down some. So if you detained a Mexican or OTM,
other than Mexican, here in Charlotte and the crime turns out
to either not be a crime other than illegal immigration or one
that you cannot prosecute, you detain them?
Mr. Jordan. It depends on if they are in fact--they are all
processed, it is not we just release them. They are all
processed and if they represent a public safety threat or a
security threat, they are in fact detained. Others, the Mexican
nationals--the OTMs are in fact detained. The Mexican
nationals, if in fact they are amenable to a bond, then we do
in fact set a bond for those individuals. They can stay in
custody to that point until they post that bond and----
Mr. Souder. They do stay in custody until they post a bond?
Mr. Jordan. Yes, until they post a bond. It is important to
note that a bond is different than a bond in the criminal
setting because a $5,000 bond does not mean that they can go
find a bail bondsman and post the 10 percent deal. $5,000 is
$5,000, they have to come up with that. So when you look at
immigration bonds, they tend to be lower because it is a full
thing.
Mr. Souder. How many of them show back up, what percent
success rate do you have on the bonds?
Mr. Jordan. I do not have the exact figures.
Mr. Souder. Roughly a third, half, two-thirds?
Mr. Jordan. That show back up?
Mr. Souder. Yeah.
Mr. Jordan. The figures that I have read in the past are
about 10 percent that show back up.
Mr. Souder. There is not a big bail bondsman business here?
[Laughter.]
Mr. Jordan. To be honest with you, the family members and
others gather the currency and cashier's checks and post those
kind of bonds for those folks.
Mr. Souder. Do you have any suggestions of how that--having
been in the field in multiple places, how that bond system
might be made a little more tight? In other words, not letting
it go through individuals, but have a responsible guarantee who
you know is going to be there who you can then prosecute or if
people put up money and they jump the bond, they could be
prosecuted? What suggestions would you have to make it so we
have a better than 10 percent show-up rate?
Mr. Jordan. I think the bond system is not the issue,
because their will is not to show up. So a bond of $20,000 vice
staying in the United States, I think they in fact would
sacrifice that as well. I believe that their will to remain in
the United States is greater than any monetary bond that could
be set. So whether it be $5,000 or $100,000, I think----
Mr. Souder. What about the will of the person who put up
the money?
Mr. Jordan. Well, if there was a larger bond set, then
obviously less people would be able to get it.
Mr. Souder. But also, there is accountability, what if your
person jumped bond and you posted it, you could go to jail?
Mr. Jordan. That might be in fact--I have never really
pursued that or even thought about those procedures, but that
in fact could be an issue.
Mr. Souder. Now going back, if the person has a criminal
charge that could be prosecuted, you will detain them, correct?
Mr. Jordan. Yes.
Mr. Souder. And then you will prosecute them.
Mr. Jordan. Yes.
Mr. Souder. And they will serve their sentence in the
United States.
Mr. Jordan. Yes.
Mr. Souder. Then are they deported?
Mr. Jordan. Yes.
Mr. Souder. And do we have a tracking mechanism other than
if we happen to catch them back again at the border? In other
words, let me ask the question this way, I know from Guatemala
and El Salvador, this is the complaint of Central America--
Mexico is a different problem. In Guatemala, they had, and El
Salvador, minimal gangs. The parents came to the United States
to work, kids got involved in gangs, started selling drugs
because of our drug consumption process in the United States.
We put them in prison, we ship them back to Guatemala.
Guatemala now has street thugs that are running many of their
cities that they did not have prior to them getting their drug
habits in the United States. Their police have to buy their own
bullets, they have to buy their own gas, they have a very
ineffective police force and increasingly in Guatemala and El
Salvador, the gangs are taking over the countries, which are
mainly kids who grew up in America, did not grow up in that
country. They are complaining to us that it is our drug habits
that have fueled the gang problem in El Salvador and Guatemala.
The question is how are we interacting with those
governments? Do we provide the names to them, do we help them
track? I am not proposing putting a chip in the individuals,
but somehow, the fact is that there is less than a 20 percent
chance we are going to catch somebody at a border crossing, let
alone in between the border crossings, and deporting criminals,
as you noted in your testimony, and several others are going to
note, they come right back.
Mr. Jordan. Well, when we deport them, if they are a known
criminal and we believe they are going to have a propensity to
continue their crime, we in fact do notify the governments that
we in fact ship them to. They are involved in the process. We
do not in fact just return them, we in fact involve the
governments in the process of returning their citizens to them.
What we do in those particularly egregious offenders, we
issue what we call a green notice through Interpol. They are in
fact put on notice that those folks are coming back. So the
foreign governments are involved in the process of returning
them. We do not just return them clandestinely, they do get
involved.
As far as tracking them when they return to the country,
through our data base, our biometric data bases, we will know
when they are captured again, if we capture them again, we will
know even if they are using a different name. They can get a
different kind of identity, different kind of identity
documents even from a different country, but through our
biometric systems in our data bases, we will know that in fact
they are not who they purport to be, they are in fact this
other individual.
Mr. Souder. Is this data base available to State and local
law enforcement all over the country?
Mr. Jordan. It is not at this time. Only certain law
enforcement agencies have that. Under the 287(g) program that I
have in the long version of my testimony, in North Carolina,
the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Department is on line for the
287(g) program. They in fact will have access to all the data
that ICE agents have currently, and Border Patrol and CBP.
Mr. Souder. But a county police officer in a rural county
in North Carolina, if they stop somebody for speeding, there
will not be a popup that says this person is wanted for being a
drug dealer, rapist or whatever? It does not necessarily have
to say what it is, but a popup that would cause them to check
it and detain this person.
Mr. Jordan. They have, through our LESC, Law Enforcement
Support Center in Vermont, they have through their NCIC
terminals, their VDTs, vehicle display terminals that they have
in their vehicles, they can run what we call an IAQ query. And
that will in fact tell them that this individual is on record
with ICE and he is a returned illegal alien, and all the
information that we have. Without fingerprints and biometrics
that we have in place physically, you are not 100 percent sure
without the fingerprints and the photographs.
Mr. Souder. Right. But it is enough to detain the person.
Mr. Jordan. Absolutely.
Mr. Souder. And every law enforcement official has the
ability to tap into that. Whether they have the equipment to
tap into it is another question. But through RIS and local law
enforcement programs, they can get into the Vermont center?
Mr. Jordan. Yes, they can, anybody that has access to--and
hopefully NCIC is 100 percent of law enforcement agencies in
the United States, it will tell them that yes, this individual
they have in front of them has a detainer issued on him, it
will tell them he's an absconder, will tell them that he is an
illegal alien and been removed previously, how many times. The
data is there, and the turnaround time is a matter of minutes.
It is not, you know, days, fingerprint turnaround time, it is
actually in a matter of minutes. So the officer, the trooper
can in fact get that information on the side of the road.
I have some figures of the increase in inquiries. It is
positive to note that the North Carolina inquiries have risen
substantially over the years. The number of electronic
queries--and this is what we are talking about, the inquiries
that officers and deputies do from the departments on the side
of the road--received from officials in North Carolina
increased from 2,640 in fiscal year 2004 to 2,865 in fiscal
2005 and it continues to rise as we speak. It is a tool now
that is getting--I do not want to use the word popular, but
more noted, people are aware of this and they in fact are using
the system more frequently, to the point where we hire more
staff to staff our support center in Vermont.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Ms. Foxx.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Jordan, and thank you for what you
and your colleagues are doing, we really appreciate that.
I have a couple of questions that I want to ask, to follow
along a little bit of what the chairman was saying.
What could Congress do to assist ICE and local law
enforcement personnel in taking a much stronger stand on
identifying not just gang members, but criminal aliens out
there and be able to detain them and prosecute them, and
hopefully deport them, but at least prosecute them and put them
where they belong, either in jail or somewhere else? What could
we do to make that tie between the local folks and you
stronger?
Mr. Jordan. Well, first of all, things like this, today's
hearing, go a long way in doing that, in bringing this out in
the light and letting the public know that these problems exist
and that they are real and they are in our backyard.
Second, the program exists currently, it is under the INA
Section 287(g) which is that program that has been implemented
in Mecklenburg County, and it is available to other State law
enforcement agencies, and what that does is that allows, it
gives the Secretary of Homeland Security the authority to
designate State and local officers as immigration officers to
act on our behalf. That works most effectively in the jail
settings, because when the violator is apprehended and
processed into the jails, on the intake side, his alienage will
be determined. So heretofore, they could guess, they could run
an IAQ, that data base that we previously discussed, if he is a
first time offender, he will not be in the IAQ or if he gives a
false name and has bad documents, it may not match in that
system. But the 287(g) program, the deputies and the troopers
will have ability, access to the biometrics, so if he says his
name is Joe and his real name is Bob, we are going to know. In
fact, we are going to know that he in fact has been removed 14
times, 10 times, however many times it is. In those particular
cases, we will be able to prosecute him federally for re-entry
after deportation. Some of the unfortunate accidents that
occurred in Mecklenburg County with drunk drivers, that is how
we determined that the individual actually had been removed
from the United States 17 times, it was actually through those
identification processes, the data base that is in our system.
That program is a very good system in place, it works best
at the intake side of--in a jail facility but it actually is
also working in Alabama and Florida at the trooper level, the
road officers have that authority as well. They will have to
move the suspected alien down to a location where they can run
his fingerprints, but that program and the support for that
program is immense and that really goes a long way to identify
the aliens that are processed through the court system, the
jails. In North Carolina, for instance, if the alien is
identified as someone that we want to remove that will be
removed, when they are processed through their criminal system,
ICE will not remove somebody out from underneath their criminal
charges. They will in fact do their time. The detainer follows
them along in their criminal incarceration career, for lack of
a better word, and then at the appropriate time, upon their
release, ICE will be looped in again and we will in fact take
them and remove them from the United States.
Ms. Foxx. I guess one of the concerns that people have is
how do--we hear so much about repeat offenders and folks that,
you know you have difficulty prosecuting and getting out of the
country or keeping in jail, and trying to identify who those
people are. Now generally, we hear that folks like that are not
going to make themselves known publicly, but I have
constituents who have raised the issue with me over the
demonstrations that have been occurring in the last week or so
as to why did we not use the opportunity for when all these
folks were together in these demonstrations, many of whom we
know had to be illegal--why did ICE and other Federal agencies
not go into those groups of people and identify who is here
illegally and arrest them. What were the reasons that we
allowed those demonstrations to go on? Now obviously if people
were here legally, they have the right to demonstrate. But what
has happened in the last few days has incensed a lot of people
because the statistics we get are that up to 80 percent of the
people who are here are here illegally. So why not use that
opportunity to go in and find out who is here illegally and
arrest them?
Mr. Jordan. Well, it is a matter of priorities and national
security issues. We did not know and we do not know that those
folks were here illegally. We had no idea, other than maybe
ability to speak Spanish and have Latino surnames, there is
nothing to indicate to us that they are in fact here illegally.
Second, the volume, the masses of people, you know, the
officers' safety. I discussed this with Chief Daryl Stevens of
CMPD and his opinion was the same, that you do not want to
venture forth with a limited number of folks into a setting
like that, because the propensity toward the violence toward
officers is great.
Our priorities are national security issues, critical
infrastructure protection first. So when we encounter aliens
that are in a position to cause us harm through working like in
a nuclear power plant or any kind of infrastructure, water
treatment plants, things like that, military installations, as
such is multiple cases here in North Carolina, that is who we
identify first and foremost. So it was a matter of priorities
and the safety of the individuals as well.
Ms. Foxx. One more question along this line. You were
talking about this Section 287(g) program and the folks in
Charlotte, and I know a little bit about that from having
worked with Congresswoman Myrick about trying to increase the
ability of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg folks to apprehend people.
Do we have the capability now, for example, in Winston-Salem,
if the sheriff and the police here wanted to gain the right or
the ability to apprehend illegals here in this area--what would
be involved in doing that and is ICE actively promoting
extending your ability to do your work through the use of local
law enforcement, or are we just depending on hiring more people
at the Federal level?
Mr. Jordan. The process--that is a two part question. The
process of applying for the 287(g) program is an application
process, so that sheriffs, chiefs of police, they can contact
me or the Special Agent-in-Charge in Atlanta, but most often
prefer to contact me at the North Carolina office. In fact,
Kill Devil Hill's chief of police has contacted me regarding
this program. And likewise, Gaston County. And the process is
that they are sent, the chief or the sheriff is sent an
application and there are certain questions that are asked of
them regarding their ability to support the program and then
there are other questions that I have to answer on the local
level--do we have agents to support the program, and then
detention or removal operations, they have questions as well,
can they support the program, meaning the increased workload.
So that is all bundled up and then sent to Washington.
Based upon the parameters and the answers that are in
there, if the approval is granted by the Assistant Secretary of
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, then we craft a memorandum
of understanding, and that will delineate to everybody involved
who is responsible for what. And once that is crafted and
signed by all parties involved, then the training occurs. And
the training is very intensive, it is the exact same training
that ICE agents get on all aspects of our enforcement procedure
regarding determining alienage, their rights, responsibilities,
sensitivity, issues like that.
So that is a program that individual sheriffs and chiefs
can apply and it is an informal application. They just call me
and I e-mail them the documents and then we start it from
there.
And the second part of the question, I kind of forgot, but
I think it was do we have the staff to support that. I go back
to my previous response of it works best in a jail environment,
in a jail setting, because, for instance, Alamance County,
should they be involved in this program, or Forsyth County, and
they have a contract with us; once the alien is in the system
there and processed and he has done his or her time and it is
time to go, they call us, they have determined that he is in
fact an illegal alien and is removable. He does not really go
anywhere, the billing for his bed moves over to ICE and then
detention and removal, in their loop, swings around and picks
him up and begins the removal process.
So it is a way to increase enforcement, State and local
officers, that is where the rubber meets the road, everybody
comes funneled through there. That probably is the best place
to determine alienage is at the initial intake of the folks
coming into the process. The fear is that we go out or that it
would create--I know the fear is because it has been expressed
to me multiple times by chiefs and sheriffs, is that the fear
in the community is that it will stifle the crime reporting
process by the illegals. But the response to that, and the
sheriffs and the chiefs that have that fear should not have
that fear because what we put out is that--and it is the case--
is that you are not going to be processed if you are not
already being arrested for some other crime. A reporting party
to a crime does not get arrested and processed to the jail. So
that fear is mislaid, it is not really appropriate. But that is
actually where the rubber meets the road, is in this program,
and all the aliens that process through the particular county
jail can be identified. And that is really the name of the game
these days, is security and knowing who is here and identifying
those people that are here.
Ms. Foxx. One more comment, Mr. Chairman.
So we could effectively expand the ability to find these
people and keep them in prison if we had more local law
enforcement people who were trained under this program. And
that would increase what--would allow you all to work more on
the national security issues perhaps and let us work more on
gang issues, sexual predators and maybe more common law issues,
where the health and safety of local citizens is involved and
allow you all to work on the national security issues. Would
that be safe to say?
Mr. Jordan. Yes, ma'am. And as well, it allows everyone to
identify everyone that has come in contact with law
enforcement, so we would in fact know who they are here and if
they have not been in contact with us and they are in fact
illegal, at least we would establish a base line, I call it a
base identity. The first time contact, his name and data or her
name and data gets put into the system. So we would have in
fact a base line to identify everyone that is here illegally
that has come through the criminal justice system in some
fashion.
The caveat is only those that are processed through the
intake side of the jails.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you very much.
Mr. Souder. I had a really unusual story I wanted to blend
in with--the difficulty of what we are facing here is that last
fall we were having weekly meetings trying to figure out how to
work on an immigration bill and coming to basically very little
progress at that point, but back in my hometown, I talked to an
individual who was very upset. They had several small children,
they were trying to make their house payments but her husband
had just been deported through DHS and she wondered how to get
him back and what procedures to go through. And finally I got
frustrated and I said well, you know, he can just walk across
the border, it is not like he is likely to get caught, and she
said well, he does that all the time, but the speculation is
that you guys in Congress are going to pass an amendment that
says if they get caught a second time after deportation, they
are not going to be eligible for the work permits or the
citizenship track. So he is waiting down in Mexico to see what
you guys do. Which was interesting because the community was
about 9 months ahead of what we were doing, trying to adjust
their behavior. By the way, it is a pretty good amendment and
if people are getting deported right now, they best not come
back in, because we are likely to put something like that in.
But it shows the difficulty of this because we are sitting here
trying to figure out how to implement it and do it and those
who are actually coming for jobs, have extended families, have
often been here for many years, have houses, all sorts of
things, are calculating based on what we are saying here today
and how we are working and it is an interesting process.
I had a couple of technical questions on government
structure. The FBI has been tasked to do gangs work in
particular. How do you inter-relate with them? Do you deal only
with gangs that are illegal, and if they are working with a
gang and run into somebody illegal, how does ICE coordinate
with FBI?
Mr. Jordan. We coordinate almost--well in North Carolina on
a daily basis with that. We vet our targets, they vet their
targets. We work collectively on Operation Community Shield, we
work very well with them. We just do not discriminate gangs,
foreign-born gangs because gangs also are comprised--gangs
comprised of U.S. citizens also commit crimes that ICE has the
authorities and the abilities to investigate--drug smuggling,
money laundering, things like that. So we work hand in hand
with the FBI in that process and that really is a very good
process, we work together very well. Again, their philosophy is
our philosophy, we will prosecute them to fullest extent of the
law for Federal violations. Should they not be amenable to
those, then ICE uses in our tool kit our removal process. So it
is not against the law to be a member of a gang.
Mr. Souder. So there is a gang working in North Carolina
that is doing drug smuggling and includes both citizens and
non-citizens?
Mr. Jordan. Yes.
Mr. Souder. Is it DEA, you or FBI, and how do you do that?
Mr. Jordan. All three.
Mr. Souder. Does one of you take the lead? Whoever starts
the case?
Mr. Jordan. The lead is basically determined by lots of
factors, who has the initial information, who has the best
informants, who has the best case, but we all pitch in and play
as equal partners. In the Federal level, there are no second
chairs, everybody has an equal chair at the table. And here in
North Carolina, I am very proud to say that everybody gets
along very well. John Emerson and Kevin Kendrick both are not
only professional friends, but personal friends of mine as
well. We get along very well and the agents work together very
well as well as with the State and locals.
Mr. Souder. You said this could be daily, is it
instantaneous? For example, you would not take somebody down
without checking with the other agencies; when you are doing
controlled deliveries, you are working with the other agencies
so you do not wind up tripping over each other?
Mr. Jordan. Yes. In controlled deliveries, we have a
vetting process that takes place, so when we do controlled
deliveries, we are in constant contact with, for instance on
drugs, controlled deliveries, DEA. In fact, our process has
involved that we have to formalize that contact and that
vetting process, so that we do not cross paths. First and
foremost is officer safety. We do not want to be going out
there setting up on something that they are setting up on and
that, first and foremost, is our primary concern. Second, we do
not want to cross paths and step into the middle of something
they are doing; likewise, they do not want to do that with us,
to ruin the investigation and long-term effects.
We are not after the street level folks. The best way to
destroy an organization is two mechanisms--one, take off the
agency leadership and, two, take off their financial funding
mechanisms, which is the asset seizures and forfeitures. You
cutoff the way that they get the money, because every crime,
absent of a few, the real reason they commit it is for money,
for financial gain. So ICE has learned a long time ago that on
the Customs side, and that is what we brought to the table, is
that is how you dismantle an organization, is cutoff their
financial backbone. So we collectively work together like that
and it works very well.
Mr. Souder. So you are doing deconfliction too with
Treasury, with Secret Service and with local law enforcement?
Mr. Jordan. Absolutely. On our counterfeit document side,
our Operation Doc that we have out there in the western part of
North Carolina, we do the same as well. They are partners in
the program and we do those deconfliction processes as well.
Mr. Souder. Do you have any further questions?
Ms. Foxx. No.
Mr. Souder. Well, thank you very much for your testimony.
We may have some additional written questions as well to fill
this out a little bit. Thank you very much.
Is everybody from the second panel also at the microphones?
The second panel is State Representative Dale Folwell; Thomas
Keith, district attorney, 21st Judicial District; Debra Conrad-
Shrader, vice-chair, Forsyth County Board of Commissioners; and
Brandon Holland, Forsyth County director, Zero Armed
Perpetrators [ZAP] Program.
If each of you would stand and raise your right hand so I
can swear in each of the witnesses.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that each of the witnesses
responded in the affirmative.
We thank you for your testimony today and being willing to
participate. And we are going to start with Representative
Folwell.
STATEMENTS OF DALE FOLWELL, A STATE REPRESENTATIVE, STATE OF
NORTH CAROLINA; THOMAS J. KEITH, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, 21ST
PROSECUTORIAL DISTRICT, NORTH CAROLINA; DEBRA CONRAD-SHRADER,
VICE-CHAIR, FORSYTH BOUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS; AND BRANDON
HOLLAND, FORSYTH COUNTY DIRECTOR, ZERO ARMED PERPETRATORS [ZAP]
PROGRAM
STATEMENT OF DALE FOLWELL
Mr. Folwell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You have often heard the term that some people cannot see
the forest for the trees and I am sort of a tree person, so a
lot of the information you are going to get from me today has
to do with what we deal with not only on the State level, but
in some respects through our public education system.
Illegal immigration is the biggest unfunded mandate that we
face at the State level. And it is having a very big effect on
obviously our public health, public safety and public education
systems. We are facing crises in North Carolina in all those
three areas. You used the term earlier ``steroids,'' illegal
immigration introduces steroids to that crisis that we face in
those three areas.
I would say that North Carolina is somewhat unique in that
we are trying to drive down the cost of living and doing
business in this State, but yet we are facing a trade war, we
are facing a crisis in literacy and now we are facing a war
with the illegal immigrants. You have often heard all the
information regarding how it is affecting our public health
systems. Let me see if I can educate you a little bit about how
it is affecting our local school system.
Our local superintendent--this is spring break week for
public schools, and he regrets not being able to be here today,
but I was able to speak with him. In his tenure, which is I
guess about 11 years, we have gone from 3 ESL centers in
Forsyth County to 43. ESL is English as a Second Language. From
3 three to 43. I do not even like the term ``English as a
Second Language'' because the statute in North Carolina says
that English is the official language in North Carolina. Why do
we need to even have an ESL mnemonic?
Second, and this is a staggering figure, Mr. Chairman--from
1994 to 2006, which is 12 years, our Hispanic population has
gone from less than 1 percent to 15 percent in that period of
time. It is dramatic enough except for the fact that we are the
124th largest school system in the United States, with almost
50,000 people.
I want to be very clear in pointing out something, I am not
one who always looks at people who are Hispanic as being
illegal. I do not always consider people who do not speak
English as being illegal, but we do know there is a high
correlation between those two things.
This is also affecting our community college system and our
public university system to some degree. It is estimated that
over 35 percent of the people taking non-accredited courses in
our community college system are here illegally. They pay--we
are supposed to be charging those folks an out-of-State
tuition, but they stay the in-State, non-accredited rate.
The other thing that I wanted to add is that illegal
immigration has also introduced something that is going to be
very hard for North Carolina to overcome, and that is our
underground economy. If you were to speak to our Secretary of
Revenue in North Carolina, he would tell you that our
underground economy--that is, the folks that are not paying
taxes on the business transactions in the State--is another one
of the most epidemic problems facing North Carolina.
The other effect it is having is on wages. There was a
report done recently called ``Falling Jobs and Falling Wages,''
and it talks about the living wages of North Carolinians. The
effects of illegal immigration are having a depressing effect
on the wages of this State, especially those at the lower end
of our economic scale, which is forcing more people out of work
and more people onto the social welfare systems of our State.
I want to make a couple of editorial comments if I may, Mr.
Chairman. I really thought long and hard about what is
different about this group of immigrants versus the immigrants
that came in in the 20th century. And what I have come to
realize is that what is very different about this is that the
group of immigrants that came into this country in the 20th
century were evangelical about bonding and assimilating into
this society. And I think that is what is very different about
the group of immigrants that we have in North Carolina today,
especially the illegal immigrants.
I think it is very important that we understand that this
issue affects us from the brain, from the heart, from the
stomach and from the pocketbook. And from the pocketbook
standpoint, illegal immigration introduces cheap labor into our
State. And cheap labor benefits few, but the rest of the
taxpayers in this State are paying for the effects of illegal
immigration.
I think it is important and I think with your help we can
do this, and Congresswoman Foxx has obviously set the tone on
this. We have to set the tone, set the strategy and set the
goals for how we are going to deal with illegal immigration in
North Carolina, both at the State level, the local level and
how you can help us at the Federal level.
I think that North Carolinians are ready for an answer on
this problem and I think some of the answers that you might be
able to help us with locally that can help our problem are; No.
1, I believe that we need to cut funding to Mexico as it
relates to the amount of money that is being wired out of North
Carolina and the other 49 States in this country from all the
wire transfer agencies in this State and likewise throughout
the country. It is estimated that over $50 billion a year is
being wired out of the United States to Mexico and that funding
should be offset toward the amount of foreign aid that we give
to that country.
Second and most importantly, we need a deportation center
in Winston-Salem. Across the street you have a jail, which your
ICE agents would probably certify is one of the best values on
the East Coast. And we have room in that jail that we could
rent space out for a deportation center. We have an airport
that is 3 miles from where we are sitting which could greatly
utilize air traffic. After we deport people, instead of going
out and paying for people to get on private air carriers in
some cases, actually have airplanes going out of Smith-Reynolds
Airport to the countries of origin where these people need to
be deported to. That would drive more revenue and better
utilize assets that the State taxpayers, the local taxpayers
and the Federal taxpayers have already purchased. That is why
we need a deportation center in this area.
Third, I think we need to empower local law enforcement to
start detaining illegal immigrants in this area. As you know,
North Carolina--and I want to say this very clearly--is the
fastest growing State in the United States. Our growth rate has
now exceeded the California growth rate--California, New
Mexico, Texas, Arizona and Florida, in terms of our growth rate
of illegal immigrants.
The other three things that I would like to add is that I
would like for you to support any Federal legislation that
comes through Washington that would say that in order for any
child born in the United States to have citizenship status,
that they have to have at least one parent who is a legal
resident of the United States. That would help us dramatically.
I think that when you start looking at the issue of
business and how this affects business, I think you also have
to look at not only business, but also other employers of
illegal immigrants. I think that you also need to look at the
non-profits, who may or may not be employing illegal
immigrants, and I think you also need to look at the
government, whether it be the Federal, State or local
government, who, through coincidence or whatever, may be
employing illegal immigrants also.
I will close by saying this, Mr. Chairman, that in my study
of economic history over the last--I have not studied it for
200 or 300 years, but I have looked at economic history for the
last 200 or 300 years, there are two things that countries
really never can survive--a devaluation of its language or a
devaluation of its currency. And I would ask you to help us as
North Carolinians and as citizens of this community, to help us
deal with this problem.
I will be glad to answer any questions you might have.
Oh, may I add one more thing?
Mr. Souder. Yes, sir.
Mr. Folwell. On the public education system, one thing that
I want to add is that we do have double standards, and some of
these double standards that we have relate to some of the
policies that are put on us by the Federal Government. For
example, if a child who is here illegally wants to enter our
public school system, all they have to do is produce a Bible
with the child's name and date of birth written on the front
page. Where a lot of other people, in order to get people in
the public school system have to produce a raised-seal birth
certificate and immunization records. That is basically unfair
and that is a double standard. North Carolinians are very
forgiving, but we do not really tolerate double standards very
well.
Second, there is all kinds of anecdotal information about
the effect that illegal immigration is having on our public
education system. Our public education system is--we are maxing
out, we are getting in violation of building codes because of
the amount of mobile classrooms that we are having to put
onsites in order to deal with this problem.
Another piece of anecdotal information is that most
everything that comes out of our public school system has to
come out on two sheets of paper bilingually, another cost.
And last, our son is in middle school and all the glossary
and all the terminology of this textbook has to be done
bilingually also. This textbook weighs 8 pounds. You have all
heard reports, I see some young folks in the room who have had
kids in public schools who the kids themselves weigh 75 pounds
and they are carrying 50 pounds worth of book bag every day to
school. I know that is not a big deal to a lot of people, but I
know that the price of this textbook had to be increased in
order for the answers to be produced bilingually.
So with that, I want to once again thank you for coming and
listening to our concerns and I hope that I can answer any
questions that you might have.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Our next scheduled witness is Mr. Thomas Keith, district
attorney, 21st Judicial District. Thank you very much.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS J. KEITH
Mr. Keith. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
I am the guy that does 98 percent of the cases that go
through the court system. We send about 2 percent across the
street here to the Federal Government. I am the district
attorney of Forsyth County, 320,000 people with Winston-Salem
as the center.
I will not paint the somewhat rosy picture that I heard
from Mr. Jordan, the ICE agent. I will tell you that what is
going on here as well as what is happening on the street. As
recently as two nights ago, I rode with an interdiction team
looking for license plates, headlights out, what-have-you, 10
at night. We stopped a car for having no tag, it was from
Arizona. Open up the door, there are nine non-English speaking
Hispanics crammed into the car, probably a phony registration
rented to a third party. Obviously proceros being brought in
from across the border into western Forsyth County.
What did we do about it? We did nothing because we do not
have the ability to do anything about that. We have no jail
beds to put felons, more or less people who are just passing
through who have made illegal entry into the country.
We have three of the hardest working ICE agents for 24
counties, the middle district of North Carolina, that probably
spend 75 percent of their time on my cases because they are
right across the street. I meet with them weekly in our ZAP
review, which is our gun program. And we watch the increasing
number of illegal immigrants with weapons, up to 24-25 percent
of the cases we review now are all by Hispanics.
We do not know who these people are, we have no jail beds
here for ICE and if you want to open up the 10th floor, then
Ms. Shrader, Conrad-Shrader, will tell us what a floor of the
jail will cost. Remember, to have one 24-hour a day, 7 day a
week law enforcement personnel takes over five people. So if
you want to staff the jail 24/7 365 days a year, it is very
expensive. The prison construction cost now in North Carolina
is $79,000 a bed. The general rule of prisons is it costs about
a third that much per year to run it. The current Department of
Corrections [DOC] cost is $22,500 a year.
We do not have anywhere to put people, in State prison, in
our local facility. We can hardly get prison people now to work
in a Forsyth County Detention Center. It does not pay that
well, it is risky, it is an open facility, as is this room,
they are not locked up in individual cells. ICE, their local
people, their biggest cry here is for a local facility, they
need some place to put people just for the people that I want
them to try, let alone the people that are buzzing down
Interstate 40 at 10 at night.
Let me get back to my notes, you have my revised remarks. I
will quickly go through what we feel the problems are here.
The gangs are about 57 percent Hispanic based on Winston-
Salem Police Department statistics. The DEA and the National
Intelligence Center have produced monographs referred to in the
first page of my remarks where they say ``Mexican criminal
groups are the primary transporters of powdered cocaine.''
``Mexican criminal groups are the dominant wholesale
distributors of marijuana.'' And ``most of the methamphetamine
available in North Carolina is produced in Mexico'' and of
course, transferred here.
As late as March 2006, National Drug Threat Assessment
continues with that vein. So most of this stuff is coming in
from across the border.
The presence of gangs here has grown since probably 1995
when I got interested in this. We are seeing consolidation,
some of the smaller gangs are being subsumed. There is
leadership, centralization now, there are people coming in from
California into North Carolina. We are not at the California
gang stage, but we can see, the leaders here can see the next
stage. Probably after the centralization, you will have entry
into the retail drug market.
The last time I had a shakeup in my retail drug market was
in the early 1990's when we took out a lot of local drug
retailers. Their void was filled by Jamaicans, Dominicans and
others. We had 44 murders that year. Winston-Salem had the 17th
highest crime rate in the United States. And after 10 years,
the sheriff and I, the chief, have driven it down and we are
the lowest crime rate of any of the major cities in this State.
We dropped to 79th.
Now I look out on the horizon and I see this consolidation
of gangs and the specter of methamphetamine coming. I went to
California, got trained by DEA for a week out there on
methamphetamine labs, learned that it has now replaced in
California crack cocaine, which used to be a tremendously
addictive drug. We have a drug treatment court here, I can get
about 60 percent of the people off of cocaine in the year and
the success rate is about 7 percent in methamphetamine in
California. So I have this coming here. The National DA's
conference I go to every year, a girl from Guam, a lady from
Hawaii, California--what is your biggest problem--
methamphetamine. And again, it affects the crime rate.
The national rate of incarceration from 1920 to 1980 was
about a flat 110 per 100,000; cocaine hit, powdered cocaine
hit, by 1986 it was up to 425 per 100,000. It is now 725 per
100,000 with crack cocaine. What is meth going to do to the
cost at the county jail over there, where we are using a
tremendous amount of our resources? What is the cost to the
State prison system? As it has grown, the prison system in this
State has increased its share of the budget pie by 17 percent
in the last 20 years and the education piece of the pie has
gone down 17 percent. So we are putting people in jail at
$22,500 a year and it is coming straight out of the school
system.
The increase of these gangs will bring nothing but more
drugs. You cannot say drugs without saying gangs, without
saying Hispanic aliens. That is what the DEA and the National
Drug Intelligence Center monographs will tell you.
Here, in a small southern, mid-size town, we have seen in a
chart that I prepared, you have a copy of it, in drug
trafficking, which is a State crime, from 1998, Hispanics,
according to the Department of Corrections, who keep their
records by ethnicity, so that would be Hispanic/Latino, they
go, in 1998, they suddenly appear as seven people from Forsyth
County going to prison for drug trafficking, until 2005, we are
now over half of the drug traffickers that I send to prison are
Hispanic. The prison itself, the North Carolina Department of
Corrections, which has a very low Hispanic population, they are
under-represented in the State Department of Corrections; in
the area of drug trafficking, they have 33 percent of the
entries this year.
The value, the amount of drugs coming into this community,
again a fairly mid-size southern area, according to the
Sheriff's Department statistics in 2003, for the last 6 months,
they picked up about $950,000 in value of drugs, $350,000 cash.
The next year, it was $9.3 million, a tenfold increase in drugs
and $432,000 in cash. 2005, it has gone up to $40 million in
street level of drugs and $962,000 in cash was confiscated.
The Winston-Salem Police Department, much larger
jurisdiction--2003, $762,000 worth of drugs, $136,000 in cash
was confiscated. The next year it goes up ten-fold, $8.6
million and $242,000 in cash. 2005, drops down a little bit
because the big Texas case is not included, to a mere $5.2
million and $485,000 in confiscated cash.
The purity of the drugs has gone way up. I have some
photographs. Unfortunately I guess if I introduce them, I
cannot get them back and we do not have the budget to make
these copies at $10 each. I can show them to you at some other
time, but we just cannot make copies and hand them in.
There are firewalls of cars where kilos as brought in, they
are in the driveshafts, they are in the air cleaner, they are
in the frame of the car, they are ingenious in how these groups
bring the drugs in.
The price of drugs is driven down. I have practiced law
here 35 years. In the Federal courts in the 1980's, I
represented a lot of people in drug cases and in getting
prepared for the hearing today, I was amazed at the purity of
cocaine, which is way up there, almost pure stuff on the
street. It used to be 5, 10, 15 percent because everybody would
step on it; that is, you would cut it. You would bring it in
from California where they cut it two-to-one, I would get it
here in Winston-Salem, cut it two-to-one, it is down to 25
percent pure. The stuff on the street is outrageously pure,
because there is so much of it. The price is down. The police I
talk to, it used to be I ran a grand jury here for about 5
years in the early 1990's, investigative grand jury, parallel
grand jury with the U.S. Attorney's Office, and it was really
tough to find drugs. We have officers here that are sitting out
with a pair of field glasses looking at a motel and watch 41
kilos being unloaded from a car in broad daylight at 11 a.m. A
local policeman can just drive down the street and walk up to
some person on the street and say where can I get some weed,
marijuana. Well, go see this guy, they go there and they pull
out several hundred pounds of marijuana, no wire tap, no Title
3, no surveillance, just walk out there. It is everywhere and
not hard to get.
Language barrier here, we have a couple of officers who
speak Spanish--maybe three or four. One of the difficulties is
if I send Ms. Holland in, who does not speak Spanish, but if
she did, if she was one of my Spanish agents and I have a wire
on her, they tell me that they do not have anybody who is
Spanish who can listen to the other end of the wire. So we have
to have a key word if they get in trouble to tell the officers
who do not speak Spanish, hey, come in here, I am in trouble.
We do not have translators in court. If I have a murder case
and I have to try five Hispanic people for drug trafficking, I
have to have an interpreter for every one of them. It is
costing the State an enormous amount of money. It slows my
trials down two or three times, and we are the 48th worst
funded court system in the United States. And I am the third
worst staffed prosecutor's office in the State. We are doing
all we can.
And then here comes the third wave. We need some help. We
need resources. Every time I go and speak to a public group, I
say who wants me to get tougher on crime. Every Kiwanis, every
Moose, every Elk hand goes up. And then I ask them who wants to
pay for it. And there is palsy in the left arm. [Laughter.]
We need a lot of help. We need, according to law
enforcement, probably do away with the three strikes for
businessmen before they are incarcerated. Evidently there is a
rule that says that you can go out there twice and we will warn
you and we will fine you if you are hiring illegal aliens. They
ought to be at risk of going to jail the first time. That would
do more good than probably anything. We need more U.S.
attorneys, they cannot take all the cases I send them. ICE
cannot take all the cases I send them. We do not have enough
prosecutors. If I get a good prosecutor, the feds steal them.
Give us a supplement so I can keep my people. Probably four or
five people in the Middle District came from my office, they
certainly pay better and the work is about a fraction of what
you have to do in State court.
Probably the two key things is you either close your
borders to drugs or you put massive amounts of resources into
the State and Federal criminal justice system.
Mr. Souder. Thank you for that optimistic forecast.
[Laughter.]
The next witness is Ms. Debra Conrad-Shrader.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Keith follows:]
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STATEMENT OF DEBRA CONRAD-SHRADER
Ms. Conrad-Shrader. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We certainly appreciate the subcommittee's interest in
helping State and local Governments to deal with the
devastating effects of illegal immigration. This is certainly
an issue that is very much on the minds of our citizens here in
Forsyth County. And I might add, Mr. Chairman, I have been a
Forsyth County Commissioner for 12 years and have the
opportunity to speak to citizens all across Forsyth County and
I can tell you that this is the most serious issue we have
faced and is the No. 1 issue on the minds of the citizens here
in Forsyth County.
Immigration, particularly by Hispanic people, is not new to
North Carolina. Tobacco was, and still is, a very labor-
intensive crop. Immigrants have been coming here for many years
to work in tobacco. It may be that the agricultural tradition
was at least a bridgehead for the subsequent immigration
problems we are now facing, that has made North Carolina among
the States most heavily impacted by the problems of
immigration. But I would also add that I think in recent years,
there have been other factors that have certainly stimulated
illegal immigration here in North Carolina and made us a No. 1
destination State.
For one, we have had very easy access to North Carolina
drivers license and we have been far too late in trying to
tighten those requirements. We have certainly had a
proliferation of forged documentation here in Forsyth County to
where if they cannot get North Carolina drivers license, they
can easily pay for forged documents.
We also have generous benefits here in North Carolina, far
more than Federal requirements. And as you mentioned, the
illegal immigration population is very astute in figuring out
where certain States are that they can get better benefits than
other States.
And last, we have certainly had a lack of enforcement here
in North Carolina in all aspects, whether it is the speaking of
English as our State language, whether it is in punishment of
businesses that are hiring illegal immigrants and paying them
under the table, and we certainly lack the authority to
apprehend illegal immigrants at the local level.
Immigration has certainly caused an increase in the needs
for local public services. As representative Folwell mentioned,
particularly in the areas of public education, health services,
social services and law enforcement.
Fifteen percent of our students in our public school system
are Hispanic and over half of them do not have English as their
first language. Our social services case load is about 19
percent Hispanic, which is also a substantial increase in
recent years. In our public health department, 38 percent of
our clients are Hispanic. And at a local outpatient health care
facility, at least 34 percent of the patients are Hispanic. And
in the prisoners in our county jail, 11 percent are currently
Hispanic.
As this subcommittee knows, it is often very difficult for
us to differentiate between legal and illegal immigrants, or to
identify the children of illegal immigrants who are entitled to
citizenship. And in most public service venues, we are
prohibited from even asking about citizenship.
With many services, it would be illegal for us at the local
level or State level or else morally indefensible to withhold a
service anyway. The laws that tie our hands at the local level
need to be changed.
And I would mention at this point that I personally support
Representative Sue Myrick's attempts at Federal legislation
which would give us more local authority and local money to
address this problem.
Most estimates of the percentage of illegals seem to be
entirely anecdotal. Based on the most reliable information we
can get, it would be, at minimum, 50 percent of the immigrants
in this county are illegal. Most people place that estimate at
much higher and I would say that Representative Foxx's
percentage of 80 percent is probably more accurate.
If we even use the conservative estimate of 50 percent,
illegals are annually costing the county government over $4
million in education, and I have been told at least $100
million in new school construction over the next decade can be
directly attributed to illegal immigration. Almost a million
dollars in our public health department services, a million
dollars again in local law enforcement and $575,000 in social
services. As I said, this is based on 50 percent rates, so I
would not be surprised if the costs are almost double what I
have just quoted.
The problem of illegal immigration is very vexing for us.
We certainly respect the Hispanic people who come here legally
to work and make a new life for themselves. We also understand
the desperation that causes people to come here illegally. But
we are a Nation of laws and our laws and policies concerning
immigration must be practical, and they must be followed. Our
citizens are angry and they are very concerned about illegal
immigration.
At the local level, we need help with the impacts of
immigration, period, not just illegal immigration. If it is
sound national policy to encourage and allow massive
immigration to provide manpower for this economy--and I am not
sure that is necessarily the case--then we need help in
providing services for this mass influx of new people. The
impacts on us are really the same whether the immigrants are
new citizens, guest workers or illegals.
If the national government needs help to enforce our
immigration laws, we are glad to cooperate and ready to help.
But we will need financial assistance. Our local law
enforcement and justice systems already have their hands full.
In recent years, local governments have had to make
extraordinary adjustments to accommodate immigration. We are
willing to do our part, but we are impacted so dramatically by
Federal policy, or Federal indecision, as we have seen most
recently last week. We need Federal help and we need it as
quickly as possible.
And I would be happy to answer any questions.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Our last witness this morning is Ms. Brandon Holland.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Conrad-Shrader follows:]
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STATEMENT OF BRANDON HOLLAND
Ms. Holland. Good afternoon. Mr. Chairman, subcommittee
members, I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you.
Again, my name is Brandon Holland. I am the director of the
Zero Armed Perpetrators Program in the Forsyth County DA's
Office. And to kind of give you an idea of what I do on a daily
basis, every case involving a firearm, firearm seizure,
ammunition seizure, casing seizure or projectile seizure in
Forsyth County comes to me.
We hold a weekly meeting with State and local and Federal
law enforcement agencies to determine the best form for
prosecution, whether that be State or Federal. Because of that,
I review every gun case. And our gun cases involving illegal
aliens has increased dramatically, from 14.8 percent to 28.7
percent. And because of the increasing gang problems here in
the county and North Carolina, I am also a reserve deputy with
the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office and am now working, along
with my duties in the DA's office with ZAP, I am also working
as almost a full time deputy involving gang cases, working with
the local departments here, specifically working on trying to
track and identify gang members.
As Mr. Keith said, you cannot talk about gang members
without talking about drugs and you cannot talk about drugs
without talking about Hispanics. I will give you three figures
that are staggering to me. The Hispanic population growth in
Forsyth County from 1990 to 2000 was approximately 831 percent
and it is having a great impact on our community and our law
enforcement. We just cannot handle the volume.
Out of the 18 validated gangs in Forsyth County, 11 of them
are Hispanic. We have a group called MAGNET made up of local
law enforcement that have a criteria, a gang definition and we
have very strict guidelines to validate gang members. And out
of those 18 gangs, 11 of them are Hispanic.
Approximately 25 percent of the cases or gang members sent
or submitted to Operation Community Shield through ICE came
from the Middle District of North Carolina. Out of that, five
agencies in the Middle District submitted those entries and
three of them came from Forsyth County.
I will give you three incidents of violent crimes that
happened within the past couple of years. First of all, a
shooting that occurred during a birthday party for a 6-year old
girl. I can refer to page 26 of your handout. Here is a picture
taken about 30 minutes before the shooting occurred. Words were
exchanged earlier in the day between two rival gangs. One gang
was in the backyard of the party, this is this group right
here. The other gang decided to drive by, knowing they were
there, and began to shoot. There were approximately 40 rounds
fired, 12 rounds entered the house and the only person that
stopped a bullet was the 6-year old girl, ended up lodged in
her arm. There were multiple firearms recovered but nobody has
been charged because they had already fled to Mexico.
The second case is one of an off-duty officer with the
Sheriff's Office, working in a Hispanic nightclub. Fights began
in a parking lot nearby. The gang member shot another Hispanic
male at point blank range, continued to shoot once he fell to
the ground. And at that point, the gang member began to flee
the area. And as he was fleeing and being chased by law
enforcement officers, he turned and fired several shots at the
officers. And that person is currently awaiting a Federal
sentence and he is illegal.
The third, and I think most telling, is one that happened
in January of this year. One gang member--excuse me--gang began
to shoot into an apartment of another gang member, because of
an earlier confrontation, saw him come to the window and then
leave the window. Therefore, they began to shoot.
Unfortunately, multiple rounds were discharged hitting a woman
in another apartment, a mother of small children and she is
paralyzed for life. At that point, an illegal alien was charged
and is awaiting trial. The co-defendant fled to Mexico, who was
also illegal, to avoid prosecution. And another possible co-
defendant who we have not been able to locate was a ZAP
offender, so a prior gun offender, and was previously deported
in April 2005.
As I said, the gun cases involving Hispanics have increased
from 14.8 percent to 28.7 percent. We have had an increase in
drive-by shootings. We have had an increase in fights within
the schools. Even if it is over a girl, we have two rival gangs
fighting. That is a familiar occurrence unfortunately. They are
resorting to anything they can get their hands on--baseball
bats, knives. And unfortunately, we are seeing an increase in
assault type weapons--AK-47s, so on.
We work very closely with the ICE agents, as you have heard
today. Unfortunately, because of the sheer volume, I am pre-
screening a lot of the cases that they get. They are just
absolutely overwhelmed. We have now started focusing on re-
entry aggravated felons, specifically pertaining to gun cases.
Actual possession gun cases, not cases that we have to prove
who owned or possessed the firearm, and gang members.
Some of the issues that ICE is facing today, as you have
heard today, jail beds. For adults, right now, there are no
permanent beds in the Forsyth County Law Enforcement Detention
Center. They have temporary beds if they are necessary, but
those numbers are decreasing because of over-crowding. For
juveniles, and under 18 is a juvenile in the Federal system, a
juvenile under the age of 18, not needing to be detained, with
no criminal conviction, they are released to a family member
and given a hearing date in Atlanta. And you have heard the
statistics on how often they show. Under 18, they must be
detained, the ICE agent must take them to a juvenile facility
and the two juvenile facilities are south of Atlanta and
Houston, and that must be done at the time of arrest. Under 18
with a criminal conviction, and as I found out today, if you
are a gang member, you have to go to Pennsylvania in the
juvenile facility. And that is the only facility that I am
aware of that takes juveniles. So jail beds are an increasing
problem for ICE.
In the schools, talking about the schools, you have heard
about the school incidents. Unfortunately, some of the
recruiting for the Hispanic gang members is starting as early
as elementary school and it is running rampant in the middle
schools. Many parents and siblings of some of these kids are
already gang members, so they are being raised in a house full
of gang members.
I was teaching in a local elementary school in a rural area
here in town and an art teacher ran up to me with a drawing
that a second grader had done. That drawing was of a gang
tattoo and we asked the child how she knew about this gang
tattoo, and it was tattooed on her father's arm from prison.
There is a disruption now, from what I understand, in the
ESO classes because of the gang members, they do not want to be
in school, they do not want to be in class, so they disrupt the
students that do want to learn. Kids act up in school now to
get transferred to the proper school where all their other gang
member friends are and if they do not end up in that school or
they end up getting kicked out of school or expelled, they end
up in the community and become society and law enforcement's
problem.
In summary, you know, we need resources. That is the bottom
line for local, State and Federal agencies. Fingerprints, we
need to fingerprint everybody that comes through the jail.
Right now in Forsyth County, we are not fingerprinting for
Class 1 misdemeanors, meaning DWIs, driving while license
revoked and no operator's license. We need gang legislation
enhancements for gang crimes. We need harsher penalties and we
need jail beds.
If you guys have any questions or anything that I can
answer.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Holland follows:]
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Mr. Souder. I thank you all for your testimony.
I just want to say this for the record, as a conservative
Republican who does not favor tax increases. The Federal
Government is more broke than you are. There is not any other
way to say that. Our debt--if you take county debt, State debt,
township debt, city debt, all that together and then you have
to multiply it by about 7 or 10 or who knows what, to get our
debt. And our obligations are greater than your obligations
because of Social Security, Medicare, pension expectations,
much like the private sector is going into, at the Federal
level. The only difference is we can print money. What that
means is we can give you more money, but we are going to print
more which means you are going to pay for it through inflation
which devalues your own money.
There is not money growing on trees to address this. It is
a matter of prioritizing and trying to figure out how to do it.
And as a conservative Republican, one of the traps that we have
gotten into is we oppose tax increases at every single level of
government. If I favored tax increases, it would be at the
local level because I do not want the Federal Government
determining what I do. So when you ask us to cover your local
costs, it means you are going to get more regulation from us,
you are going to get more guidelines, you are going to get
unfunded mandates along with the mandates. That is the dilemma
we are facing here.
Now that said, clearly there are some things that fall in
the Nation purview. One is the border policies. But like North
Carolina, Indiana had a really lousy driver's license policy
and that fueled immigrants coming in. Like North Carolina,
Indiana had a lower unemployment rate, which brought immigrants
in. Like North Carolina, my home State of Indiana did not find
the people on welfare particularly wanted to pluck chickens,
ducks, clean restrooms, they did not want to particularly stay
in certain manufacturing places. In many cases we could stop
the immigrant flow, but the plants will just move to Mexico
because it is fine to talk about higher wages, but in an
international marketplace, you cannot compete on the Internet
or elsewhere with the higher wages. So we are on the horns of a
very difficult dilemma.
Furthermore, having worked with the drug issues most of my
career, we cannot find the drug dealers to deport them and when
we deport them, they come back. The idea of deporting 12
million people just is not fathomable right now. So we are
trying to figure out a very complicated way to try to address
this. At the same time, I do not think there is much
disagreement, at least on the surface, that you cannot have a
safe country without better control of the borders. Because it
does not do any good for us to get a deportation center here if
all they do is walk right back. We first and foremost have to
get control of the border and then figure out the internal
enforcement questions, because as we have established multiple
times today, you are talking about repeat offenders and we all
know that the border is so porous--and it is not just there. If
we squeeze the Mexican border, coming in through Florida and
the Gulf, but even around to Canada, we are seeing increased
pressure on the northern border, unless we get the perimeter of
Canada, because where there is a demand, whether it is for
drugs or for people or for pornography and prostitution, there
will be forces that try to meet that demand. So we have to do
the demand reduction at the same time we are trying to control
the supply. And this is a massive problem.
Also, one of the challenges that I see, and I am interested
if anybody has any comment on this, that particularly in States
where the illegal immigration has been increasing for 10 years
plus, but especially in the last 5 years. For example, the
picture of the kids in the gang, most of those kids probably
did not choose to immigrate to the United States. They were
brought by their parents. And one of the dilemmas that we are
facing with it, I do not have an answer to this question, they
may have been brought by their parents here 5, 10 years ago,
they are not Mexicans, they do not know anything about Mexico.
They have not grown up there, they do not know what the culture
is like. If you sent them back, they would not fit in.
Now, they are here in the United States, and correctly, we
do not want to give driver's licenses to illegals, we do not
want to give ability to go to college to illegals and so what
is happening to this group? I have a feeling it is fueling the
gang part, because I have been told this in multiple cities, is
the anger level of the young illegals who did not choose to
come to America, their parents did. When they get to America
and realize they are supposed to pluck chickens and clean
toilets the rest of their lives, because they cannot go to
college, because they cannot get a car, because they cannot get
a driver's license, the logical reaction is crime and
belligerence.
And we have ourselves in the horn of an incredible dilemma
because we are now trying to deal with it once 12 million are
here and we did not deal with it a long time ago. And it is
going to be incredibly complex to unsort this.
I want to ask Mr. Keith, in the first panel, I was playing
around with this question on the age of gangs. I always thought
gangs were younger and maybe as they age, they stay a gang. How
do you look at a gang in your office, as to what is a gang and
what is not a gang?
Mr. Keith. We have our biker gangs who are my age and
older, so they are gang members. We have a statistic here on
age.
Ms. Holland. Page 28 of my handout gives you the
demographics of our validated gang members.
Mr. Keith. Looks like between 18 and 23 is about 60 percent
of the Forsyth County validated. Now we use the standard that
you were talking to Mr. Jordan about. Our standard is you do
not have to commit a felony--common signs, common signals,
intimidation. A gang is a subculture, they literally have a
book of knowledge which is an upside down world where they
write everything they think about the work and you look at it
and say this is crazy. And they literally copy it and these
guys memorize it. It is a subculture, a new family. Those are
the younger people.
But we do have older biker gangs like Aryan Nations, Hell's
Angels, what-have-you, who are Social Security age.
Mr. Souder. Have you seen much of the recruitment occurring
in prisons or in juvenile probation?
Mr. Keith. In prisons, one of our members that we meet with
is a North Carolina Department of Corrections, there is a gang
that sets you up in business when you get out of prison with so
much cocaine. That is a gang.
In my earlier life as a defense attorney, I would go to
prisons and I remember I went to one in Tennessee and the
prisons are broken down by race of inmates. You are either in a
White gang or a Black gang or a Hispanic gang. And I asked this
one guy, what are you doing in a gang, you are in her for
forgery. He says, man, you fight every day to stay alive and
you have to have somebody to cover your back. So the prisons
are breeding grounds of a lot of gangs and then they come out
and they maintain that allegiance.
Mr. Souder. In American history, obviously one of the
recent--last 2 years, as you get older recent seems to go
longer--there were multiple movies about Irish gangs that
almost every immigrant group, Vietnam, as they came over after
the Vietnam War, Los Angeles was dominated by different gangs
that almost every immigrant group in American history has had
this subproblem with it, in addition to in my area, which was
heavily German. Fort Wayne was settled around in the 1830's,
two of the four newspapers were still in German language up
until the rise of Hitler; the school systems were still
speaking bilingual with German over 100 years after they came
in.
There is almost always a backlash against the language
transition in the gangs. Do you see this? Is there any parallel
with this in North Carolina history? Was it different? I mean
almost all urban areas in the East Coast, the midwest and the
West Coast have had this assimilation problem for 30 to 50
years. It is not an easy process.
Mr. Keith. My mother was Italian, large family, she was
about the 5th of 11. She was the first one that we thought was
born in America until after she passed away. My brother
presented me with about three different birth dates that he
found--confirmation dates, birth certificates. And I do not
know if my mother's family was trying to slip her under the
wire. We never have determined when her actual birth date was.
She may have been born in Italy and maybe she was illegal, I do
not know. One of my uncles fought in World War II for the
Italian Army and for the U.S. Marines at Iwo Jima. I have seen
my family go through the assimilation problem, I have seen the
prejudice in the northeast where I spent about 17 years of my
life. They would talk about we could not play golf because we
were Italians, at the country club. They could caddy there and
they played on Monday, and several of them became very
successful PGA golf professionals.
They learned how to speak English. My mother Americanized
her name. I did not know her name until we looked at some of
the confirmations, her name was Marguerita, I thought her name
was Margaret her whole life. She died when I was in my 50's.
They wanted the American way. But there were not those huge
groups of them that have come in and have coalesced and work in
a workplace.
My daughter was looking for a job in sales. She had a
friend who sold nails for nail guns for construction. That
trade in this part of the State has been taken over, the
framing trade, by Hispanics. She could not get the job because
she did not speak Spanish and no one on the job sites spoke
American. They are retaining that language and it is a slower
assimilation than the Italians or the Germans or Scots. So that
may be an issue.
I am here just to talk about the impact on the criminal
justice system. The rest of the stuff is above my pay grade,
but at least my own family's experiences. We went on to speak
English. My mother did not even know Italian, she was not
allowed to speak Italian.
Mr. Souder. Ms. Conrad-Shrader and Representative Folwell,
does North Carolina have, with English as the first language,
do you have an English immersion for kids? I mean some of the
things--and I share some of your frustration about some of the
mandates, but I believe most of those are court mandates, not
legislative mandates. I do not believe the U.S. Congress made
the hospital rules or the school rulings or the bilingual. Some
bilingual textbooks we may have. But I would be interested in--
it is one thing to in effect accommodate the language and
increasing put it on documents and another to try to do an
immersion and have it as a second language at home or in
neighborhoods. For example, there are many areas in the United
States where you still see, particularly for example, in
certain Jewish communities in New York City, certain Italian
communities, certain Vietnamese communities, all the signs are
still in that language in their neighborhoods. But they also
speak English. And the question is are we driving toward
English aggressively enough in the school system and how are
you doing that in North Carolina?
Mr. Folwell. We are doing that and that goes back to the
point I made earlier in that 10 years ago we only had three ESL
centers out of the 62 school sites that we have in this county.
And now we have 43. So in a large portion of our schools in
Forsyth County, they have the program to do the English
immersion for the elementary and middle school children.
The problem is that--I should not say a problem, but one of
the issues we face is that, especially if you get a middle
school child, I do not know how you were with trying to pick up
a second language at, you know 20 or 25 years old, but once you
get into middle school, it becomes very difficult to learn the
language. And there is a propriety to not learning the language
in that it goes back to the point I was making about the
underground economy that exists in North Carolina. I do not
speak for the police department, I do not know if anybody is
here from our local Winston-Salem Police Department, but there
are areas of our community where if you do not speak English
long enough, there is a high probability that the police
officer who may have detained you for some purpose is going to
get a higher coded call. If you do not speak English long
enough, that person will get a higher coded call and be called
off to do something else. So there is a certain propriety or
profit in not speaking English.
Mr. Souder. Does anybody know, one of the things--I am a
strong proponent of at the Federal level, and it is not really
Spanish that is our main concern right now at the Federal
level, it is Arabic--do you have incentives--clearly,
regardless of what the Federal Government does, you are going
to continue to have this language problem. Are you giving any
financial incentives to officers to get second language? Is
there anything the State or county is doing to encourage that
training? For example, this is something I have always thought
would be mandatory on the southwest border, I do not understand
why we have Border Patrol people who cannot speak Spanish.
Increasingly we need to have at least one Arabic person on each
post. You could be coming in with a package that says anthrax
on it and we would not be able to interpret it.
In my home town, by the way, it is not just--because we
have a lot of refugees in addition to illegal immigrants, one
of the main high schools in my city has 83 languages and
dialects in it right now. I have the largest collection of
Burmese refugees in America, I have 2,000 Bosnians that have
come in. And the fire department does not know how to handle it
when they go to some of these complexes, it is half Bosnian and
half Burmese. The language problem is immense in a country of
immigrants and these are mostly legal refugees. And clearly we
have to have a law enforcement, fire department, court process
to figure out how to deal with the languages because even, like
you say, under any normal system, even if they are trying to
learn English, and with the Internet and the TV and everything,
it is going to take a while. And I just wondered what the legal
system is doing in North Carolina to try to respond.
Mr. Keith. As the DA, I ran an ad in the Charlotte paper
and the Raleigh paper wanting a Spanish speaking prosecutor. I
got zero replies. I go to teach at the National Advocacy
Center, which is funded by the U.S. Justice Department, it is a
week of my vacation. I go down there trying to hustle young
people who will come up from Brownsville, TX to North Carolina.
I buy dinner, buy drinks. So far I have not been successful.
There is no premium in North Carolina to come here or to stay
above the starting salary.
Mr. Souder. Representative Folwell.
Mr. Folwell. I will try to respond. I have numerous
newspaper articles here where folks are being hired and paid a
stipend of $2,000 or $3,000 more a year if they do speak two
languages. That may be a good thing in the beginning, but it
does set a level of double standard and unfairness amongst the
other people who work in their department that do the exact
same job and the reason they are getting paid less is they do
not speak a language which is not the official language of our
State. So it does--I see where you are going with your
question, but in reality, it does create a lot of ill feelings
between people who are working side-by-side doing the same job,
one who understands fluently our English language and gets paid
less than somebody else who does not. I think we are all to
blame for this. There is enough blame to go around this room,
this community and this State for this problem.
I know that we have heard a lot of depressing statistics
here today, but I am going to tell you, this country can
achieve and accomplish and fix anything it sets its mind to.
This is not going to be any different. We have to have clarity
of thought and we have to have things in the right order. If we
can get those things lined up with hard working folks like
Congresswoman Foxx and yourself, we can fix this.
Ms. Conrad-Shrader. Mr. Chairman, I think Representative
Folwell touched slightly on this issue, I am not sure that
there is a great incentive in the illegal immigration
population to attempt to learn the English language. We are
bearing a great deal of cost across the board in county
services. Hardly a week goes by that the Board of County
Commissioners does not receive a request to hire more
interpreters. And I have heard anecdotally that even if they do
know how to speak English, they prefer to disguise that fact
because they feel it is to their advantage to continue to speak
in their native language.
Also, I would followup on Representative Folwell's recent
comments, and respectfully, perhaps disagree with one of your
assessments of the situation, in calling this complex. We have
watched the actions of Congress over the last few weeks, that
certainly does seem to be the struggle that Congress is facing
and their general opinion. But I think if you listen to your
constituents, and particularly those of the 5th District, this
is what is causing the frustration among the legal, tax-paying
citizens of this country and even the legal immigrants, is that
they do not view this situation as complex. They see that we
have a large mass immigration of people in this country that
have violated Federal laws, do not seem to have respect for the
laws of the United States and that not only do our borders need
to be protected, but that these 12 million illegal immigrants
needs to be deported from this country and re-enter legally,
regardless of the number of years that they have lived in the
United States, because certainly we cannot rely on any
legitimate documentation or information to even assess that
situation. And to allow them to re-enter, and their children,
legally perhaps in controlled numbers because we certainly
cannot absorb this mass of illegal immigration and what may
follow in future years if you allow amnesty or even a guest
worker program.
That is what I am hearing from the citizens out there, is
they do not understand why Congress is not acting more
decisively, more quickly and more severely on this problem. And
they do not see as that complex situation.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. Mx. Foxx.
Ms. Foxx. Well, thank you, Commissioner Conrad-Shrader, for
saying some of what I feel too.
We are talking about our backgrounds a little bit and I
want to say my father's parents came to this country from
Italy. He was the oldest of nine living children. He and all
his brothers and sisters learned to speak English without the
help of an English as a Second Language teacher, in probably
classes of 45 or 50 kids with probably a lot of people who
spoke Italian when they went to school, and other languages,
because he was born in 1915 and was going to school when there
were a lot of people coming here from other countries. So I
know very well that it is possible to learn to speak English
without the help of another language.
There are so many things that you all said that I want to
respond to. One thing is that Representative Folwell said this
is the largest unfunded mandate ever, and I agree with you on
that, because I think the Federal Government has simply not
done its job in securing the borders. And as a colleague of
mine pointed out the other day, and I want to read this to you
because I think not many of us think about this from the
Constitution, it is in Article 4, Section 4, ``The United
States shall guarantee to every State in this union a
republican form of government and shall protect each of them
against invasion.''
Now I think I agree with Commissioner Conrad-Shrader, I
think the people of the 5th District and people all over this
country think we are being invaded, and that the Federal
Government is simply not doing its job to protect us from
invasion. And so I think that is the first role of the Federal
Government.
I agree with Chairman Souder about the problem of raising
taxes at the Federal level and trying to spend at the Federal
level. I very much agree with him that whatever we can do needs
to be done at the local level if at all possible. But it is
wrong of the Federal Government to impose these costs on the
local governments.
The other thing I would say again about people who came
here in years past, who came in the early 1900's. When folks
came here before, they came through centers, they came to Ellis
Island or other places where they had to show that they were
healthy and that they would not be a burden. Even legal people
who come here have to prove that they will not be a burden on
our culture. And I think that we absolutely have to enforce
that in our country and I think that is the job of the Federal
Government, is to say you cannot be here in this country if you
are going to be a burden on the taxpayers. That is how it used
to be when people came here.
The other thing related to Federal spending, as the
chairman said, we are facing a crisis at the Federal Government
level related to a term that I absolutely hate to use, but it
is generally used by my colleagues--the term ``mandatory
spending''--Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. In the next
few years, like by 2040 that will absorb 60 percent of all the
spending at the Federal Government level. The No. 1 role of the
Federal Government, again, is the defense of this Nation. We
have to have money to defend the Nation. That cannot be done
anywhere else. Forsyth County cannot do that, the State of
North Carolina cannot do that. So we have to make sure that
there is money there.
And I, for one, am frustrated that the Congress has not
dealt with this issue of how we are going to deal with spending
the Federal Government has committed itself to, let alone these
other things.
And I guess a couple of other responses to comments that
you all have made. Representative Folwell talked about the bill
that we have in Congress now that says you cannot be a citizen
unless at least one of your parents is here legally. I
completely agree with that. I am a co-sponsor of that bill. We
call it the Anchor Baby bill. I think that it is unconscionable
that we allow people to become citizens when the act that got
them there to start with was illegal.
I guess that the other comment that I wanted to make was it
is unfortunate that the State of North Carolina has not said
back to the Federal Government, English is our official
language, we have declared it so. Under the 10th amendment to
the Constitution, it is our right to do that and we are simply
not going to fund English as a Second Language. I believe that
should be our national policy.
And again, I agree with Representative Folwell, we are
facing a looming problem in this country if we devalue our
language and we devalue our currency. You brought up the issue
of devaluing the language and the chairman has brought up the
issue of devaluing the currency. I just do not think there is
any greater issue--there are two great issues facing us right
now--the threat to our national security coming from foreign
countries and the threat to our entire way of life coming from
this tide of illegal aliens who are coming here. So we may be
destroyed from within before we are destroyed from without. And
I think it is a very serious problem.
I think the issues that you all have brought up--the gangs
and their lawlessness. And part of that is I think again what
my constituents say to me and what I feel myself, if we allow
these people to come here illegally and there is no punishment
for it but simply reward, then that just gives them the
opportunity to say they will break any law. What does it mean
that we are a Nation of laws if we allow the initial entry to
this country to be as a result of an illegal act?
So, you know, I am quite concerned about, again, most of
the issues that you all have brought up. I referenced earlier
the fact that we had this hearing yesterday in Caldwell County,
not in my district obviously, but another member of our
subcommittee, Representative McHenry, and one of the issues
that came out of that meeting and out of that hearing was that
many people think that they do not have to be concerned about
the spread of methamphetamine because they themselves are not
involved with it, their families are not involved with it. But
the ripple effect of illegal drugs is enormous.
And I think the ripple effect of illegal immigration and
illegal aliens is much greater than many of our lawmakers
understand. And I frankly wish that we could have had all of
our leadership in Congress here listening to what you had to
say, and maybe the President too, to understand the depth of
the concerns and the breadth of the concerns for this issue,
and again, what the ripple effect is for us.
I had a lot of questions to ask, but I think most of them,
particularly Mr. Keith, you answered in terms of talking about
the impact and I think that Mr. Jordan--I cannot think of any
other questions right now, Mr. Chairman, but I wanted to give
that feedback to the people who have spoken.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Representative Folwell.
Mr. Folwell. I just wanted to add, I brought up the idea of
deportation, and I would just submit, Mr. Chairman, that if you
give us an opportunity to do some kind of pilot program that
would save the Federal taxpayer money, better utilize assets
that either the local, State or Federal Government has already
purchased, and share whatever we save, we give half back to you
and we can reinvest half of it back into dealing with this
problem on a bigger basis. If you give us that chance, we will
come through for you.
Mr. Souder. Well, let me make----
Mr. Folwell. If I might just add.
Mr. Souder. I thought you were done.
Mr. Folwell. I'm sorry the ICE people are not here, because
it is my understanding that when somebody is deported or
arrested or whatever the terms are, there are a couple of paths
they go down. One is that they are not considered to be a
criminal risk, sometimes they are taken to Raleigh-Durham
Airport and they are put on an airplane back to their country
of origin. The other option is they may be taken to Charlotte
and run through some kind of process down there. Then they are
transported from Charlotte to Atlanta where they go before a
deportation hearing officer. If they are determined to be
deportable in Atlanta, they may be taken to Gadsden, AL, near
Talladega, and in Gadsden, AL, they could be put on a plane
with a lot of other deportees, flown to Brownsville, TX, taken
off the plane in Brownsville, TX, put on a bus and taken across
the street. We can make that process a whole lot more efficient
by running airplanes out of Smith-Reynolds Airport, period.
Have a deportation center, run airplanes, save money. We share
the savings. We will take half of our savings and redeploy that
back into other ways to save money in this process and we can
come through for you, without any increased expenditure.
Mr. Souder. Let me make a couple of comments and I had a
few more questions.
One on the Anchor Baby legislation, which I am also a co-
sponsor of. The questions may not seem complex, but they are
complex, whether people think they are complex or not, quite
frankly. In Anchor Baby, assuming you define it--as we have to
deal with the question of is one parent a citizen by green
card, refugee status. Some of what you are dealing with are not
illegal immigrants, they are what we have done in the Central
American countries--I was asking questions about El Salvadorans
and Guatemalans--we have extended the refugee status all
through the civil wars of the 1980's now and expanded them for
political reasons and economic reasons of those countries. And
the question is what about all these people who have come in
under refugee status, not even refugee status from Burma where
you have a military regime, but a refugee status where you have
a democratically elected government in El Salvador and
Guatemala, and people are still claiming economic refugee
status, which roughly the entire world could claim under that
criteria of being lower income than the United States.
But assuming, taking away all those questions related to
Anchor Baby, and this is assuming as long as they have some
kind of status in the United States of one parent. I think--
this is an I think--we are going to bring this legislation up
in the House. It is not clear whether we can pass this
legislation in the House, but it will be close. I would not
hold my breath for this legislation to pass the Senate, I would
say it is somewhere between zero and half a percent in an
optimistic forecast.
But if it did pass the House and the Senate, everybody
agrees that nobody knows how the court is going to rule. There
is no precedent in American history, there is zero. We have had
an extended internal discussion about this. Chairman
Sensenbrenner, Lamar Smith are two advocates of this bill--
Lamar Smith is chairman of the key subcommittee and likely next
chairman of the Judiciary if the Republicans maintain control--
agree that anybody who speculates how the court is going to
rule is just speculating, because there is no precedent of this
decision. It would seem, to those of us who are sponsoring this
bill, that the founding fathers controlled the right of
citizens for good or ill early on, including depriving women
and Blacks of votes. So they seemed to have, in the
Constitution, protected the rights of citizenship which would
suggest to those of us who are strict constructionists that
they would probably rule in favor of the Anchor Baby
legislation, if there was in fact a ruling, assuming the
Supreme Court Justices considered themselves strict
constructionists, which a majority does not. And therefore, you
would have to look at what sort of precedents there are.
So the bottom line is I agree with that philosophy and I
believe it is underneath much of what is happening particularly
at the border communities where people try to get one foot
across, try to deliver babies in the hospitals across the
border and then they move internally in the United States. And
if we cannot get control of that question, it puts pressure on
anything that we try to deal with.
A second thing is that there is incredible naivety about
how hard it is to seal the border. I have spent a big
percentage of my career working on border issues because it is
narcotics. It would take over 200,000 soldiers, and we still
could not seal the border. I am telling you, over 200,000,
maybe half a million. We do not have them, we do not have them
in the military. My Guard units are exhausted, my Reserve units
are exhausted. My regular military people from my home area are
doing second cycles. Terrorism around the world is not going to
go down. We do not have the troops to seal the border.
We cannot replace the Customs and Border Patrol agents.
When we increase the dollars for them, we cannot fill the
slots. The second they get an opportunity to go somewhere else,
they do not want to sit there on the southwest border, they
head out. It is a monumental dilemma that is going to take us
some time.
Now the question is we need both time and the will. Now a
fence is part of that, a fence is not the end all. They cut the
fence in San Diego, but at least it slows them down a little
bit. That virtual fence which is really the only thing
practical in the mountainous zones and in some of the open
areas--a virtual fence where you are doing monitors and so on.
They kick them out, they go over them, they figure out ways
around them, but we still need to do it because it slows it
down and gets some control.
We need aerostats in the air to be able to track, we need
more P-3s to be able to track, because they hop over with small
airplanes if you do not do otherwise. But we have to have some
sort of way to control immigration and the numbers who are
moving back and forth. The figure 700,000 was in the initial
testimony, but there is more than a million border crossings
because so many people go back and forth. If we cannot get that
back and forth worked through--right now, if you fly them to
Brownsville and send them across, the penalty if they come
right back across is nothing. In El Paso, it takes 17 times
detained until they hold you overnight. That was 3 years ago.
Now they are so overwhelmed with people heading to North
Carolina and Indiana and elsewhere, they do not detain them at
all unless they are an OTM, which is relatively new because of
the terrorism question, or they have another criminal record.
So what you are doing, at least at the start of this, is an
important step. And that is by getting a criminal record, we
are at least able to identify more of them as we get more
sophisticated on the border. But even logging who has been here
illegally in your system is going to give us a better
monitoring system as we aggressively improve controls on the
border, which we will do. The question from my perspective is
will we do it fast enough.
After we get the border relatively secure--I think it is an
interesting concept that you raised on deportation and a
deportation center. I think it is something that we should look
at as we are looking at these different bills to look at
whether this possibly would work as a center. Clearly our
process is flawed. I support Charlie Norwood's bill that says
State and locals ought to have the right to arrest illegals. My
only statement is, look, all that said, your local police
department could spend their full time arresting illegals and
they are going to be back here in 6 months, maybe 6 days, maybe
6 hours, depending on whether they get an airplane flight.
Until we spend incredible millions and millions of dollars on
computers, on monitoring things, we cannot get the border
sealed. And so interior enforcement, while we can start the
process, set up the process, get people trained, get the
language trained, get people deputized, get them through the
courses and that type of stuff, you cannot have interior
enforcement until you have a secure border.
And also until you get some sort of a--and this is the most
controversial part--work permit, some kind of thing to handle
the 12 million that are here, because not only will you not
have a secure border, you cannot find them, the estimates are
just incredible what that will take.
Bottom line is we agree to that, that we need to get the
border more secure and I believe you will see Congress move in
that direction, hopefully move aggressively in that direction.
But we will take at least baby steps.
Second, we need to look at creative ways to start setting
the infrastructure for managing those who are here illegally,
because they need to somehow get into our system because no
system is safe when you do not know who is here and how they
are moving around, whether it is terrorism or crime.
Third, and this is a more monumental question. You cannot
even figure out--the health questions on people coming in, the
screening, not making sure--how we deal with that. Partly the
courts have really made the health question complicated, and
the schooling question complicated and we need to try to plunge
into the health and schooling question. And what is the Federal
Government going to do to supplement the fact--even though I
said the Federal Government does not have money--what is the
Federal obligation to supplement the fact that we did not have
the border sealed for the last decade?
In the future, as the border gets sealed, as we get a
workable work permit, immigration strategy with larger numbers
of immigrants to reflect realistic modern labor shortages
rather than 20 years ago immigration numbers, as that changes,
then you are going to have obligations in how to deal with
people who are coming in. But for the people who are here,
clearly the Federal Government has some obligation.
One of the most important local things and things that need
to get set up--and I have asked this question a number of
times. I know in my area, they started to tackle this, and that
is as we move toward immigrant smugglers, the coyote networks,
this is something where the local law enforcement needs to help
us, because we are finding that it is much more fragmented than
we thought at the Federal level. Starting with, No. 1, have you
here taken down or searched or looked for who is making the
fake green cards and IDs? Have you had any cases, because
clearly people are manufacturing them in this area?
Mr. Keith. We have had some employees of DMV that have been
assisting people in getting driver's license. And from my
perspective, I think DMV in years past has assisted by their
completely slack attitude toward driver's licenses and now as
these cards are being renewed, they are allowing the item
number to be reused, which was used as a fake Social Security
number 4 years ago when they got their license, but to be used
again. I mean, DMV is certainly not on the law enforcement side
even yet.
Mr. Souder. So has North Carolina moved toward looking for
a Social Security number match?
Mr. Keith. Yes, but I mean, give me a name and I will bring
you back a Social Security card tomorrow with your name on it.
Mr. Souder. The question--and this is at the fundamental
core of how we are going to get to deportation and managing
work permits because the State and locals have to figure it
out. I have one company in Fort Wayne, IN that makes 37 States'
driver's licenses, and another company in Fort Wayne that does
5 more, so the odds are North Carolina is there, I do not know
for sure, but 42 of the 50 States. They said the security of
those licenses are dictated by the States. They come in and
make them as secure as you want.
We have some initial indicators that watermarks are going
to be the first step, to make sure that it is hard to
duplicate. A second thing is we are looking for biometric
indicators. They do Singapore as well, so they can do eye
scans, they can do multiple fingerprints. We have to do more
than one fingerprint, one fingerprint, they cut them off,
literally in the drug and crime world--multiple fingerprints.
This is a huge thing.
I was just over in Pakistan and Iraq and so on,
particularly Pakistan where terrorists are coming through, you
need multiple fingerprints on IDs.
But as we move through, the State agencies need to make
more secure license systems that the local banks and so on need
to be--how are we going to track drug money if people have fake
IDs with fake numbers and the banks will not cooperate on
making sure this goes. This is not just a Federal question, we
need the States doing that. And as we move, most identity theft
in America are people stealing my name with my number. One of
my wife's best friends went to get a new credit card and four
other people had stolen her number. Nobody was using her credit
card, they stole her Social Security number. The largest group
of radiologists in Fort Wayne, every single person has had
their Social Security number and they are fighting off roughly
once a month another group that has swapped and sold those
Social Security numbers.
Now at the Federal level, as we get a bank on the Social
Security numbers, what we need to know is then that the local
prosecutors, local officials are making strong laws to go after
and figure out who is duplicating inside North Carolina. It is
not something they are duplicating them over in Ohio and
bringing them to North Carolina. And I know in my home
district, three green card manufacturers were taken down in a
period of 60 days. This is something that needs to be
aggressively looked at and then tell us what mechanisms you do
not have in enforcing that and where the Federal Government can
help. But if the green card manufacturer, the stolen Social
Security--as we get our computer system up better, then the
question is how can we work better to identify and enforce
this. Because without the basic identity information being
correct, deportation is irrelevant, you cannot figure out
whether they are a citizen or not.
Mr. Keith. I hate to be negative, I am actually a very
positive person outside of here. I am aware of one drunk driver
through a friend of mine who is an alcohol counselor, and he
will not reveal his name, but he is an illegal immigrant. I do
not know his nationality, could be Polish or Scottish, he has
five different licenses under five different names and he has
five first offense drunk driving convictions.
I have my North Carolina license which has all this coded
stuff, biometrics on the back. DMV cannot read it. The only
place that you can get this read is at an ABC store, so if I go
in to get a fifth of liquor and I have Brandon's license with
my picture on it, they will know that I do not have brown hair
and I am not a female and I am not 5 feet, 6 inches. We cannot
do that. Our officers, we have those MTDs that Mr. Jordan
talked about in the card, but nobody in North Carolina can read
this card. We could use a national driver's license in this
bill to have all the biometrics put on there, that would really
help. But right now, it does not take much ID to get a driver's
license.
Mr. Souder. Well, it does not do us any good to require the
biometrics if nobody can read it. So is there any proposal at
the State or local to be able to get the equipment so it can be
read?
Mr. Keith. Funding again would be that issue.
Mr. Souder. Representative Folwell.
Mr. Folwell. District Attorney Keith did used to have brown
hair, I just wanted to say that, before he started dealing with
these problems. [Laughter.]
Two things. And I am a freshman member of the legislature,
very glad to be there, it is a great place to serve. I think
the DMV is taking steps on the driver's license issue. It seems
that by a recent newspaper report, that the number of illegal
immigrants applying for North Carolina driver's license has
dropped dramatically. We literally, in our two driver's license
locations in Forsyth County, used to have tent cities set up,
literally, on Monday mornings. People would come down, camp
out, out-of-State license plates on their cars, and they were
running them through. One reason is that we were accepting 999-
99-9999 as a Social Security number for people to get driver's
license.
Second, to go back to a point you made about an hour and a
half ago about can you pierce through and put someone in jail
who knowingly provided bond for someone who was going to jump
bail. We have actually, or I have actually been working with
the Insurance Commissioner in North Carolina, not about
driver's license, but about uninsured motorists where there may
be some legislation introduced that has the same spirit of what
you talked about a couple of hours ago, that would allow us to
pierce through the veil of people who were selling fake DL-
123s, which is your notification that you have basic liability
insurance on your car. If you sell somebody a fake DL-123 and
they go out and become involved in an accident which cost
victims of this State $83 million last year by the way and we
have one of the lowest uninsured motorist pools in the United
States, but legislation that would allow us to go back to the
person who sold that driver the DL-123, and pierce through and
actually garnish their assets also.
I wanted to also add, and I normally do not comment on
things I do not know a lot about, or at least try to. But it is
my understanding, for example----
Mr. Souder. That is just because you are a freshman.
Mr. Folwell. OK. [Laughter.]
And in case it does not get said here in the next few
minutes, I just want to say how confident I am in your depth of
knowledge about these issues. It really makes me more
optimistic that folks like you would come down here and conduct
a meeting like this. Of all the meetings I have ever been in,
it is one of the most productive I have ever sat through, so I
want to thank you for that in case it does not get said.
But one thing I would like for you to look into is how it
relates--it is my understanding that you can set up certain
kinds of financial institutions that are federally chartered
where you do not have to provide a Social Security number to
open an account and the IRS does not have--for lack of a better
word, Mr. Chairman--surveillance rights or powers into these
financial banks or credit unions. That is something else that I
think is going on in this State, that there are certain
financial institutions that can be set up where you do not have
to submit a Social Security number, where you can deposit money
and the IRS has no broad powers to see who the depositors are
or anything. So that is another part of this Social Security
number equation.
Mr. Souder. Well, thank you, we will look into--if there
are any criminals present or hear or see that comment, they
should know we sometimes have bigger eyes than they think. At
the same time, there are those kind of chartered institutions
that are harder to do without a tip, because they do not fall
under normal regulations. And finances we are trying to close,
Internet stuff we are trying to close, trying to get better
tracking.
And one of the things in the Department of Homeland
Security--and we will follow this up with ICE, if you all have
any additional input into this--in the narcotics area, we at
the Federal Government have--and we are trying to set up and
have started to set up in Homeland Security a similar thing
like CTAC--is that what the program is, I believe--whether it
is night vision goggles or different things for drug tracking.
In Homeland Security, we are trying to set up a similar thing
for local law enforcement. And I am convinced that identity is
one of the critical things because everything else falls down
if your identity problem falls down. And it may be that one of
the things we need to get into Homeland Security is better
readers. It does not do us any good to get the information if
nobody can read the information or use the information. I think
we are moving toward national standards. I think that some
conservatives, including myself, who are concerned about the
Book of Revelation do not want 666 to be on their forehead
necessarily, but at the same time, we are moving toward some
sort of a national ID and consistency in ID and you can see how
without some of that type of thing, how crooks work. And I
think we are moving in that direction, but we have to be able
to read it and then--I am going to make this comment last and
see if Congresswoman Foxx has any closing comments--that in the
challenge here, that in addition to being able to read and do
the ID questions, that the groups that are running the
immigrants and providing for that usually have a local base,
and we will start at the Federal level and work down, but just
like narcotics, it is the local level working up.
They are coming across in groups, they are getting in a
van, they are going on the interstate, bringing the vans up.
Who is leasing them the vans? Who are the companies that are--
is it a Budget rental type thing or do they have separate front
groups that are doing the vans? Who is shopping these flyers
down there saying there is a work site? Do we need enhanced
penalties for the people who are running the numbers as opposed
to just looking at each individual and say look, this is a big
business. You cannot have--the numbers are increasing in North
Carolina, looking at this like another type of illegal
distribution network, what are the networks that are providing
the transportation? What are the networks that are providing
the job information? Who, when they come in, gives them the
Social Security number and the green card? Should the coyotes,
which we have in our legislation that was defeated, the coyotes
are the people who do the running. We never had--in San Diego,
the biggest border crossing, it would take then 12 months to
get to trial and if they convicted the person, they had 6
months suspension. So nobody was trying the coyotes. Clearly
that is a law enforcement question. The question is in this
State, first like we do in narcotics and like we talked about
with gangs, you take out the leaders. And if we can get some of
the leaders, then we can start to address the bigger question
of what we are going to do with all the huge numbers of
immigrants we are trying to deal with. But unless we have a
structure--it is in effect walking into people's homes and
picking them up for smoking pot as opposed to trying to get to
the networks that are moving the whole thing.
I just wanted to raise that point because that is clearly
going to require, at the grassroots level, just like narcotics
does, if the street cop does not pick them up, us having a
Federal approach to it will not work.
Congresswoman Foxx, do you have any closing comments or
questions?
Ms. Foxx. Well, I appreciate you talking about the
possibility of our looking at a deportation center. I think
that is a great idea and that we should look at that. I think
looking at whether we need to put into Federal statutes the
need to fingerprint everyone, I think that comment that
District Attorney Keith brought up, and what to do about
enhancing penalties for gang members, I think those are issues
that we can look at and see if we have legislation that is out
there that we could put those elements in, or if we can put in
new legislation that would deal with that.
But I want to thank the chairman for agreeing to come to
bring this hearing here to Forsyth County to the 5th District.
It has been very revealing to me. I have learned a lot today, I
think he has. I hope that most of the people here have learned
a lot. I hope that we will get some good coverage out of it so
that the people who are not here today, but who will be
listening and hearing about what happened will learn and that
we can do more of this to again educate the public as to the
ramifications of what we are talking about. I frankly think the
general public in this district is very well aware of the
problems. Our challenge is how do we get other people to
understand those problems, and particularly those people who
serve in the Senate, to understand that we have a need to do
something about the problem that we are facing.
But I thank all of you for coming today, and again I
especially thank the chairman. I hope that he will come back
again and visit. I know that he is a history buff and would
want to spend some time at Old Salem and we will have him learn
some more about the wonderful people who settled this area and
spend some more time in the 5th District.
I know how busy you are because I know how busy I am and so
I am grateful to you for making the effort to be here and for
the staff too and look forward to continuing to work with you
on these issues.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much for having me here and
hosting our hearing today. Thank you all for your testimony. As
my friend, Congressman Shadegg says, ``History may not repeat
itself, but often it rhymes.'' And that is what we look for is
that there are different variations in different States but we
are looking for the rhyming pattern, so at the Federal
Government we can do the rhyming part and leave the local and
State to figure out how their area is unique, and working
together I think we can make progress on these difficult
issues. I, like the State's attorney, am a generally optimistic
person until I sit through these hearings and then whether it
is child abuse or how we are going to pay for Social Security
or terrorism in the world, you kind of get down like this and
you go out in the real world and get balanced, because this is
still the greatest country in the world. That is why everybody
wants to come here. And we just need to make sure it stays
great and we keep our identity. And part of the way you do that
is through the hard work of each of you. I hope you will thank
each of your departments. I know every police department, every
attorney's office, everybody who works in the jail, probation
officers, who are overwhelmed in most cities, are all
overwhelmed and those who serve in public service, we thank you
all on behalf of the U.S. Government for all your work here in
North Carolina.
With that, the subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:55 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Additional information submitted for the hearing record
follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 30529.052
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