<DOC>
[108th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:90205.wais]
THE IMPACT OF THE DRUG TRADE ON BORDER SECURITY
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 15, 2003
__________
Serial No. 108-70
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
90-205 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2003
_____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 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
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia Maryland
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania Columbia
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio JIM COOPER, Tennessee
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas CHRIS BELL, Texas
WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota ------
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
(Independent)
Peter Sirh, Staff Director
Melissa Wojciak, Deputy Staff Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Philip M. Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JOHN L. MICA, Florida WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
DOUG OSE, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia Maryland
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee Columbia
CHRIS BELL, Texas
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Christopher Donesa, Staff Director
Nick Coleman, Professional Staff Member and Counsel
Nicole Garrett, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on April 15, 2003................................... 1
Statement of:
Beeson, Paul A., Assistant Chief Patrol Agent, El Paso
Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, Bureau of Customs and Border
Protection; Frank Deckert, Superintendent, Big Bend
National Park, National Park Service; Sandalio Gonzalez,
Special Agent in Charge, El Paso Division Office, Drug
Enforcement Administration; and David Longoria, Interim
Port Director, El Paso Port of Entry, Bureau of Customs and
Border Protection.......................................... 7
Cook, Bob, president, Greater El Paso Chamber of Commerce;
Ruben Garcia, truancy prevention specialist, Ysleta
Independent School District; and Jose Luis Soria, clinical
deputy director, Aliviane Drug Treatment Center............ 89
Leon, Carlos, chief, El Paso Police Department; and Leo
Samaniego, sheriff, El Paso County Sheriff's Department.... 67
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Beeson, Paul A., Assistant Chief Patrol Agent, El Paso
Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, Bureau of Customs and Border
Protection, prepared statement of.......................... 9
Cook, Bob, president, Greater El Paso Chamber of Commerce,
prepared statement of...................................... 92
Deckert, Frank, Superintendent, Big Bend National Park,
National Park Service, prepared statement of............... 19
Garcia, Ruben, truancy prevention specialist, Ysleta
Independent School District, prepared statement of......... 98
Gonzalez, Sandalio, Special Agent in Charge, El Paso Division
Office, Drug Enforcement Administration, prepared statement
of......................................................... 30
Leon, Carlos, chief, El Paso Police Department, prepared
statement of............................................... 69
Longoria, David, Interim Port Director, El Paso Port of
Entry, Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, prepared
statement of............................................... 42
Samaniego, Leo, sheriff, El Paso County Sheriff's Department,
prepared statement of...................................... 73
Soria, Jose Luis, clinical deputy director, Aliviane Drug
Treatment Center, prepared statement of.................... 104
THE IMPACT OF THE DRUG TRADE ON BORDER SECURITY
----------
TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 2003
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and
Human Resources,
Committee on Government Reform,
El Paso, TX.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m., at
Chamizal National Memorial, El Paso, TX, Hon. Mark Souder
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Souder, Deal and Reyes.
Staff present: Nick Coleman, professional staff member and
counsel; and Nicole Garrett, clerk.
Mr. Souder. Good morning, and thank you all for coming.
Today, our subcommittee returns to continue its exploration
of the status of security and law enforcement along the
southern Texas and New Mexico border. Since the summer of 2001,
this subcommittee has been making a comprehensive study of our
Nation's borders, including a field hearing last month in
Sells, AZ. The subcommittee has focused particular attention on
the effectiveness of the Federal law enforcement agencies
entrusted with protecting and administering our Nation's
borders and ports of entry. Last summer, the subcommittee
released a comprehensive report on these issues, but our study
continues.
I was asking whether we had a copy of the report here. It
is a most comprehensive study and you can get it on our Web
site or you can contact our office. It is about 100 pages, we
took everything and put it together in a comprehensive study of
the north and south borders. And in fact, the new Homeland
Security Committee that I am on, on Subcommittee on Borders, is
using that as a premise for all the Members. Congressman Camp,
the chairman, has given it to all the Members and asked them to
read it before we start our hearing process.
Today's hearing is intended to focus on the problem of
illegal drug smuggling along the southern border, and the
related crime and damage caused by that smuggling. The southern
border still sees far more illegal activity than the northern
border and it presents severe challenges for effective law
enforcement. The southern border runs through deserts,
mountains and rivers, through unpopulated areas as well as
cities and suburbs, through National Parks, wildlife refuges,
Native American reservations, and even military bases.
Questions of overlapping law enforcement agency jurisdiction
can come into play, and we intend to address those issues
today.
The El Paso area has been the site of some of the worst
drug smuggling activity in the country for decades and the
problem is not going away. Drug seizures here rose
significantly from fiscal year 2001-2002, even as they fell in
other parts of the country. In nearby Hudspeth County, the
sheriff's department reports that smugglers are so inventive
that they are even using horses to evade local deputies and
patrols. Drug smugglers have been operating in the nearby Big
Bend National Park for years, and that park was named the
second most dangerous park in America in 2002, second only to
Arizona's Organ Pipe National Monument, where we were just last
month. And in October of last year, the U.S. Border Patrol
agent Valerie Jaramillo was shot in the leg by marijuana
smugglers about 70 miles east of El Paso. The narcotics
themselves also take their toll on the lives of local residents
through drug abuse, in the form of lost life and potential.
These facts illustrate the serious challenges facing law
enforcement and local citizens along the southern Texas and New
Mexico borders. Drug smuggling and related crime have taken a
toll on the environment and the quality of life for local
residents, besides presenting a threat to the entire Nation.
These issues are all very important and extremely urgent,
and we look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about
the ways to address them.
I first want to thank Congressman Silvestre Reyes for
joining us today and for the assistance that he and his staff
provided to our subcommittee in setting up this hearing. We
have worked together before on this issue, the only other time
I have been in El Paso. He has been a leader in Congress on
this issue.
We also welcome the representatives of the Federal agencies
primarily responsible for dealing with drug smuggling in this
region; namely, the Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of
Customs and Border Protection and the Drug Enforcement
Administration. The subcommittee is vitally interested in
ensuring the effective functioning of these agencies and we
will continue to work with them and their staff to ensure the
continued security and effective administration of our Nation's
borders and its protection from narcotics.
Congressman Deal, the vice chairman of this committee, and
I yesterday flew in--he flew in, I drove down from San
Antonio--to Laredo. We spent many wee hours of the morning on
Sunday night, Monday morning with the Port Authority there,
with the different officials and at the border. Then yesterday
went from Laredo down through Falcon Lake, Zapata, went up in a
helicopter down on the river with the Border Patrol, went to
numerous crossings looking at the challenges on the south
border.
And as I mentioned earlier, I am also on the Homeland
Security Subcommittee and we will be doing a number of joint
hearings with that subcommittee and Homeland Security. And part
of our mission, in addition to oversight of the Justice
Department and all narcotics issues and related issues, is to
make sure that in the new department, because Customs, Border
Patrol, INS, Coast Guard have been much, along with DEA, of our
fight against narcotics. And we cannot lose that as we are
working through the terrorist issues. That is why we have a
staff person, Roger Mackin, over at Homeland Security, to try
to coordinate these things and hopefully we can be more
efficient. I know there is a lot of concern not only within the
agencies but within Congress, that the other missions of these
agencies are not lost as we also focus on Homeland Security.
Today, we welcome Mr. Paul Beeson, Assistant Chief Patrol
Agent of the U.S. Border Patrol's El Paso Sector; Mr. David
Longoria, Port Director of the El Paso Port of Entry; Mr.
Sandalio Gonzalez, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug
Enforcement Administration's El Paso Division Office.
As this subcommittee is also concerned with the problem of
drug smuggling at our Nation's parks and wildlife refuges, we
are also pleased to be joined by Mr. Frank Deckert,
Superintendent of Big Bend National Park, representing the
National Park Service. I am also a member of the House
Resources Committee, and the Parks Subcommittee and Fish and
Wildlife Subcommittee, so I have had many opportunities to
visit our national parks and wildlife refuges and to meet with
the Interior Department personnel who manage them. We hope at
this hearing to focus special attention on the law enforcement
issues faced by your agency, so we thank you again for your
participation.
When examining border policies, we must also seek the input
of representatives of the local community whose lives are
directly affected by changes at the border. Representing the
local law enforcement agencies entrusted with protecting local
citizens from drug smugglers and other criminals, we are also
pleased today to be joined by Chief Carlos Leon of the El Paso
Police Department; Sheriff Leo Samaniego of the El Paso County
Sheriff's Department. We are also joined by several witnesses
who can testify to the impact that drug smuggling has on
schools, neighborhoods and local businesses: Mr. Bob Cook,
president of the Greater El Paso Chamber of Commerce, I am sure
will also point out the importance of the commerce and the
tradeoffs that we have to make on security and trade to make
sure our economy keeps working as well. Mr. Ruben Garcia,
truancy prevention specialist at the Ysleta Independent School
District; and Mr. Jose Luis Soria, clinical deputy director at
Aliviane Drug Treatment Center.
We thank everyone for taking time this morning to join with
us for this important hearing.
According to subcommittee rules, I will yield next to the
vice chairman of the committee, before going to our guest, who
we are going to have participate in our hearing today,
Congressman Reyes, our host Congressman.
Mr. Deal.
Mr. Deal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, good morning.
Thank you all for being here, and more importantly, thank
you for what you do every day working on the border trying to
continue our efforts to protect our homeland and to deal with
the apparently never-ending problem of the drug war.
Representing a non-border State, some people are surprised
to learn that what you do here on the Texas/Mexico border has a
lot to do with what impacts my Congressional District in
northern Georgia. The former Immigration & Naturalization
Service's most current estimates show that Georgia has about
228,000 illegal immigrants, ranking my State as the seventh
largest in illegal immigration population in the United States.
As those numbers would imply, illegal immigration poses
significant problems in my District, one of those inherent
problems being illegal drug trafficking and the general drug
trade.
A report released by the U.S. Department of Justice in
January of this year, cites Atlanta, GA, which is just south of
my District, as a regional drug transportation hub and
distribution center of drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and
methamphetamines, all of which are said to come primarily from
Mexico.
As you all know, one of the problems that drug trade brings
with it is that of gang activity. Mexican gangs are said to be
the primary transporters and wholesalers of drugs in Georgia.
The DEA and the Internal Revenue Service estimate that criminal
groups transfer, primarily to Mexico and Colombia,
approximately $2 million per week from money coming from
business there in Georgia.
What is even more troubling is that in my District, we have
recently seen a significant increase in the number of murders
committed, most of which have been directly linked to Hispanic
gang activity and of course, directly related to drug activity.
I want to reiterate the fact that the problems associated
with illegal immigration and drug trafficking stretch far
beyond the border right here. They stretch to States, cities
and counties all across our country. You all have an important
job with huge risks and obstacles that you face every day. I
commend you for accepting the challenge of securing our
borders. I want to thank you again for what you are doing.
However, we all know that we can do more. I look forward to
hearing from each of you as to what we, as Members of Congress,
can do to make your jobs more efficient and to make our country
safer and a more secure place to live.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. First, to do one procedural thing. I
ask unanimous consent that all Members present be permitted to
participate in the hearing. Hearing no objection, it is so
ordered.
I would now like to recognize Mr. Reyes, a distinguished
Member and Representative in Congress from this area, a long-
time leader on these issues.
Mr. Reyes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Souder and
Vice Chairman Deal, welcome to El Paso, and in particular,
welcome to one of the jewels that we are very proud of here,
the Chamizal Park, which was created as a way of settling a
boundary dispute that existed for many years with Mexico. And
it was set up as a venue to have our citizens enjoy the kind of
relationship that we have enjoyed with Mexico for over 70
years. So welcome to this very historic place.
And I want to in particular thank Superintendent Isabel
Montez, who runs this national park here, for allowing us to be
here and hosting us in this very beautiful facility.
I am honored to be part of this hearing today, Mr.
Chairman. As you and the vice chairman know, I have dedicated a
large portion of my adult career to the issues that you will be
covering here this morning, because for 26\1/2\ years, I was a
Federal law enforcement agent with the Border Patrol and with
the Immigration & Naturalization Service, including 12 of those
as a chief, first down in south Texas where I know you have
just recently visited. I was Chief of the McAllen Sector. And
subsequent to that was reassigned to El Paso and actually
retired as the Chief here in El Paso in charge of west Texas
and southern New Mexico--or all of New Mexico technically, but
primarily focused on the border regions in New Mexico. And
retired to run for Congress.
I know we share a lot of common interests and when you were
considering doing the border field hearings, I very much
appreciated that you decided to come to El Paso. We think we
have both a good news story here, as well as a typical area
where we face many challenges. And knowing of both your
interest in homeland defense, I know that the testimony you are
going to hear today is going to, I hope, add to the information
and certainly the amount of evidence that is pretty compelling,
that when you pay attention to border communities and when we
focus on the front lines of the war--and today, we are not just
talking about the war on drugs, we are talking about an area
that is susceptible to not just narcotics, but gun runners,
certainly terrorists.
I can tell you during the first Gulf war, being the Chief
in McAllen Sector, we turned over about 16 suspected terrorists
to the FBI. So that kind of work is going on now. I know a lot
of the agencies cannot get into that because of its classified
nature, but I can assure you that protecting America's borders,
especially, the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, is a critical
and vital part of--or should be a vital part of strategy for
homeland defense. As you know, Mr. Chairman, we have been
working with Secretary Ridge and members of his agency to make
sure that there is a full and comprehensive strategy in place.
Since you drove here from San Antonio, you know how
distance is really significant in Texas and along the U.S./
Mexico border. And you know the diversity that our various
agencies have to cover, you know the immense challenge that
they have to address. So doing these kinds of field hearings is
a critical and important part, not just of the learning
process, but of the understanding of the magnitude of the
challenge that is faced by a lot of my former colleagues that I
actually worked with before going to Congress.
Today, I know you are going to be briefed, both by JTF-6,
Joint Task Force 6. I was with General Yengling yesterday at
the funeral of one of our young men that we lost from the 507th
and he mentioned to me that he was looking forward to briefing
both of you and also the El Paso Intelligence Center, both I
think critical and vital components in our strategy in homeland
defense.
So, thank you for coming to El Paso, I hope your stay is an
enjoyable one. Regrettably we are going to have a little bit of
wind today, it is not the kind of--and Bob Cook will verify, I
see him back there--that most of the time we really truly have
Chamber of Commerce weather here. When we were dealing with
what I think was a brutal winter this year, the weather here
was fine and the biggest problem was not being able to be here
because of our schedule over there.
But I hope you enjoy El Paso, I know you have been here
before, and I hope you come back again and, of course, my
colleague, I actually lived 2 years in Georgia, in Brunswick, I
was part of the group that set up the Border Patrol and INS
Academy in 1977 and 1978, when we moved the Academy to the
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. So I enjoyed my time
in Georgia, so I hope you enjoy your time in Texas and in
particular out here in El Paso.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, let me again thank you for
doing this and I offer my assistance, both for this committee
and certainly for homeland defense, which I have been--I tried
hard to get on that, but you know, there are politics involved
in some of this stuff and so--[laughter]--on my side of the
aisle, I came up short. But I have a tremendous interest and I
have offered to both the chairman and certainly our ranking
member, that I am available to assist in whatever capacity, and
I make the same offer to you both as part of the Homeland
Defense Committee and certainly in your capacity here.
And if there is no objection, I would like to submit a
written statement for the record.
Mr. Souder. Yes.
Mr. Reyes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. As Congressman Reyes noted, I will be meeting
with a number of people here, actually we are spending 2 days
because we are also meeting with the Southwest Border HIDTA and
the local HIDTA. We are redoing the reauthorization as well
through our committee and expect the markup to move through in
the next couple of weeks. So we have been doing that. Although
the focus today in the hearing is on the border, we are doing
other things while we are here as well.
Before proceeding, I would also like to take care of
another procedural matter. First, I ask unanimous consent that
all Members have 5 legislative days to submit written
statements and questions for the hearing record, that any
answers to written questions provided by the witnesses also be
included in the record. Without objection, it is so ordered.
It is a longstanding congressional protocol that government
witnesses representing the administration testify first. So our
first panel consists of those witnesses. Would each of you on
the first panel rise and raise your right hands because as an
oversight committee, it is our standard practice, because we do
Federal executive branch oversight, to have all witnesses sworn
in. So far we have actually gone after two since I have been
for perjury. So do not worry too much, but it is best if, when
taking the oath, you are completely accurate in your responses.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that each of the witnesses
responded in the affirmative.
The witnesses will now be recognized for opening
statements. We will ask each of you to summarize your testimony
in 5 minutes. Your full statement will be inserted in the
record, in addition to any other comments you would like.
We will first recognize Mr. Beeson on behalf of the U.S.
Border Patrol.
STATEMENTS OF PAUL A. BEESON, ASSISTANT CHIEF PATROL AGENT, EL
PASO SECTOR, U.S. BORDER PATROL, BUREAU OF CUSTOMS AND BORDER
PROTECTION; FRANK DECKERT, SUPERINTENDENT, BIG BEND NATIONAL
PARK, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE; SANDALIO GONZALEZ, SPECIAL AGENT
IN CHARGE, EL PASO DIVISION OFFICE, DRUG ENFORCEMENT
ADMINISTRATION; AND DAVID LONGORIA, INTERIM PORT DIRECTOR, EL
PASO PORT OF ENTRY, BUREAU OF CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION
Mr. Beeson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, distinguished
committee members, I am pleased to have the opportunity to
appear before you today to discuss the El Paso Border Patrol
Sector's operations and law enforcement initiatives to secure
the U.S. border in west Texas and New Mexico. My name is Paul
Beeson and I am an Assistant Chief for the Border Patrol in El
Paso, which, as you now, is part of the newly formed Bureau of
Customs and Border Protection within the Department of Homeland
Security.
I would like to begin by thanking you and your colleagues
for this opportunity to speak with you today, and more
importantly for the support and resources you have provided to
the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection. Those resources
are extremely important to the Bureau and to the Border Patrol
as we continue to apply them toward securing our Nation's
borders. The challenges to securing our borders and protecting
the homeland are many. The importance of the support, funding
and resources you have provided to meet this challenge cannot
be overstated.
The El Paso Sector is responsible for securing 289 miles of
our border with Mexico. To do that, we have four Border Patrol
stations in the two westernmost counties of Texas and eight
stations in the State of New Mexico. This sector's area of
operations is divided into three main corridors: The Fabens
Corridor, the El Paso Corridor and the Deming Corridor.
The El Paso area is a major hub for the smuggling of
people, narcotics and other contraband. There is a tremendous
amount of infrastructure, both within El Paso and to the south
of us in Ciudad Juarez, in terms of ease of transportation,
availability of hotels and routes of transportation that can be
readily used in furtherance of illicit activity. The ability to
use legitimate trade routes, transportation and business for
illegal activity, contributes to the busy activity of the
Border Patrol in El Paso.
The El Paso Sector maintains a large amount of operational
diversity as we continue to enforce our Nation's laws, and all
of these operations are aimed the increasing deterrence and
securing the border. Operation Hold the Line continues to be
the mainstay of our operations in the El Paso Corridor, which
is comprised of the Ysleta, El Paso and Santa Teresa Stations.
The control we have achieved in this corridor has been through
a combination of forward deployment and secondary operations.
Both the Fabens and Deming Corridors continue to present
enforcement challenges. We have noticed that as we achieve
successes in other locations, the Fabens and Deming Corridors
are experiencing increases in activity that represent a shift
in traffic from more secure portions of the border.
We continue to employ every available means at our disposal
to combat the illegal activity that occurs in this area. There
are six permanent traffic checkpoints strategically located
throughout this sector, the purpose of which is to detect and
interdict illegal immigrants and narcotics. As a result of
these checkpoint operations, we frequently encounter violations
of other laws as well. Traffic checkpoint operations have been
responsible for a number of apprehended persons wanted in other
jurisdictions for narcotics violations and other crimes,
including murder.
In summary, traffic checkpoints provide an additional
defense to deter and detect immigration violators, narcotic
smugglers and possible terrorists.
This sector is fortunate enough to have deployed several
advances in technology that greatly assist the agents in
performing their mission. One such technological advance is the
Remote Video Surveillance System, which as been strategically
employed within the El Paso, Ysleta and Deming areas of
operation. While the number of sites is small, when compared
with the need, these remotely controlled surveillance cameras
provide tremendous enhancement to our agents' ability to patrol
and control an area. There are a total of 29 sites located
within the aforementioned areas. These cameras provide coverage
of 42 miles over the 289 miles of this sector. Expanded
deployment of this system is vital to this sector's ability to
enhance and maintain control of our piece of the border.
The sector is actively engaged with officials from the
Government of Mexico in addressing the problems of safety along
the border. The El Paso Sector staffs a Mexican Liaison Unit
that is in daily communication with law enforcement, military
and other government officials from Mexico that work along our
common border.
Through the Mexican Liaison, we have been able to improve
and coordinate communication with Mexican law enforcement
officials.
Our liaison efforts also include numerous law enforcement
agencies here in the United States. The Border Patrol
participates in the Federal Bureau of Investigation Joint
Terrorism Task Force and other task forces within the Drug
Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Marshal's Service, to
name a few. Our coordination in these arenas has been
invaluable to the overall success of these task forces.
In discussing the challenges of the El Paso Sector, I would
be remiss if I did not mention the tremendous individual
efforts of the men and women who patrol our border every day
and make the largest contribution to the successes experienced
in El Paso.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much. And now I would like to
recognize Mr. Frank Deckert, the Superintendent of the Big Bend
National Park.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Beeson follows:]
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Mr. Deckert. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to
present the efforts being made by the National Park Service to
protect visitors and resources in national parks and mitigate
the impact of illegal drug trafficking in Big Bend National
Park. With me today are my colleagues, Isabel Montez,
Superintendent of Chamizal National Memorial; Jacques
Whitworth, Superintendent of Padre Island National Seashore;
Bruce Malloy, Chief Ranger of Amistad National Recreation Area
and Mark Speir, Chief Ranger of Big Bend National Park. If you
have any questions about any of the other park areas in Texas,
they would be happy to answer them.
Protecting national parks along the Mexican border is no
longer about simply protecting landscapes, plants and animals.
At stake is the safety of our citizens and the agency's own
employees, as well as the preservation of some of our Nation's
unique natural and cultural features.
Seven units of the National Park System share approximately
365 miles of border with Mexico and 72 miles of seashore, and
are directly impacted by increased illegal border activity. Big
Bend National Park alone, shares 245 miles of border with
Mexico, nearly 13 percent of the entire U.S./Mexico border.
These seven areas hosted more than 3.8 million visitors in
2002.
Great attention has been focused on one national park unit
and the death of a ranger there, where threats and illegal
activities originating outside the United States grow in
numbers. The problems at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
are emblematic of how increased enforcement at urban crossings
on the part of the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, now part of
the Department of Homeland Security, has pushed more crime onto
adjacent public land.
Here in Texas, similar problems are just beginning, but are
multiplying exponentially. In Big Bend National Park, more than
6,000 pounds of marijuana were seized within the park in
January 2003, more than all the total seizures in 2002. Aware
of the huge impacts on parklands in Arizona, we are presented
with the opportunity to be proactive here in Texas. However, if
we fail to act quickly and decisively, the opportunity to
prevent similar impacts will be lost.
The NPS in Texas actively participates in three High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Area [HIDTA] partnerships. HIDTA
facilitates coordination of equipment and information between
Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies to address
illegal drug activity. As a funded participant in west Texas
HIDTA, Big Bend National Park implemented a narcotic detection
canine program, placing a trained ranger/handler and a drug
interdiction dog directly on the border. Both Amistad National
Recreation Area and Padre Island National Seashore are unfunded
participants in other HIDTA partnerships providing cooperative
support to interdiction efforts in those parks.
The NPS and agencies in the Department of Homeland Security
work together on a daily basis at Big Bend National Park to
share intelligence, to provide mutual support and to
investigate reports of undocumented aliens and smuggling
activity. Two Border Protection agents are currently stationed
at and reside in the park.
The NPS has responded to the threats along the Mexican
border in Texas by significantly increasing the number of law
enforcement rangers at border parks. The fiscal year 2004
Intermountain Region border park law enforcement priorities
reflect an additional 14 ranger positions. Big Bend National
Park has 11 protection rangers and will add 3 more, using the
$300,000 in base funding increase in fiscal year 2003. The
region committed $35,000 for training for special event and
incident management teams in fiscal year 2003. NPS and partner
agencies provide advanced law enforcement training and tactical
tracking, use of electronic surveillance equipment and other
topics.
Due to the escalating threats facing park rangers, NPS
intends to make a 2-week course in special operations tactics a
standard for all rangers assigned to border parks in Arizona
and Texas. NPS is implementing a field training evaluation
program that will provide each new ranger recruit with 12 weeks
of field training with emphasis on improving officer safety.
In May 2002, the Department's Bureau of Customs & Border
Protection closed the unofficial Big Bend National Park border
crossings, historically used at the Mexican villages of
Boquillas, Santa Elena and San Vicente. Park managers are
working with the Department's Bureau of Customs Inspections
branch to explore the possibility of establishing some type of
official crossing at one or two of these points. The NPS would
support the restoration of these primitive crossing so that our
neighbors in the Mexican villages will once again enjoy the
benefits of tourist income. We believe that one of our best
protections against terrorists entering the United States at
these points is a friendly local population whose quality of
life depends more on tourism than on illegal activities. In the
interim, however, rangers are supporting the closure of the
border at all crossings.
The NPS has been proactive in identifying and solving
problems related to border law enforcement issues. However,
park staffs in the field seem to be dealing with new challenges
on a daily basis. They would like to be reassured that if
further help is needed, they could count on support from the
American people through their elected representatives. In the
meantime, we will continue to identify problems and seek
creative solutions that involve neighbors and partners on both
sides of the border. We believe this approach will help to
protect our parks, our visitors, our staffs and our country.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement and I would be
happy to answer any questions you or other members of the
committee may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Deckert follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Our next witness is Sandy Gonzalez. I was in
the Indian region where I have been far too many times, I think
nine times now, because you cannot look at cocaine and heroin
and even much of the marijuana that comes across here or
anywhere else without trying to get into the Indian region. But
I believe it was one of the trips, which was an historic trip
for my district, because I believe Gary Wade was with us as
well from Washington Headquarters, and as we were going down
the Amazon Basin toward a major junction, there is a little
town--I am from Indiana--there is a little town there called
Indiana. And Gary said to me, do you know the difference
between--he said isn't this Indiana a lot different than yours.
I said yes, there are DEA agents and there are none in my
hometown. I have been battling for 10 years to get some. He
said done, you have a DEA office. And because we now have a DEA
office, we have been able to, rather than just do local
enforcement, to be able to take some of those to the Federal
level. And when we were at Laredo the other day, as well as
this crossing, what we are increasingly finding is the ability
to just not nab guys at the local level, but they wound up with
a major ring that was coming up through Mexico, through Laredo,
through Texas, up into Fort Wayne and then launching toward
Detroit, Chicago from there.
So we see this interconnectedness and it is good to see
Sandy again here in Texas. So I look forward to your testimony.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, good morning. Vice
Chairman Deal, Representative Reyes, I am pleased to appear
before you today to discuss the role of the DEA regarding the
impact of the drug trade along the west Texas and New Mexico
area of the southwest border. I want to thank the subcommittee
for your support of the DEA.
Today, I will describe the trafficking challenges faced by
DEA in the west Texas and New Mexico region.
The El Paso Division's area of responsibility covers
approximately 40 percent of the U.S./Mexico border. El Paso and
its sister city, Ciudad Juarez, comprise the largest
metropolitan area on the border between the United States and
Mexico, with nearly or perhaps over 2 million inhabitants.
Daily, over 100 people cross the port of entry into El Paso.
Cocaine smuggling remains our most serious threat, with
prices ranging from $15,000 to $16,500 per kilogram. Marijuana
runs between $400 and $500 per kilogram and is the most
frequently and largest volume drug seized and transported
through this area. Uninhabited land in New Mexico provides
excellent locations for marijuana plantations and mountains and
rural areas in northern New Mexico offer opportunities for
small methamphetamine laboratories. Heroin use has been very
high in Santa Fe and Rio Arriba County in north central New
Mexico.
The border is continually under attack by Mexican drug
trafficking organizations that operate both in Mexico and the
United States. Three major Mexican drug organizations are
responsible for smuggling the majority of the illegal drugs
across the west Texas and New Mexico portion of the southwest
border. These groups utilize the El Paso ports of entry as
their primary conduit into the United States.
Before the World Trade Center disaster in September 2001,
an estimated 90 percent of the illegal drugs coming to the
United States were smuggled through the international ports of
entry. Since that time, tighter security measures have caused
smugglers to use less conspicuous points of entry.
DEA investigations indicate that illegal drugs being
transshipped from Mexico through this area are usually destined
for Kansas City, Chicago, Atlanta and/or New York. Traffickers
use concealed compartments in tractor trailers, trucks, vans
and cars. They also use commercial trains, aircraft, Federal
Express and Airborne courier services to smuggle drugs into and
through our region.
In more remote areas such as the Big Bend National Park,
drugs are moved across the Rio Grande in small boats, vehicles
that can drive across the river when it is low, or even by
horseback. The Mexican Government is building a four-lane La
Entrada al Pacifico highway, which I brought a map of that area
and it is right over there to my right. This highway will
intersect three major east-west interstates. The completed
route will save up to 4 shipping days for goods moving through
the Pacific Rim countries and Texas.
Use of the passenger rail system to move contraband is also
significant. Many substantial seizures have been made from
passenger trains in the last year. In one instance, Federal
authorities seized half a million dollars in cash from a
passenger on a west bound train in New Mexico. The South Orient
Railroad will provide daily passenger and freight service
between Mexico and the United States. We expect both the La
Entrada al Pacifico highway and this rail transport to increase
drug smuggling in the Big Bend, Marfa area and this will
present a challenge to DEA in this region.
The El Paso Division currently participates in both the
west Texas and New Mexico regions of the southwest border High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Area [HIDTA]. DEA is required to
respond to Border Patrol checkpoint seizures and arrests. These
referrals include both drugs seized in vehicle checkpoint
inspections and abandoned drugs. In fiscal year 2002, abandoned
drug cases and checkpoint seizures consumed 59 percent of our
agents' time.
Bulk currency smuggling into Mexico continues to be favored
by drug trafficking organizations. Southbound bulk currency
shipments range from a few thousand dollars to millions. Larger
shipments are usually concealed in tractor-trailers. Use of
legitimate financial institutions also continues, including
cross border wire transfers. In order to address this threat,
the El Paso Division leads to multi-agency HIDTA enterprise
money laundering initiative which was established at DEA's
request late last year and is staffed by several agencies.
The southwest border is the most prominent gateway for
illegal drugs entering the United States. Increased border
crossings combined with the presence of hardened Mexican drug
trafficking organizations will require DEA's continued
vigilance and ongoing cooperation among all the law enforcement
entities in this region. We are focused on this challenge.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you
and I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Mr. Souder. Our last witness on the first panel is Mr.
David Longoria, Interim Port Director of the El Paso Port of
Entry. Look forward to hearing your testimony and the
challenges that you face.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gonzalez follows:]
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Mr. Longoria. Good morning, Chairman Souder and committee,
welcome to El Paso. I appreciate this opportunity to testify
before you today.
My name is David Longoria, I am currently the Interim Port
Director for the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection here
in El Paso, TX. My responsibility entails providing leadership
for the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection inspectors at
the port of entry.
As you know, on March 1, 2003, the Customs Service,
Immigration Service and APHIS, the USDA component, merged into
the Department of Homeland Security. We now have one common
mission that will serve to enhance the security of our borders.
Our inspectors are the guardians of our Nation's borders--
America's frontline. They serve and protect the American public
with integrity, innovation and pride. Together, they ensure
that everything that enters the country, as well as everything
that leaves the country is in compliance with all U.S. laws and
regulations. Our collective priority is to prevent terrorists
and terrorist weapons from entering the United States, while
facilitating the flow of legitimate trade and travel.
Thwarting terrorism, drug smuggling and any form of
criminality at our borders, while facilitating the flow of
legitimate trade and travel, is a challenge that is
successfully met by utilizing industry partnership programs,
cutting edge technology and a motivated work force.
El Paso and its sister city of Ciudad Juarez comprise one
of the world's largest border-plex communities. Ciudad Juarez
is also home to several major drug organizations. The result is
a high level of enforcement activity at our port of entry. To
lend some perspective, consider the following as it pertains to
the Port of El Paso. El Paso consistently leads the Nation in
drug seizures. Since fiscal year 2003, we have seized more than
100,000 pounds of narcotics. We consistently account for about
25 percent of all drugs seized at the ports of entry. In fiscal
year 2002, we processed about 36 million people, which is
roughly the same as all of our international airports combined.
El Paso leads the Nation in processing immigrant visas. On a
given day, we process about 3,000 trucks, 37,000 privately
owned vehicles and about 25,000 pedestrians.
Our agency readily acknowledges that a balance between
enforcement and facilitation is essential. While an overly
facilitative approach renders our Nation vulnerable, an
excessively enforcement posture can negatively impact our
business and the economy. The solution lies in adopting a
''smart border`` approach which takes advantage of risk-based
enforcement efforts, non-intrusive inspection technology and
engaging the industry in partnership programs.
NII technology allows inspectors to examine vehicles and
passengers in a quick and non-intrusive manner. For example, a
truck coming from Mexico can be examined with gamma ray
technology in about 7 minutes. Without this technology, the
truck would need to be referred to the docks for a partial or
full unloading, which can take several hours. A corollary
benefit to this technology is that it keeps inspectors
unencumbered and thereby more responsive to other threats.
Examples of technology are: VACIS machine--Vehicle and
Cargo Inspection System--uses gamma ray technology to scan
trucks, vehicles and rail cars for density anomalies. Takes
about 7 minutes per vehicle.
X-Ray--same as VACIS but with different energy source and
takes about 10 minutes.
Density Busters--hand-held devices provide density
readings. These $5,000 instruments allow inspectors to examine
vehicles and containers for contraband, drugs or weapons of
mass destruction by detecting secret compartments.
Radiation Detectors--as the name suggests, these
instruments detect radiation emissions. Inspectors wear these
on their gun belts.
Range Finders enable inspectors to detect false walls in
commercial container.
And CAOS, the Customs Automated Operations System, a system
of computers, sensors, cameras and software, enables remote
monitoring of non-24X7 ports, as well as generating lane
scrambles for integrity purposes and special operations. For
example, the system can be programmed to instruct officers to
refer all pick-up trucks, or all vehicles ending in No. 3, etc.
These are only some of the examples of tools and technology
that are being used to lessen the intrusiveness of the
inspection process and facilitate the flow of traffic. Industry
Partnership Programs are also being used for the same purpose,
but place the onus of securing the supply chain on the
industry. Signatory participants agree to enhance the security
of their operations and work with other members to secure the
entire supply chain. The supply chain can include
manufacturers, importers, carriers and warehouses.
Participants in Industry Partnership Programs are provided
with facilitated processing, including use of express lanes.
Non-participants are subjected to more frequent examinations,
including intrusive examinations. As a result of these
initiatives, the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection
focuses its attention and resources on non-participants, which
has rendered a phenomenal success, including a recent 12,000
pound seizure of marijuana in a commercial conveyance.
One recent success with industry partnership in El Paso is
the implementation of the Secure Trade Expedited Processing
program [STEP]. This program provides express lanes and
expedited processing for participants who meet certain
criteria.
As technology evolves, additional standards may be required
such as use of transponders, cameras and satellite tracking.
Our goal is to have the industry able to track and use its
conveyances and containers at all times and thereby enable us
to provide maximum facilitation while further focusing our
enforcement efforts on non-participants. The strategy will no
doubt result in maximizing drug interdiction.
This is just a thumbnail sketch of the many tools and
programs that are used by the Bureau of Customs and Border
Protection to secure our border.
I notice that my time is out and I just have a couple of
other----
Mr. Souder. Just go ahead.
Mr. Longoria. OK. It is also very important to mention our
cooperation and daily interaction with the newly formed Bureau
of Immigration and Customs Enforcement [BICE], which is home to
Department of Homeland Security investigators. BICE Special
Agents in the El Paso District are actively involved in
enforcement operations in an area that spans the 600-mile U.S./
Mexican border from the Big Bend area of west Texas, across New
Mexico to the Arizona border.
There are approximately 200 BICE Special Agents actively
involved in a variety of initiatives designed to reinforce and
secure our vast, rugged and remote border areas against the
threat of terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and
importation of narcotics and other contraband.
These Special Agents apprehended, arrested and successfully
prosecuted more than 2,100 Federal cases in the El Paso
District during the last 12 months and the pace has not slowed.
BICE Special Agents average 15 to 20 arrests, seizures and
other enforcement actions each day. In excess of 75 percent of
these Federal prosecutions are directly related to drug
smuggling and associated money laundering activities. Our BICE
agents are also aggressively pursuing national security and
counter-terrorism initiatives on a daily basis in this
district. For example, BICE Special Agents are now finalizing
the prosecution of an organization that operated illegal
weapons and military tactics training facility along the New
Mexico border. This investigation has, to date, resulted in the
arrest of nine defendants and the seizure of over $3 million in
assets. BICE Special Agents have also significantly contributed
to the location and/or apprehension of approximately 40 special
interest illegal aliens since the initiation of the war in
Iraq. El Paso District agents currently have over 25 active
investigations of international/cross-border money laundering
operations involving narcotics trafficking proceeds and in
certain instances transfers of funds related to suspected
international sponsorship of terrorism.
In closing, I would like to again thank you for the
opportunity to appear before the subcommittee. We are very
proud of the work we do to serve and protect the American
public. I can state unequivocally that the border is safer
because of the tools, technology and partnership programs that
are in place, and that border security will continue to improve
as a result of the creation of the Department of Homeland
Security.
I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Longoria follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you. I'm going to limit each Member to
asking questions of no more than 1 hour of each witness.
[Laughter.]
There are so many ways we can go. One of the frustrating
problems we have in a hearing like this is how to work within
the 5-minute rule. I am sure each of you felt the same way
trying to do your testimony. What this in effect will become is
a book on this region once this hearing is published. So we
will probably have more written questions to you than we get
verbal questions in in our questioning period, and ask for
additional documentation on a number of points that are raised.
I would like to--and we will probably do several rounds
here with the first panel. I would like to start to try to get
a little bit of a grip on the big picture. A few things were
raised to me that I was not familiar with and would like to
start with Mr. Gonzalez.
On this new highway that is coming in, is the port in
Mexico fully developed yet, or is that more conceptual? In
other words, is this--logically if this port grows, it is going
to be a major trafficking pattern.
Mr. Gonzalez. Correct. Before I get into that, I was just
informed that I misspoke. I said 100 people come across the
border every day, I think it is 100,000.
Mr. Souder. But in this port, is that something that is
developing rapidly, fairly developed?
Mr. Gonzalez. Yes, we expect the highway to be completed
this calendar year.
Mr. Souder. And what about the actual harbor facilities, do
you know about that?
Mr. Gonzalez. I believe--I do not know for sure, but I
believe the harbor facilities are established.
Mr. Souder. Do you expect, given your experience in the
Indian region and given the fact that most are coming now
through southern, southwest Colombia and coming up the west
side--or the east side of the Pacific, the west side of Mexico,
that they will try to move toward that, to get to this highway?
Mr. Gonzalez. Yes, the information we have is that the
Mexican authorities will divert a percentage of the trucking
that goes right now through California and El Paso, to this
highway and they will enter through Presidio, TX, and this will
increase the activity there of course of the Border Patrol and
Customs. And we expect to see a lot more seizures.
Mr. Souder. Is the marijuana that you are seeing mostly
Mexican or do you have Colombia?
Mr. Gonzalez. I would say it is mostly Mexican.
Mr. Souder. Is the cocaine mostly Colombian?
Mr. Gonzalez. Yes, we believe all the cocaine that comes
across originates in Colombia.
Mr. Souder. Same with heroin?
Mr. Gonzalez. No, we see very little Colombian heroin here,
it is mostly Mexican heroin.
Mr. Souder. Do you think there will be an increase in Asian
heroin if that port becomes----
Mr. Gonzalez. That is certainly a good possibility, yes.
Mr. Souder. The only place that is dominant right now is up
in Seattle, Vancouver, San Francisco, but that----
Mr. Gonzalez. That could change, because that port, as I
said, cuts out several days of travel and it is just logical
what is going to happen here.
Mr. Souder. We will probably have some written questions
both to Customs in Washington, to Border Patrol on what is
planned at the Presidio crossing and what is happening with
that port down there and how we are planning to shift, because
it also will affect what is coming from farther south.
In the--continuing with Mr. Gonzalez, in Laredo, in Nuevo
Laredo, they are clearly having major shootouts as
organizations are changing and it has spilled across the border
down toward McAllen as they reach across the border to
assassinate people, the different trafficking organizations.
Could you, on that map, kind of give an idea of what major
Mexican cartel are controlling the El Paso Sector? Does that go
down further on the border here, do they tend to recognize
where the New Mexico border is?
Mr. Gonzalez. No, we believe that the major organizations
that are operating in this area also extend both into New
Mexico and east into Texas.
Mr. Souder. Has the fight that is happening down in Laredo
spilled over to Juarez?
Mr. Gonzalez. The violence you mean?
Mr. Souder. Yes.
Mr. Gonzalez. Juarez is one of the most violent cities that
I have ever heard about or seen, but that violence does not
spill over into El Paso, it sort of stays on that side, unlike
what you just said, that it is spilling over into our side in
Laredo. That is not happening here.
Mr. Souder. What is the town where there were six Americans
killed? Falcon Lake, in the Zapata area, in the last few weeks.
Because Cario, his group is fighting for control and I just
wondered if that was--what is hard to figure out is are we
matched up on the U.S. side like the cartels are matched up on
their side, or when we have our sectors cross over, are we not
matched where their cartels are, because we have--are we doing
a pass-off? And that is what I was trying to figure out, how
they were lined up down here as we were working the border on
this side.
I am going to yield to Mr. Deal at this point. Actually,
let me yield to Mr. Reyes.
Mr. Reyes. When you talk about matching up resources
against the cartels, probably Border Patrol would be the one
that would be in a position to comment. Do you want to comment
for the chairman on the question he was asking Mr. Gonzalez?
Mr. Beeson. Basically we do deploy our resources in a
manner that is consistent with what is going on in the area, so
if we have information about activity in a particular area,
then we will concentrate resources there, either through
staffing, cameras, things of that nature, other pieces of
technology that we use, sensors, things like that, to combat
the threat of narcotics being brought into the country.
Mr. Reyes. And they also have an extensive use of
informants through anti-smuggling. They do not just limit anti-
smuggling to people smuggling, they run the gamut--arms
smuggling, certainly narcotics and also on the lookout for
terrorists.
One thing that I would like to point out for the record,
Mr. Chairman, is that there are pockets along our border on the
Mexican side of Middle Eastern, primarily business people. I
know Juarez has a substantial community and when you talk about
our region here, it is good to know that--good information to
have and to know that when you are talking about kind of the
metro-plex area, you are talking about an area of about 3
million people, when you take into account El Paso, Las Cruces
and Juarez, a city of--the official population released by the
Mexican Government is about 1.4, 1.5 million but most people
will tell you it is a lot closer to 2 million. And the region
itself is about 3 million inhabitants, which puts a lot of
pressure, since we are doing this enforcement part of it, on
the law enforcement agencies that have that kind of
responsibility and that routinely work fairly closely. You
know, there are some limitations, and I know when you get your
briefing at EPIC, they will be able to give you some of the
information that these gentlemen cannot give you in open
testimony, but they will give you the classified briefing on
the narcotics organizations, they will actually show you a
schematic on how they operate and obviously they cannot do it
in open forum, for security reasons. So you will find it very
interesting.
I have a couple of areas that I want to focus on in my
time. For Mr. Beeson, a critical component of being able to
manage the border, even with Operation Hold the Line in place,
is staffing and also how you supplement the staffing and the
capability to monitor the border with technology. Can you, for
the committee, elaborate on--I know we have had a shortfall in
the amount of staffing that even I requested when I was Chief
here, in order to maintain the integrity of Operation Hold the
Line, and it would be important to get those kinds of figures
to the committee. If you do not have them with you today,
certainly get them on the record.
But can you comment on those things--staffing and
technology?
Mr. Beeson. There are 1,100 Border Patrol agents here
within the El Paso Sector, that is for 289 miles of border and
I think 125,000 square miles or 225.
It is important to control the border, for there to be an
adequate mix of staffing both for the technology and for the
agents. You need the mix with the cameras, with sensors and
things like that. Those are all things that enhance what the
agents are able to do when they are out patrolling the border.
It is an extra set of eyes or an extra set of ears for the
agents as they do the work that they are doing out there.
It is important to continue to increase staffing. In a
number of locations, we are receiving more cameras this year,
which we will be deploying in strategic locations. So they are
all important pieces to gaining control of the border, is to
get that staffing mix, that technology mix, to help control the
area.
Mr. Reyes. Will you be able to provide staffing figures to
the committee--the number of agents that the El Paso Sector--
and it would be valuable for you to ask every one of the nine
chiefs that have responsibility along the U.S./Mexico border to
give you their staffing plans; not what they have currently on
board, but what they feel would be the optimum level of
staffing to provide border management. Because one of the
misconceptions when we talk about border control, you cannot
seal off the border, but you get into a lot of diminishing
returns.
I think my colleagues and I many years ago, over 10 years
ago, came up with a model that if we managed the border with an
85 percent control factor, that is about the optimum that we
could hope for. That includes not only staffing but also the
technology that Assistant Chief Beeson talks about.
And it would also be helpful for you to give the committee
the information on the kinds of cameras, particularly the ones
that are mounted in remote areas on poles, the kinds of ground
sensors that you have, you have infrared, you have magnetic,
you have seismic. All of those are important components because
in Congress when we fund these programs, especially now under
Homeland Security, we need to understand the expertise that the
law enforcement agencies have, in particular Border Patrol, to
be able to fund the kinds of sensors that they need, and camera
systems.
Are we going to have another round?
Mr. Souder. Yes.
Mr. Reyes. OK, so I will stop right there. I do have some
questions for a couple of the other panelists.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Deal.
Mr. Deal. One of the most alarming reports that I think any
of us have received have been some media reports of military on
the Mexican side and police on the Mexican side being engaged
in drug smuggling and in an instance or so even firing on the
U.S. officials. Could you comment on the degree of that
involvement that you have detected and conversely, the degree
of cooperation that you are receiving from the Mexican law
enforcement authorities to deal with this drug problem--any of
you.
Mr. Beeson. I will go. In the El Paso area itself, which of
course are the two west counties of Texas and New Mexico, we
have had in the past incursions of Mexican military, no
evidence that they were involved in narcotics smuggling. The
big one that we had, it appeared to be a case that they got
lost. We do not have concrete information regarding narcotics
smuggling and other government officials.
What we do have in this sector is--and I mentioned this in
my statement--was the Mexican liaison unit. And what that unit
does for us is it coordinates and communicates on a daily basis
with officials in Mexico--the police, the military, other
government officials, consular officials, things like that. The
purpose for that is to improve safety on the border, to try and
make sure that incidents like the one that happened in Santa
Teresa a number of years ago do not occur again, to increase
safety for the officers both on the Mexican side and on our
side that are patrolling that border, and for the people that
are crossing that border, because there are a number of issues
with bandits and things of that nature.
We do work very closely with them and then, of course,
there are some things that we will not share, in terms of
information and things like that. But we have a pretty good
relationship with them here in this area and we enjoy a good
level of cooperation.
Mr. Gonzalez. Mr. Vice Chairman, I just want to make a
couple of comments on the cooperation issue. Just last week, I
met with the head of the Mexican Federal Agency of
Investigations, which is like the FBI. They also handle drug
enforcement. And we are, at the present time, exchanging
information and working together on major investigations, which
I will be glad to address later with you or with your staff.
Mr. Deal. One of the most recent developments that we
understand has occurred is that the Supreme Court of Mexico has
now determined that they will not extradite if the individual
faces the potential of a life imprisonment, even though it may
be subject to pardon or parole. That obviously holds the
potential of interfering with breaking up major drug cartels,
those involved in large scale drug trafficking. That appears to
me to be quite a contrast with what we have in Colombia, where
they have very much cooperated with the extradition of the
high-level individuals back to our country for prosecution.
Could any of you comment about whether that change in the
rules relating to extradition has presented problems up to this
point and do you anticipate that it would present problems in
the future?
Mr. Gonzalez. The extradition issue, we had some
discussions on that yesterday. The Mexican Government, as you
said, they will not extradite someone who is facing a life term
or a death sentence. That is their law. But we can work with
them if we are willing to, for example, charge a different
crime or a lesser crime that does not have the death penalty or
life imprisonment as punishment. They indicated that they
will--something along the lines of 30 years, 40 years,
something like that, they do not have a problem with it, but I
believe that we just--for the time being, we are going to have
to live with that, with no extradition if there is a death
sentence or life imprisonment.
Mr. Deal. That has already presented problems in my State
with regard to gang activity in which drive-by shootings or
other similar crimes have been committed and the individual is
successful in fleeing back across the border. That, to me,
long-term, poses some very, very significant problems and one
that our prosecutors are already raising concerns about at the
State level, that they are faced with these problems. And in
effect, even if they have a case that is extraditable, the
procedure that Mexico requires virtually requires a trial in
Mexico as a prerequisite to being able to obtain extradition.
That is a very non-cooperative attitude, if there is any
desire, in my opinion, in the part of Mexico to cooperate in
this problem.
Second round, I may explore that attitude a little further.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
I want to come back, before moving on to a different angle,
to two different things, because I think it is important to
distinguish, for the record. We are not asking about ongoing
investigations, we are asking in general terms and I think, Mr.
Beeson, given the fact that the question went on the record, we
have to have a direct answer under oath.
Are you saying that you do not believe that--because the
impression was that things are going just fine with the Mexican
military and police. I do not think the facts speak to that,
there is a tremendous corruption problem and are you saying
there is no corruption on the other side and that they have
been cooperating, or are you saying that we have cooperation
problems and there is corruption on the other side?
Mr. Beeson. I am not saying that there are no corruption
problems on the other side, there are. They cooperate with us
on some issues, things that we can work together on, and
normally around safety and things like that.
We do not--well, I do not have any information today
regarding Mexican military or Mexican law enforcement
involvement in narcotic smuggling, that would be something I
would have to research.
Mr. Souder. What about protection?
Mr. Beeson. Or protection. That is something that I would
have to research and provide to the committee later.
Mr. Souder. Have you seen them interdict or help you in
interdiction when you spot people coming across?
Mr. Beeson. We have. I can speak to a couple of occasions
that I have personal knowledge of. In Deming, NM, a vehicle
crossed the border on our side laden with narcotics, the agents
engaged in an attempt to stop that vehicle, it ran south into
Mexico. Our officers contacted the Mexican military and they
did go and apprehend that vehicle and I want to say it was
around 600 pounds of narcotics out of the house in Palomas. So
they did take action there.
We have another case, and I want to say it was in Fabens,
another deal where the narcotics made it south and we contacted
the Mexican police and they did go and apprehend them.
Mr. Souder. So is it your testimony that it has improved on
the Mexican side, the same, worse? I am not asking specifics, I
am asking in general terms.
Here is the problem we have in the U.S. Congress and with
the American people, is there is intelligence that--on ongoing
investigations that you do not want to do, there are obviously
diplomatic relations between the two countries, but you cannot
go to the U.S. Congress, which is dependent on democratic
elections, ask us for additional money for agents, ask us for
additional money to work the border and then say oh, we are not
going to tell the people why you need this money. Because one
of the things we are having in the narcotics area and in the
border patrol area is increasing unwillingness of people who do
not live along the border to pay for additional costs along the
border, if the border people say things are going fine because
there is political pressure on the trade question that you do
not want to deal with.
It is much like when we deal with inner city crime in the
United States, you cannot say oh, we do not want to have an
image that we have a bad problem, but we want the other
taxpayers to help address the problem, but we do not want to
acknowledge the problem is there. We either have a problem or
we do not have a problem and that is one of the challenges we
have in dealing in the public arena.
I just read a book, which I do not believe is particularly
accurate, I have dealt with this stuff, Along the Border, or
whatever it is called, by Mark Bowden, and he makes some very
serious charges about the agencies in the Federal Government
and it is important that when we have the opportunities to make
those responses, to say yes, we understand, we are trying to
deal with those, some of these things are exaggerated and the
general public's impression of corruption is over-exaggerated,
but we understand there is a problem. The charges are pretty
much around the table around the country and in Washington that
there has been a playing down by the different agencies and
that you all have been somewhat shackled because of concern
that it would affect different trade debates.
I represent an area where I have some concerns about
trucking and trade things, but basically we are in an
inevitable path in the North American continent to trying to
work with Mexico and Canada, but to do that, we have to figure
out what we are actually dealing with, so when we--I am going
to be at the U.S./Mexico Parliamentary sessions in just a few
weeks, I have to know, you know, is it doing better, doing
worse, where are our specific problems. And if it is doing
better, that is great and we need to get that message out. But
that is what I am trying to get a handle on here because in the
last few days we have seen many Mexican military units on the
other side for explanations we do not fully understand.
And we will get that to some degree in private briefings,
but I think it is also important that the general public
understand that there are some unusual things going along the
Mexican border that are visual to the open eye that do not meet
standard tests of logic. And if you are not seeing that in this
sector, then we need to figure out how to address that question
in the other part of Texas sector. Because what I could see
with my eyes made no sense. The question is is that happening
up in this area too or is this area different from what I saw
in the other part of Texas?
I mean I saw guys with all kinds of arms who were not
particularly happy to see Border Patrol agents.
Mr. Beeson. We do see people, military, down on the border
on the Mexican side.
Mr. Souder. And by the way, the other thing we are hearing
constantly, farmers and ranchers and people in villages tell us
that they see the Mexican police and/or military or people who
have stolen uniforms which is another possibility, coming
across providing some protection. Are you all aware of that and
is it happening in this sector?
Mr. Beeson. We do receive reports on occasion of instances
where folks have come across with narcotics loads using tactics
that would appear to be military, wearing uniforms that would
appear to be military. We have not apprehended anybody doing
that but we have received information of that sort.
Mr. Souder. So basically--because in our Arizona hearing,
quite frankly, we had a lot of undocumented allegations and at
this point, it would be your testimony that while there is
enough undocumented allegations to make us concerned, the fact
is we have not directly proven those type of allegations and
the general public should know that we are committed to
trying--is it fair to say you are committed to trying to
establish that because it would be important information for
our government to know. Let me assure you, if we learn there is
any political pressure to disguise that type of incursion
occurring, there will not be a pleasant reaction out of the
U.S. Congress, there will be an explosion out of the U.S.
Congress. At the same time, we have to be very careful and the
general public and the news media needs to be very careful
about trafficking in unsubstantiated information from people
who may in fact just like--and this is easier for the American
public to understand right now--is that in Iraq, clearly a
number of uniforms were stolen by forces with Saddam to try to
make it appear like U.S. soldiers were doing certain things.
And that can happen in other places too and that what we need
to deal with are facts and that is one of the things we are
trying to get to here.
We will followup and we can hear the confidential cases,
but I am trying to get a general on-the-record reaction of--
would you say it is better or worse in the region as far as how
it has been developed?
Mr. Beeson. I would say overall the relationship is better.
Mr. Gonzalez. Obviously I cannot comment about those issues
on the border, but as it pertains to the investigative side, I
served in Mexico in the late 1980's and I have a relationship
with Mexican authorities now. And I can tell you that at the
Federal level, the level of cooperation has increased
dramatically, it is basically unprecedented. And like I said, I
have met, I think three times already, with the head of the
Mexican FBI and we are working, exchanging information. I
believe time will tell, but I think things are looking up in
that area now.
Mr. Souder. Well, that is really important for us to know,
because some Members have an unrealistic expectation of how
fast Mexico can change. In a low income culture where you could
be, like in Colombia, there is also false expectations where
you can be murdered one way or the other--if you help them you
get in trouble and if you do not help them you get
assassinated, your income level--we have huge problems on our
side of the border even all the way up to Indiana, people are
offered huge amounts of money to leave their farm for a day so
a load can be exchanged. We are not above these kinds of
problems in our country as well, and what I want to know is are
we getting incremental progress and are you seeing it in this
sector.
So I thank you for your comments and your patience with
that. I did not get to my regular round of questioning but I
will now yield to--I wanted to followup on the National Park
Service question, so I will do it next time. Mr. Reyes.
Mr. Reyes. You know, in every hearing that I have
participated in, the chairman is the man, so you can take as
much time as you want. This is critical information that you
are looking for. So I would be glad to cede you my time if that
is what you want.
Mr. Souder. Why don't you go ahead. When I do my last
round, if I want to go more, then I will.
Mr. Reyes. Well, let me just give you some personal
testimony because the issue of corruption, as my colleague
Congressman Deal was bringing up, is not limited to Mexican
corruption. In fact, during the time that I served as Chief in
McAllen in south Texas from 1984 to 1993 when they moved me
here, of the three sheriffs that we dealt with in Cameron
County, Hidalgo County and Starr County, all of them have
subsequently been prosecuted and are doing time for corruption,
on the U.S. side.
We always prioritized working and making sure that we had a
good working relationship, understanding, as Assistant Chief
Beeson said, understanding the limitations of that relationship
with our Mexican counterparts. But you absolutely have to have
that relationship if you are going to be successful in any way
in doing the kinds of things that you are doing, patrolling the
border.
But corruption is on both sides. The sheriff of, I believe
it was either Presidio County or the adjoining county, was also
arrested, and he was smuggling a load of--maybe it was a ton,
2,300 pounds or something like that, of cocaine through a
Border Patrol checkpoint. The Border Patrol busted him and he
is doing time in Fort Worth today, and that was a sheriff on
our side. Just for the sake of information, that sheriff was an
Anglo sheriff, the three sheriffs in south Texas were all
Hispanic sheriffs.
Mr. Souder. Are these deputy sheriffs or----
Mr. Gonzalez. No, these were full sheriffs, the main guy,
like you are going to be hearing testimony from Sheriff Leo
Samaniego, who has got the responsibility for El Paso County.
So corruption and the tentacles of corruption reach all
across the border. We have had, unfortunately, Border Patrol
agents, DEA agents, FBI agents, that have--Customs, Immigration
inspectors--that have been investigated and prosecuted for
corruption, because there is so much money out there. So we
want to make sure that we understand that corruption tentacles
cover both sides of the border.
Now let me just address a couple of the other issues, which
is the Mexican military and the U.S. military. The Mexican
military is deployed on the Mexican side of the border because
of the concerns that we have had since September 11. So
President Fox made an agreement with President Bush that they
would deploy an increased number of military units to the U.S./
Mexico border to try to help with that control and that kind of
concern that we have.
I am glad that you are going to Inter-Parliamentary because
I have been going since I have been in Congress and we have
gone the gamut of issues and of good and bad relationships with
Mexico, as it pertains to border enforcement.
I know that people think that it is a quick fix and it is
an easy fix to militarize the border, but nothing could be
further from the truth. We need to support professional,
trained, bilingual people that understand and know the culture
of the border rather than bringing in the 82nd or the 173rd or
the 3rd Infantry, or whoever, for the reasons that it is not
going to be cheap, it is not going to be easy and you could be
opening our military soldiers to issues of personal liability,
as happened in Redford, TX, which is by Marfa, when a military
unit that was doing some listening post, outpost, you know,
working covertly, unfortunately killed an 18-year-old young
man. And I will get you that information.
So those are all real issues that we that live on the
border and certainly with the kind of background that I have,
as the only Member of Congress that has that experience, we
need to really have other colleagues and certainly committees
like the one that you chair, have them really understand the
dynamics of why it is important that we look at the border
region as a place where you can spend a dollar and save
spending $100 in some interior location like your district or a
Georgia district or some other area in the interior, because it
makes sense to invest in the border because this is where these
guys that are the experts can tell you that dollar will go much
further than spending $10 or $100 in Dallas or Denver or Duluth
or some other place.
So I will be happy to continue to work with you and, you
know, at least bring my expertise. You know, there is good news
and bad news in this. The good news is I am the only Member of
Congress with this background and the other part of the good
news is that I get consulted. The bad news is that sometimes
you guys do not follow my advice or my recommendations.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Reyes. But that is the nature of the beast. But
certainly doing these kinds of hearings--and you know, you are
absolutely right, ask the pointed questions. Now Assistant
Chief Beeson is not the chief here, so I would recommend that
you call in the nine border chiefs of the Border Patrol and the
nine or however many Customs and DEA and FBI have, and in the
comfort of your office, just be pointed with them and say look,
we are trying to make some decisions here that affect your
ability to function at America's frontline of defense, which is
our Nation's borders, and we need to have the straight
information.
A lot of times, from personal experience, let me tell you,
Mr. Chairman, when I testified--and I testified many times
before Congress as the Chief--they literally--the agency
literally locks you into the testimony that has been prepared
by the agency that you are--unless you know the questions to
ask, the witnesses are locked into what they can say and the
amount of area that they can cover. We need to change that
because these guys have a lot of information, they have a lot
of expertise and we ought to be able to tap into it so that we
can make the kinds of funding decisions that will affect our
ability to function as a country under homeland defense.
So I offer my--I am at your disposal in terms of working on
these issues.
Mr. Souder. In my aggressiveness with the question, and I
know Mr. Beeson had to come in at the last minute to substitute
for the Chief, and, as a Republican who supports the Republican
administration, I understand the importance of having an
organized presentation and not getting off into kind of what my
sociology professor used to call ``minanti'' as opposed to the
bigger picture. At the same time, you know, that you are under
oath in front of this committee. This is an oversight
committee, it is historically the function of this Government
Reform Committee to challenge and to make sure even within our
own administration what we are doing is right, and you know
what, if you are inaccurate under oath, your supervisor, who
helped guide the testimony, is not in trouble, you are. Which
is why it is important to remember in this committee, it is a
little bit different in our approach.
Mr. Deal.
Mr. Deal. As I indicated in the beginning, what you do here
has impacts everywhere. Let me give you the significance of it.
This is my 11th year in Congress, when I was elected in 1992,
the problem of illegal immigration in my north Georgia district
was the No. 1 social issue that we faced. It has not gotten
better, it has gotten far worse.
The two largest independent school districts, public school
districts, in my Congressional District which stretches and
borders--used to border four States, now it still borders three
States--the largest population in those two school districts is
Hispanic, non-English speaking students. They exceed the
population of native Anglos, they exceed the population, by
far, of African American students.
The impacts on my Congressional District are tremendous
and, as the chairman said, we need some honest answers. We need
to know what can we do to make sure we don't continue along
this same road. If it is going to continue, and we are all
saying we are doing everything just fine and everything is
working just right, then my district is going to be in terrible
shape, because over the last 11 years it has not gotten better,
it has gotten far worse.
Let me ask you a question with regard to enforcement. And I
am somebody who voted for NAFTA by the way. Are there any
sanctions on trucks, vehicles that are in the organized
transportation industry, who are caught with illegal drugs in
their transport? Now I know the vehicle probably is seized, the
driver may be arrested, but are there any consequences to those
people who are trying to ship those goods using those methods?
Those trucking firms, are they put on any kind of a list, are
they sanctioned in any fashion?
Mr. Longoria. Yes, we enter information on the respective
importer, manufacturer or wherever the investigation leads. We
enter that into a system of records, a data base, and we use
that information to target accordingly. So somebody who has a
history of----
Mr. Deal. What do you mean by target accordingly?
Mr. Longoria. Well, somebody who has a history or has a
higher risk of importing narcotics or violating laws or being
non-compliant, would incur more inspections or closer
inspections, more examinations, that kind of thing. They would
also be precluded from participating in Industry Partnership
Programs, as I had pointed out earlier. People that are highly
compliant are allowed to participate in these Industry
Partnership Programs and they get expedited processing. So they
would be precluded from participating in that.
Mr. Reyes. Can you identify specifically the system that
you use? Because I think it is important for the members of the
committee to have that information.
Mr. Longoria. It is called ACS, Automated Commercial
System, it is a system of records. It is being revised and
modified under the Department of Homeland Security, it is soon
to be called ACE, the Automated Commercial Environment. And it
collects data on merchandise that is imported, who imported it,
who manufactured it, what is the point of origin, what is the
country of origin. As I indicated, in Industry Partnership
Programs, we get people to participate in these programs and
secure the supply chain to push the border out, so to speak,
create a virtual border, and secure the supply chain that way.
Our part of the deal is that we will offer expedited treatment
to those participants.
People who are caught violating the law would be
precluded--and you are right, we do seize the trucks. That is
one of the consequences.
Mr. Deal. Well, you know, under the trade laws, if someone
is violating trade rules, then there could be sanctions with
regard to losing quota, etc. It would seem to me that we ought
to have something comparable. You know, they are not just
shipping an extra pair of blue jeans in here, they are shipping
drugs. And if you can be sanctioned for violating your quotas
on shipping extra blue jeans, you certainly ought to be
sanctioned in some fashion--and it is probably beyond the
jurisdiction of what any of you have control over--but it would
seem to me it would be one of those extra sanctions that we
ought to look at, as we are looking in trade rules and trade
negotiations. It certainly I think has some merit to it for
those who would take advantage of the system.
Let me ask a question, and I guess Mr. Beeson, this
probably is more directed at you. We have heard a variety of
opinions as to how people who are detected illegally coming
into this country are treated. Assuming they are not carrying
contraband, we are told that in Laredo, they may be given 15
chances of being caught--if they are that unlucky, they are not
very good at it--but 15 times before any action is taken
against them. In other parts along the border, we have heard
oh, they get five free shots at it before we do anything with
them.
What is the policy here, if there is a policy?
Mr. Beeson. In New Mexico, I want to say it is 10, if we
have apprehended you 10 times, then we will prosecute you,
unless there are special aggravating circumstances. If you
fought with the officers or lied about something, something
like that, then they may not wait until there is 10
apprehensions.
In Texas, I believe it is 5, it is 5 to 10. Same deal, if
we have caught you that many times, we are going to prosecute
you, but if there is aggravating circumstances; you know, you
had false documents or you fought with the officers, whatever
the case may be, then we may not wait for the 5 to 10 times to
prosecute.
Mr. Deal. Could I ask just one more followup on that?
Mr. Souder. Sure.
Mr. Deal. Let me give you an example of how bad it is
though once they get past you. In my hometown, my son is the
local district attorney there, and the outcry in my community
is--well, first of all, we cannot conduct court without a
translator; second is that even though you are detected and
arrested for a misdemeanor DUI, you can be arrested for as many
as three DUIs in my hometown and be an illegal alien, be known
by the judge, know by the court authorities on every one of
those instances that you are illegally in the country and this
is your third DUI, and they will not be deported. Now, you
know, that's better than having 15 shots at the border, you
know. You have already got past there and you got into the
country and we still cannot get anybody to do anything about
it. That is the magnitude of the irritation and I am afraid, as
the chairman says, the kind of hostility that is growing in the
interior of this country, to the problems that we are facing.
And that is just an everyday experience in our hometown,
because you see, we cannot run them back to the border and say
go home, you know, we have to depend on somebody else to do
that.
Mr. Souder. Let me ask this question and if you cannot
answer it, Mr. Beeson, maybe either an INS or somebody at the
Port Authority or we will get somebody at the Port Authority,
do you know how many people actually get caught 10 times? Have
you had cases like that?
Mr. Beeson. We have had cases like that, but I did not
bring those numbers with me today, I can get that for you. We
call them rescividists, so it would be a matter of looking up
to see how may rescividists we have had.
Mr. Deal. They are just commuting to work if they are doing
that.
Mr. Souder. And I would like the record to show, obviously
the smuggling organizations know these because as a functional
matter, it means that we are not, generally speaking, detaining
or arresting people for just being an illegal immigrant, as a
practical matter. But that can be enforced at any given time
and nobody coming across should think oh, well, I get 10 shots
at this, because you never know on any given day whether or not
that rule may change or how it will be enforced at a given
place. But it is important for us to understand, because I do
not think most of the Members of Congress understand that there
are variables along the border as to how it is enforced and
that those numbers are there.
Now to obvious question back to Members of Congress if we
say how come you are letting them do 10 times, well, what would
you do with the people anyway, what would be the net impact,
how would the patterns change, what would happen with that? It
is not a clearcut oh, let us just stop it at one, but that
would have consequences. But it is something that is deserving
of public debate, because this has been done without really
congressional oversight.
I say that because this committee, up until directly
switching to Homeland Security and will now be under that
subcommittee, we had immigration oversight and it was only in
the last period that I learned that it was that specific. And
it is not as though I have not been on the border for 6 years.
And so this has not been--I can guarantee you--not been a
publicly debated strategy and what alternatives and how we
would deal with it. I am not even saying we would not even wind
up with the same strategy, it is just that is part of the
oversight function, is to figure out how it is working.
I want to move to some questions with Mr. Deckert on the
National Park. First, I met with the National Park Service and
I believe the Inspector General, because I had a person who
took leave from the Park Service, who worked with--it was a
ranger at Yosemite, who came up when people were beheaded and
he has been involved in that, he is now back at Yosemite. And I
learned a little bit about the law enforcement problems inside
the National Park Service.
And it was clear from going over to Organ Pipe that
contrary to some impressions, it was not a matter of training,
it was a matter of they had multiple agents there, he was
getting direction from a helicopter, he had his vest on, it was
a fluke shot that got underneath and came out underneath the
vest, and the guy was clearly, you know, behind bushes where
you would not have been able to see him. It was not a lack of
training, it was a combination of a fluke and a guy who was
dedicated to killing whoever was there, whether it was a Border
Patrol person, DEA or a Park Service.
But one of the charges is that there have not been complete
and accurate statistics on crime in the parks and the other
public lands. Are you keeping drug statistics? Do you have a
systematic way to do that inside your park? Because clearly,
now particularly, having been identified as the second highest
park at risk, you are under kind of more scrutiny in this area.
Could you explain a little bit what you are doing, what that
has done to resources inside your park, whether you feel there
is additional training needed, how we tackle this at a park
like yours.
Mr. Deckert. Yes, I think we are keeping accurate
statistics now and I think there probably has been a problem in
the past with the service-wide system that is used. As I
explained, we have had an increase in drug trafficking this
past year and we are concerned about it. I have been in contact
with Bill Wellman, who you know from your dealings out in
Arizona, the Superintendent of Organ Pipe Cactus, and what he
is telling his fellow superintendents along the border who have
not experienced what he has experienced at Organ Pipe, is the
time to do something is now. He wished he had this knowledge 3
or 4 years ago, before it really mushroomed at Organ Pipe. And
we are attempting to do that through the funding that has been
reprioritized by our regional office. It is not additional
funding, but it is taken away from other needed projects, but
recognizing this is a priority now, we have had funding so that
we can hire more rangers. Also recognizing that the National
Park Service mission differs from the other organizations
represented here today in that we are primarily protecting
resources and visitors. But when it comes to a time when drug
and illegal alien smuggling affects protecting park resources
and visitors, we get more involved, to the detriment of
specifically protecting park resources in other parts of the
park.
We have right now 11 full time law enforcement rangers in
Big Bend National Park, 245 miles of border, including both the
park and the Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River, which is about 1
percent of the sector up here that has the Border Patrol
protection. And we cannot do the job without our partnerships
with these other agencies.
But funding is our main concern, both for the things we are
talking about here--communication systems, dispatch operations,
even infrastructure for housing for employees. A couple more
Border Patrol agents stationed in the park would be of great
help to us.
Mr. Souder. How many Border Patrol are in the park at this
time?
Mr. Deckert. We have two that live in the park now.
Mr. Souder. Two for the 245 miles?
Mr. Deckert. Right. Well, there are others outside the park
that assist as well.
Mr. Souder. By assist, do you mean that they come in on a
regular basis inside the park, or that they come on an on-call
basis?
Mr. Deckert. On call primarily.
Mr. Souder. So as far as general surveillance in the park,
there's two Border Patrol plus your park rangers?
Mr. Deckert. Correct.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Beeson, what would be a typical per-50 mile
Border Patrol? In other words, if you took a region of 200
miles and you have how many, 60? 400? In Arizona, it is pretty
intense.
Mr. Beeson. It is very intense in Arizona because that is
our hot spot right now. It is going to vary based on the
station. A number of places--the Marfa Sector staffing-wise,
they have--the last time I can recall was around 186 for the
entire sector.
Mr. Souder. Which is how many miles?
Mr. Beeson. I am sorry, I do not know.
Mr. Reyes. In territory, Mr. Chairman, that is one of the
largest geographic areas of responsibility. That is what I mean
that you need to have that staffing model because----
Mr. Souder. We will get it.
Mr. Reyes. Well, because it varies now. When you are
talking about an area like Big Bend Park, that is an area--
certainly two agents, I would never even begin to defend the
lack of resources in there, because I would say as a Chief,
with the kind of activity that they have, the kind of concerns
on narcotics, I would have a couple of stations in there with
maybe 35 to 60 agents to be able to control that area and that
would be only if we were also able to get technology in there,
the kinds of cameras that Assistant Chief Beeson was talking
about, the kind of sensors, both seismic, infrared and
magnetic, that would give you an alert. Because you get into a
situation where there is so much territory that you cannot
afford to saturate that area like you would in El Paso or in a
metropolitan area like El Paso-Juarez. Here you actually need
agents within eyesight of each other as well as the technology
to be able to--because you have more people.
You have the advantage of remoteness, rugged terrain and
the ability to monitor electronically in a place like Big Bend,
but two agents is ridiculous or pathetic to think that they
would be able to provide the kind of coverage that you would
need for that area. You would need, I would say easily 30 to 60
agents.
Mr. Souder. Because we do need and want--as we do our
regional field hearings, we will pull back to the Washington
level and then do an oversight in Washington looking at the
broader, but clearly what we are looking for, where are there
holes.
We are dealing with multiple questions--illegal
immigration, narcotics, potential terrorism, and then all the
other types of illegal trafficking that goes through. Guns and
money tend to be moving in the other direction. In that, one of
our challenges is to try to stay a step ahead. I want to
followup with a couple more things on the park side.
As you said, the mission of the National Park Service is
not to provide border security. The mission of the Park Service
is to protect the resources. Unfortunately, as we learned in
Organ Pipe, it is very difficult to protect the natural
resource if it becomes a huge illegal immigrant and/or drug
trafficking area. They have some of their trails set down. At
this point has there been any--to what degree has the illegal
immigration or drugs that are moving through Big Bend affected
any camping area, utilization of trails, resource degradation?
In Organ Pipe, even cutting of cactuses has been a problem.
Anything at this point, or are you still at the front end of
the curve?
Mr. Deckert. We are pretty much at the front end of the
curve. We have not seen that much resource degradation from
this kind of activity, but then again, we have a huge area,
even compared with Organ Pipe, and we do not even have enough
people to do the inventorying and monitoring of resources to
see what kind of actions may have been taken out there and what
kind of degradation may have occurred.
We would like to have funding for that too, so that we can
see and show if this comes that there is a problem. And we also
again want to be proactive by doing irregular patrols and doing
the sorts of things, law enforcement actions, and protection
actions that would hopefully keep that from beginning there, as
it did at Organ Pipe. Once the flow is opened, it seemed to
continue on, and we would like to stop it in the beginning.
Mr. Souder. If your rangers are diverted to this, what will
they not be doing that they were doing before?
Mr. Deckert. Oh, a variety of things in the rest of the
park, regular road patrols, back country patrols, you know,
protecting the resources from just inadvertent or activities
that visitors might harm the resources, and protecting them
from each other and from getting hurt out there in the park,
search and rescue operations. We provide just about everything
there in the park from structural fire control to search and
rescue, besides law enforcement. So those are all duties of the
law enforcement folks in the park. It is a wide range of multi-
specialist type duties.
Mr. Souder. I thank the Park Service today for sending the
representative of agencies and other parks, it was particularly
helpful to get the Amistad quotes on the amount of narcotics in
the record, and we will ask for an additional written statement
on that. At some point, hopefully, at the very southeast
portion of Texas, we will pick up Padre Island when we look at
the Brownsville Sector and that Corpus Christi Sector of the
border. But it also suggests that as we work to protect some of
our Federal land agencies, then it pushes it in other places
but I wanted to make sure I picked that up.
In this amount of marijuana seized, do you believe that
some of this is that you were not keeping as much data in 2000,
prior to 2000, or--in other words, it is a function of how much
you have actually seized but are we looking for it more now or
has it actually increased? I mean, you are growing
exponentially, 1,300 in 2000, 10,000 in 2002, 3,700, is that in
3 months?
Mr. Deckert. I am not sure, which park are you referring
to?
Mr. Souder. In Big Bend--oh, that is Amistad, excuse me,
sorry about that. Could I have the person from Amistad come up?
I want to ask him a question on that. I need to swear you in,
if you will come up and raise your right hand.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Will you give your name for the record and
spell it, because we did not have it.
Mr. Malloy. Bruce Malloy, M-a-l-l-o-y, Chief Ranger at
Amistad National Recreation Area in Del Rio, TX.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Deckert, in his--I think this was in your
written testimony, I do not think you said this in your
verbal--said 1,300 marijuana pounds seized at Amistad in 2000,
10,000 in 2002, 3,700 so far this year. Now is that through
March?
Mr. Malloy. Yes, sir, it is.
Mr. Souder. So if you took that times four, we would be
looking at close to 16,000 this year, if it kept that pace.
Mr. Malloy. That is correct.
Mr. Souder. Is that because there is a more active presence
right now or is this a new trafficking route that has opened?
Mr. Malloy. Well, you know, I cannot be sure exactly what
it is attributable to, but the rangers there feel that there is
significant more activity in Amistad over the last couple of
years than they have seen in previous years. And Amistad is
working very cooperatively with the other agencies, so it is
not just our rangers that are dealing with this activity. And a
lot of those seizures are done cooperatively, particularly with
the Border Patrol and U.S. Customs.
Mr. Souder. Well, thank you, that is the type of thing we
are looking for. Also where are the changes and what are the
patterns because these are new things for us to think of at the
Federal level, both on the Parks Committee and here, of man,
they are going to move right through, but you can see the
trails and you can see, particularly over at Organ Pipe but
also up in Olympic or other places where you try to protect
nesting areas and so on. You put them off limits to our agents
and the next thing you know, all the illegals and all the drug
trafficking is going right through the nesting areas and the
whole purpose to protect them, they are now trampled to death.
The other question that I wanted to relate to Mr. Deckert,
is I thought it was interesting where you raised about these
informal border crossings. Could you give us a little more
history on that and then I probably will go to Customs and the
other agencies in Washington to get some written testimony and
response. So anticipate that they are going to respond to what
you are saying, so we can have a good back and forth.
Is there anybody from Customs here who would be able to
address that broader question of the border crossings at Big
Bend here today?
Mr. Longoria. I have Special Agent Ken Cates from BICE that
is here. I do not think he has been sworn in, but----
Mr. Souder. Does he have--he is in charge of El Paso, does
he go as far as----
Mr. Longoria. Which includes the west, yes.
Mr. Souder. Could you come forward, so we can--if you will
raise your right hand.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Mr. Kenneth Cates, is that right, C-a-t-e-s?
Mr. Cates. That is correct.
Mr. Souder. Special Agent in Charge, El Paso, for
investigative. I would like to have Mr. Deckert describe a
little bit and then if you have any comments on the border
crossings.
Mr. Deckert. OK, without going into stories about my aunt,
I would like to give you a little background.
I worked at Big Bend from 1975 to 1980 as the chief
naturalist down there, came back about 3 years ago as
superintendent.
The fellow who had been living over in Mexico and was the
owner of the restaurant in Boquillas, which was a traditional
place where people from the park would go over and have a meal,
buy a souvenir and come back into the park--it had been
traditional for generations, died not long after I got back
there. And I was concerned that with his informal leadership
status in the community, that perhaps the wrong element might
move in. And sure enough, not long after, we had some drug
sales in the park across from that crossing. And at that time,
we, the Park Service, closed down the crossing for a few months
because we wanted to make a point that was not acceptable and
we did not want that kind of element over there. And
subsequently we have had meetings and cooperation with the
State police of the State of Coahuila, who now patrol more
regularly up into that area and know of our concerns and want
to keep it safe for visitors to go over there.
Of course, 11 months ago, when the border crossings were
closed, all of them, they were saying that the reason for that
was because they had enough agents to do that now and patrol
those, but also because of September 11 and what had happened
and concern about terrorism after that.
Our concern was though that, as opposed to this area, which
is a huge population center, we are on the frontier of both
countries. There are no paved roads up to the villages or
anywhere near them across from Big Bend National Park, and
anywhere on the border is almost a crossing just like those
traditional border crossings. You close those three little
points on the border and you still have 245 miles where people
can continue to cross. And so our concern was with the
villagers over there in the villages who, for generations, had
made their living on tourist trade legally, that they would
have perhaps no other alternative than to leave, the villages
dry up, that opportunity for visitors to go over and enjoy that
culture would disappear or they perhaps would turn to illegal
activity.
So we have been working with Customs here in El Paso to
develop some sort of official way to open one or more of those
crossings and allow that to continue. As I said, with hopefully
friendly relations restored with those villages, that they
would be more likely to use legal means of making a living as
opposed to illegal means, and perhaps work with us in trying to
keep out the kind of element that we do not want to get into
this country.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Cates, would you like to make some comments
on this and where we stand in progress?
Mr. Cates. Well, it is a very complex problem, complicated
in large part due to the current Federal laws that mandate
entry into the United States, both for merchandise as well as
for individuals, be through approved and formally established
ports of entry. So that, particularly in the Big Bend area, in
essence that 245 mile border, to be in strict compliance with
the current Federal law, every entrant would have to go through
the port of entry at Presidio. And as has been pointed out
here, it just traditionally has not been--it is just not
feasible, you just cannot conduct your commerce, you cannot
conduct many just human necessities to be able to travel down
the river and make formal entry through the established POE
there, port of entry.
So the Customs Service or in our new configuration, has
submitted some proposals to our headquarters to try to address
that particular problem. A number of innovative issues are
being considered up in our office of rulings and regulations
now. They range from some specialized paroling of significant
or humanitarian type significant individuals into the United
States such as firefighters and law enforcement officials from
Mexico, as well as something as far reaching and innovative as
establishing a foreign arrival zone in the Big Bend area which
would give greater access to the now closed informal crossings.
But it is very difficult to balance the needs of the local
area with the needs of national security, which in large part
drove the closings of those historically informal crossings.
Mr. Souder. Knowing I am headed a little into a quagmire
and I am going to try not to get into this for too many
minutes, but I want to kind of get the parameters of it so we
know where we are headed from here, because this is an
interesting phenomena that while this is a dramatic example,
probably exists many places along the border, but with some
nuances that I would like to followup.
So first off, you are saying these crossing were illegal in
the first place. By informal, you mean illegal crossings.
Mr. Cates. That is correct.
Mr. Deckert. But also we had a memorandum of understanding
with U.S. Customs that allowed U.S. citizens to cross over and
come back for awhile, and we were operating under the
assumption that was in effect.
Mr. Souder. And when those crossings occur, were you--
without understanding, because I am not from here, only know a
little bit about the park, a little bit about the cities
there--are there communities on the U.S. side that are
grandfathered into the Big Bend Park where they were going to
visit or are they going up through the park to the highway
system in the United States?
Mr. Deckert. Well, when Mexicans came over at those
crossings, in most cases, they were going to the developed
areas in the park. There is a little grocery store----
Mr. Souder. To enjoy the resources of the park.
Mr. Deckert [continuing]. Gas station and so forth, and
then back across the border.
Mr. Souder. And is there a way when they came across that
they could have gone through the park, beyond the park and
would there have been a checkpoint at the roads coming out of
the park to make sure that was not a way for illegal
immigration or narcotics to move through an authorized route?
Is that why Customs, their concern on national security became
greater? Let me ask that question, Mr. Cates.
Mr. Cates. Well, actually I believe it was the Border
Patrol that, you know, is the entity tasked with closing those
borders, but that certainly is a factor in that it is a vast,
remote, very rugged area and there are no formally established
areas of ingress and egress that you could sort of choke off
illegal traffic. So once you get into the Big Bend area, you--
if you are successful, you certainly have access to I-10.
Mr. Souder. Let me try that question one more time because
it was--I mean that was part of the answer.
From the illegal border crossing points, were there
informal or legal roads that connected to the ways to get in
and out of the park?
Mr. Deckert. Yes.
Mr. Reyes. Mr. Chairman, can I--there are three types of
ports of entry. There are Class A, which is a 24-hour, fully
staffed one; there's a Class B that is open during designated
times and then there is a Class C, which is what we are talking
about here, which are the--it is not an illegal crossing. I
just want to make sure that gets on the record. It is an
understanding that in these remote areas, communities do not
have access to doctors, to shopping and those kinds of things,
so what is being characterized as informal crossing is
basically sanctioned by the Department of State. That part of
it I am not completely clear on, but it is sanctioned
government to government so that firefighters, so that doctors,
so that shopping and those kinds of things can be accommodated
in both ways.
Because interestingly enough in this area, in some of these
communities, the U.S. citizens that live on our side depend on
the Mexican stores and the Mexican community for medical
services and stuff like that, as remote as it is in there.
So I wanted to make sure that the chairman did not go away
with the wrong impression here, because there are those three
types of crossings.
Mr. Souder. But we have some places on the north border
like this and they are shut. One is near Seattle, which is a
community that is actually on a peninsula going back to Canada,
and they have to go through a border crossing, they can no
longer do the informal--and in Minnesota. And part of the key
question here is does this connect to a regular road. In other
words, I understand the need for some flexibility, does it
connect to a regular road?
Mr. Deckert. Yes. Conceivably people could go on the roads
up into the United States. But there are two Border Patrol
checkpoints on both of those major highways that go into and
out of the park.
Mr. Souder. So the Border Patrol checkpoint could catch
that.
I want to ask one more question on the Port Authority to
Mr. Longoria. In the south Texas part of the border, they are
clearly making a high percentage of the currency seizures that
are reported to the Federal Government right now, yet you have
more narcotics going back. Are you looking at more outbound
checkpoints or are you going to work with that? Because
presumably currency is coming back through here in even greater
amounts.
Mr. Longoria. Right. I guess we do not have the resources
to do as much of it as we want to do. We have been focusing
more on outbound under alert level orange, and we have been
somewhat successful. We are also looking for any neutrality
violations, firearms, that kind of thing, and work very closely
with the El Paso Police and the Sheriff's Office using
forfeiture fund moneys and so we set up special operations to
target southbound, but we do not have resources to do that all
the time. So I do not know if that answers your question, but
we are doing it, not as much as we would like to.
Mr. Souder. Because tracking the money is one of the main
ways to catch people.
Mr. Reyes, do you have any other questions?
Mr. Reyes. There are several things that I wanted to make
recommendations to you, Mr. Chairman. The first one is the
Border Patrol and other agencies, in particular the Border
Patrol, has a system of reporting that is called the G-23
Report. You still use it?
Mr. Beeson. Yes.
Mr. Reyes. It has broken down all the information that you
are interested in. The categories are divided in there for the
kinds of people that are arrested, male, female, children. The
last entry. I would recommend that you ask the Border Patrol
for the G-23 reports. It is a monthly report and your staff can
evaluate and analyze it and give you a synopsis of the
information that you are looking for.
Mr. Souder. Thanks.
Mr. Reyes. On everything from seizures to people they
arrest, people they encounter.
Mr. Souder. One of things--we were trying to figure out why
this border crossing has less currency seizures even though is
has more of the other.
Mr. Reyes. Right. So anyway, that's a recommendation.
The other thing I wanted to say--and I know that the
Sheriff and I hope the Chief of Police in the next panel, make
a comment on this because the High Intensity Drug Trafficking
Area designation for border communities, and particularly for
this west Texas area, that pot of money is being used to fund
many different things, including this year, things that are
being funded other places with the money from that account that
is desperately needed along the border region for the kinds of
reasons that you are hearing in this testimony. So I would
recommend--and I will be alert to the next panel to make those
issues clear to you, but that is one part of it.
The other one is that the State Criminal Alien Assistance
Program--and this is in reference to my colleague making the
comments about the impact that illegal immigration has had in
his community and his district. This is the program that we
provide money to local State governments to be able to
compensate for the impact of illegal immigration all across the
country.
Mr. Deal. No, just certain States. We do not get it.
Mr. Reyes. Well, you are eligible for it, you have to put
in for it, but you are eligible for it.
Mr. Deal. My understanding is it is only the top five.
Mr. Reyes. No, and I will work with you on this, but let me
also tell you that incredibly enough, this was a program that,
although it is very much--very important and very much needed
by our communities all across the country, that was targeted
for elimination by OMB and we successfully fought that plan to
do that.
We need to increasingly weigh in on these kinds of issues
because they affect the very kind of impact that you are making
a point here in this hearing. So I will be glad to provide you
the information on that.
And I will yield back my time, because I know----
Mr. Souder. Mr. Deal, do you have other questions?
Mr. Deal. I know we are running short on time and have two
more panels to do. Thank you all for being here.
Mr. Souder. Thank you each for your testimony, we will
followup with some written questions. Anything you would like
to submit additional, any charts and graphs you would like to
submit for the record, and then if you will work with us with
your workload and trying to respond to the written questions
that can fill out the record.
Thank you very much, each of you, for coming today and for
your testimony.
If the second panel could come forward: Mr. Carlos Leon,
chief, El Paso Police Department; Mr. Leo Samaniego, sheriff of
El Paso County Sheriff's Department. If you will remain
standing, we will do the oath, if you would raise your right
hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that each of our witnesses
responded in the affirmative. I welcome you here today and
thank you for having us in your wonderful community and
providing us with a safe visit thus far to El Paso.
We will start with Chief Leon.
STATEMENTS OF CARLOS LEON, CHIEF, EL PASO POLICE DEPARTMENT;
AND LEO SAMANIEGO, SHERIFF, EL PASO COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT
Mr. Leon. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of this
very critical subcommittee. I am Carlos Leon, the Chief of
Police for the El Paso Police Department.
The El Paso-Juarez borderplex encompasses about 2 million
people. Economic conditions and geographic terrain couple to
make a fertile ground for drug traffickers. Estimates are that
a very significant portion of all drugs entering the United
States do so through this region. This is evident by the many
large seizures in and around the area that are intercepted on
their way to larger metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles,
Chicago and New York.
The El Paso Police Department is one of the primary law
enforcement agencies in the region serving a population of over
600,000 with approximately 1150 officers. Federal and local
initiatives fund numerous innovative law enforcement efforts
attempting to stem the flow of drugs into the United States
through our ports of entry and other points between them.
However, the Rio Grande River does not deter smugglers and the
vast desert areas in the region provide easy access points
across the border.
Recent national events have diverted Federal, State and
local funds to ensure homeland security. Increased security at
international borders has caused drug trafficking organizations
to change their tactics as well as creating new challenges to
law enforcement agencies. Rather than transporting illegal
drugs through the ports of entry, drug smugglers are instead
choosing other points along the border by land and by air.
Marijuana is the drug most often passed through the El
Paso-Juarez area followed by cocaine and heroin. Other drugs
such as Rohypnol, Ecstasy and methamphetamines are also seen,
but with less frequency. These drugs are often warehoused in
stash houses in residential areas of the city. Local hotels and
motels are frequently used for clandestine drug transactions.
Drug smugglers use a variety of secret compartments and other
covert methods of bringing drugs into the United States
including a complex series of underground tunnels joining El
Paso and Juarez.
To effectively address the drug trafficking problem in the
area and ultimately prevent large amounts of drugs from
reaching the rest of the United States, the city of El Paso and
the El Paso Police Department need a significant increase in
resources. High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area [HIDTA] funding
is critical to our success. Increasing personnel alone will not
solve the problem. The department needs state-of-the-art
equipment and technology to improve law enforcement efforts in
remote areas, for conducting surveillance, and gathering
intelligence. Training opportunities are limited in the El Paso
area and because of our geographic isolation from most major
cities, require expensive travel costs and time away from duty.
To effectively stem the flow of narcotics through this area
and ultimately prevent large amounts of drugs from reaching the
rest of the United States, the city of El Paso and the El Paso
Police Department need a significant increase in personnel and
resources dedicated specifically to narcotics trafficking
reduction. Increasing personnel alone will not solve the
problem. The department is in need of state-of-the-art
equipment and technology to improve law enforcement efforts in
remote areas, for conducting surveillance and gathering
intelligence. Additional resources, such as prosecutors,
probation officers and judges, are needed to followup and
supplement law enforcement efforts.
HIDTA funding is critical to our success in combating drug
trafficking in the region. Due to Federal budget constraints,
our funding has remained level for 4 consecutive years, placing
increased burdens on local resources. Drug trafficking on the
international borders is not just a local problem. It is a
national crisis with far-reaching social and economic
ramifications. Furthermore, smugglers will bring anything
across the border if the price is right. As easily as they can
cross a large load of marijuana or cocaine, so could they bring
weapons of mass destruction--if they have not already.
State and local agencies are in the greatest need of
assistance as they shoulder the burden of law enforcement
efforts and prosecution of criminals. Investing in State and
local resources that are familiar with the situation, the
region and the systems currently in place would greatly affect
the flow of narcotics through El Paso. The El Paso Police
Department is tasked with not only protecting its citizens from
the threat of drug activities and related crimes, but with
protecting every major city in the United States from the drugs
that enter daily through the Juarez-El Paso corridor. If
success in curbing the drug trade in cities like Los Angeles,
Chicago and New York is to be achieved, we must start in El
Paso.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Souder. Thank you for your testimony. Sheriff
Samaniego, thank you for coming today.
[The prepared statement of Chief Leon follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0205.030
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0205.031
Mr. Samaniego. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman, members of
committee and Congressman Reyes, thank you very much for the
opportunity to testify before you today.
Realizing that our Nation's security is our No. 1 priority,
that does not diminish the problem that we have with drug
trafficking. In many ways, these two issues go hand in hand.
The very routes, methods of concealment and human resources
used by illicit organizations for drug trafficking and alien
smuggling are also a threat to our Nation's security.
The national drug abuse problem has a significant impact on
the community of El Paso, and the entire southwest border.
Drugs flowing across this border are, by and large, not staying
here. Drug trafficking is not a local problem, it is a national
problem, and it requires the attention of our Federal
Government. The failure to stop drug smuggling here today could
mean 1,000 kilograms of marijuana will end up on the streets of
St. Louis, Detroit, Atlanta or some other city in the United
States.
Efforts to secure our border against terrorism have not
curbed the use of the southwest border as the most significant
gateway of drugs being smuggled into the United States. Federal
resources have been expanded in cities to our north to combat
drug use and distribution, yet most of the drugs have
originated from this border.
If illicit organizations can bring in tons of narcotics
through this region and work a distribution network that spans
the entire country, then they can bring in the resources for
terrorism as well.
There are four issues that plague this area. First, the
Federal Government is expecting local agencies to assist with
the national drug problem.
Second, local agencies have been asked to add resources to
national security efforts.
Third, the Federal Government is expecting more of its
Federal agencies on the southwest border.
And fourth, local and Federal agencies have been
overwhelmed with manpower shortages that deal with these
issues.
My agency's efforts to assist with the national drug
problem is most clearly seen in our involvement in two
programs: The High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area and the
Edward Byrne Memorial Grant.
The HIDTA program in west Texas is an excellent example of
the cooperative efforts of local, State and Federal agencies
working together to address a problem. The West Texas HIDTA
Executive Committee has consistently developed strategies to
address the drug trafficking threat in our region. This success
is due to the local planning, decisionmaking and execution that
the HIDTA program embraces.
The achievement of the West Texas HIDTA, however, has been
limited by level funding. With an increase of only $150,000
over the past 4 years, combined with the increased costs in
services due to normal inflation, the West Texas HIDTA has been
forced to make cuts that impact the effectiveness of its multi-
agency initiatives.
The Edward Byrne Memorial Grant program has a long history
with my department. The El Paso County Metro Narcotics Task
Force has a successful history in battling local and regional
drug distributors in our area. This success is also threatened
by funding cuts for this program.
While all the Federal law enforcement agencies in this
region could use more resources, I will highlight several that
need your specific attention. Since September 11, 2001, several
agencies were reorganized to improve national security. The
first, as seen in this region, was the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. With a shift in priorities, the El Paso Office
of the FBI drastically reduced the number of narcotic
investigation groups. The impact of this has been enormous.
The Drug Enforcement Administration office in El Paso is
under-manned for the level of drug trafficking in this region.
It is inconceivable to think that the agency with a
responsibility of fighting this Nation's drug problem is so
poorly under-staffed in El Paso.
And in closing--I thought I had it down to 5 minutes, but
obviously I did not. [Laughter.]
Let me say that time is running out. I do not think it is
time to just ignore the problems that we are having here on the
border. Everybody is short-handed, they are short of resources
and I think the American people, the people in this community
for a fact, demand the best that we can give them.
Again, gentlemen, thank you for the opportunity to be here
with you.
[The prepared statement of Sheriff Samaniego follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you. And your full statement will be in
the record and your comments toward the end were very helpful
in your written.
Mr. Samaniego. Yes, sir.
Mr. Souder. I was going through it additionally, because
one of the dilemmas we have is that the--because we are all
under tremendous budget pressures and because it is so easy to
get into a political battle over the funding priorities, whose
deficits are bigger, I am betting my deficit is bigger than
your deficit. I mean I know it is even proportionally. Trying
to do that, often it is hard to get specific data. You gave us
some very good data here.
We have been trying to monitor what is actually happening
inside the FBI, reducing from six to two; is the DEA picking up
the slack? The answer is no, they are not picking up the slack
here. You say they have fewer agents than the FBI, in your
testimony.
We often ignore the importance of the U.S. Marshal's
Service. We are not able to say that in your verbal, but in the
written, it says this is the largest, highest number of Federal
warrants in the Nation for Federal marshals.
Mr. Samaniego. Yes, sir.
Mr. Souder. Has that office stayed stable? Is that
increasing, decreasing, do you know?
Mr. Samaniego. We have had the same number of deputy U.S.
Marshals in our Fugitive Task Force from the inception of that
grant. They have not been able to put anyone else there. We
have not been able to because of the lack of funding.
Mr. Souder. What is the functional result, when you do not
have enough U.S. Marshals? What is the functional result of not
having enough marshals?
Mr. Samaniego. There are so many outstanding warrants that
there is no way, with the number of people that we have
assigned to the task force--and it is the U.S. Marshal, my
department, I believe the Police Department, Border Patrol and
other agencies participate--there is no way that we can keep up
with the warrants that are generated almost daily. People not
showing for court, etc.
Mr. Souder. In other words, it does not do us any good to
pass laws, it does not do us any good to say we are going to do
this, if in fact we cannot go get them. That is in effect what
you are----
Mr. Samaniego. We have not been able to put them all in
jail within 1 year, let me put it that way. There are just too
many of them.
Mr. Souder. You said that with the funding you have been
forced to reduce the number of personnel assigned to the
HIDTAs. How many did you have?
Mr. Samaniego. Yes, sir, we have been getting level funding
every year, which means we get the same amount, and the cost of
operations goes up every year and the salaries, fringe
benefits, gasoline and so forth. Somewhere along the line, you
have to cut something and usually it is an investigator, maybe
equipment, something they need to be able to do their jobs,
sir.
Mr. Souder. So have you had a reduction in personnel? Your
testimony said you reduced----
Mr. Samaniego. Yes, we have.
Mr. Souder [continuing]. From four to three?
Mr. Samaniego. I do not have the specific numbers. We just
went through a reorganization.
Mr. Souder. If you could provide that to us.
Mr. Samaniego. Yes, sir.
Mr. Souder. We will be meeting with the HIDTA tomorrow I
believe.
Chief Leon, have you seen increased pressures on your
department, has it stayed about the same, what changes have you
seen? How long have you been chief?
Mr. Leon. I have been with the Police Department 29 years,
I have been chief for about 4\1/2\.
Mr. Souder. You have a lot of experience.
Mr. Leon. Yes, I was born here and raised here in El Paso.
There has been a tremendous increase, it is not slowing
down. We have to assign an inordinate amount of our personnel
to work the narcotics arena, so it is taking its toll in what I
think is a national problem rather than a local problem. In
many cases, we are not reimbursed for all the calls that we
handle at the international bridges because it does not mean
just one police car going out and taking care of--whatever the
threshold is, we pick it up. So it is a whole area of personnel
that we have to use and store the drugs before the court date.
Mr. Souder. You mentioned twice in your testimony, showing
the importance to you, on this equipment question. I presume
you have gone through most of the programs. Is it more you do
not have enough equipment, is it that there are certain things
that you need that you are not getting? We are obviously
redoing the one grant program underneath the Office of ONDCP,
we are about to mark that up again. Is there something in there
that you are not getting or is it more just not enough dollars?
Mr. Leon. It is a little bit of both. We do not have enough
of the equipment that we do have. We cannot afford some of the
more sophisticated surveillance equipment. We have an aviation
unit that is in dire need of parts, we have 1960 vintage
helicopters and that we obtain through a surplus program. The
parts that are needed to keep them up in the air are not being
produced any more, so we have to rely--now we are looking for
another purchase that really the city cannot afford, but it is
very critical that we get these aircraft up in the air because
they are a tremendous help insofar as stemming the tide.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Reyes.
Mr. Reyes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Sheriff, just for the record, when you say that you have
been flat-lined in terms of the budget over the course of the
last 4 or 5 years under HIDTA, is it because there is no money,
no additional money in HIDTA or is it because there is
additional money but it is going other places?
Mr. Samaniego. Well, a little bit of both, sir. Let me just
give you an example about the Southwest Border HIDTA, which is
one HIDTA encompassing the entire southwest border, it is
California, Arizona, New Mexico, west Texas and south Texas. We
are west Texas. When the first HIDTAs were funded, or the
Southwest Border HIDTA was first funded, I believe it was 1991,
each partnership--that is what they call us--received $6
million. And let me read what they are getting now, this is the
2002 fiscal year HIDTA funding.
Arizona is getting 24 percent of the total amount, which is
an increase of $7 million, they are getting $11.2 million.
California is getting a little over $11 million. South Texas is
getting $8.5 million. New Mexico is getting $7.7 million and El
Paso--and I think everybody in the world considers this the
primary smuggling area into the United States--we are receiving
$7.6 million. So we are hurt in this respect.
Last year, they had almost $1 million in supplemental
funding. California got $500,000, south Texas got $250,000,
Arizona got $47,000, New Mexico and west Texas did not get one
penny.
Mr. Reyes. Do you have the statistics in terms of workload
for the corresponding areas that you just read the funding
figures for?
Mr. Samaniego. No, sir, I have no idea what they produce. I
think El Paso is one of the--or this West Texas HIDTA is one of
the highest producing HIDTAs in the United States.
Mr. Reyes. Would it be possible to get those?
Mr. Samaniego. I think we can; yes, sir.
Mr. Reyes. And provide them for the committee for the
record.
Mr. Samaniego. Yes, sir.
Mr. Reyes. Thanks.
There are a couple of other things that I wanted to make
sure we got on the record, Mr. Chairman. One is that not only
are U.S. Marshals understaffed, but remember that it does not
do us any good to have the agencies that are out there
arresting the people that are violating the laws, we have to
have the marshals to be able to transport them, we have to have
the money to be able to fund the jails. And I want the Sheriff
to comment on that. But we also have to have the prosecutors
and the judges.
We have been traditionally neglected in all of these areas
along the whole border region. And that is--we will furnish you
the statistics, my office has them, I will furnish them to you
for the record, but I wanted the Sheriff to comment on the
detention part of it and the amount of money that you get and
the amount of money that really local taxpayers have to eat
because of the lack of Federal funding.
Mr. Samaniego. First of all, let me begin by saying that
the SCAAP, which is the State Criminal Alien Assistance
Program, was finally funded in 1998. In El Paso, we have been
getting a little over $1 million every year. This year, we have
I believe almost 13,000 men and women that were illegal aliens
that were charged with some crime and they wound up in our jail
and yet, if we follow the guidelines of the SCAAP program, only
589 are eligible to be thrown into the pool nationwide, hoping
that we get a little bit of money back to El Paso County. They
also cut the funding from $550 million, which is what we had
last year, and even at that amount we got about 10 cents to the
dollar. Now they cut it down to $300 million and everybody in
the United States will be submitting names. They have added
more things that eliminate some of the prisoners. Now we have
gone from 3 days in jail to 4 days in jail. And every time they
do that, you eliminate a whole bunch of them.
We have a contract with a U.S. Marshal to house pretrial
Federal inmates and they, of course, pay El Paso County for
that at the rate of $57.98 a day and we have been averaging a
little over 800 per day that we keep here. But there is no
profit margin there for El Paso County. The Marshals will send
in the auditors, they will audit the cost, what it costs to
keep one inmate in jail and this is the figure that they come
up with, not the one that I say this is what we are going to
charge you. It is the actual cost and they cannot give us one
penny over that. So right now, we are having at least 800
daily. And it is a burden on El Paso County and at the same
time a blessing, I guess, they do bring in several million
dollars to El Paso County.
Mr. Reyes. Again, reiterating what the Sheriff said about
the number of cases, about 13,000 cases where illegal or
undocumented people were involved and of those, he got
reimbursement for about 500.
Mr. Samaniego. We have not got it, Mr. Congressman, we have
not got it yet. They are still going through the process of
everyone registering on line and then submitting the
information that they require. We probably will not get--maybe
July or August we will know what we are getting, and it is
going to be minimal.
Mr. Reyes. But that is going to be about 500 of those
cases, right?
Mr. Samaniego. We will have--we put in for 589.
Mr. Reyes. 589 out of 13,000.
Mr. Samaniego [continuing]. Out of 13,000 that met the
criteria for partial reimbursement.
Mr. Reyes. So that nets out less than 10 cents on the
dollar that is spent by the El Paso County, that gets
reimbursed through a Federal program, where the responsibility
is on the Federal Government.
Mr. Samaniego. Yes.
Mr. Reyes. Because they are charging the Border Patrol, the
Customs, the INS with maintaining the integrity of our border
area. They have not been able to, so that generates 13,000
cases, of which only 500 or so are able to qualify for SCAAP
funding.
With that, I will yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Samaniego. We are in the process of probably adding
additional beds to our two jails in order to meet the demand
for space. And this is--right now, there has been some changes
made with the U.S. Marshal and I understand there is a
different system, another individual that will deal with the
counties to find beds for pretrial Federal inmates. We have not
been able to talk to this individual. I cannot move forward
with the building until we know what is going to happen,
because we have to be assured that they will be able to bring
more inmates to El Paso County. They keep telling me they have
1,400-1,500, they have them scattered all over west Texas. They
would love to have them here in El Paso, but we would have to
build more beds, and the county is willing to do that.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Deal.
Mr. Deal. I would like to thank both of you gentlemen for
coming today and I want to tell you that your experiences are
not unique just to the border. Sheriff, 40 percent of the
prisoners in my county jail are illegal aliens. We are so
overcrowded with illegal aliens in my county jail that my
sheriff, who met with me about 3 weeks ago, he is having to
farm prisoners out to other counties. We are paying other
counties more per day to house our prisoners than we are being
reimbursed by the Federal Government for holding their own
prisoners. So it is a huge problem, it is a problem everywhere.
Let me walk through a few things though that I would like
to understand.
Mr. Leon, do you have a municipal jail or do you use the
county jail facilities?
Mr. Leon. We use the county.
Mr. Deal. OK. When you have someone coming across at a
border crossing, who has drugs, etc., one or both of you
respond to that I assume with your units, is that correct?
Mr. Leon. Yes.
Mr. Deal. Are you the initial detaining law enforcement
agency that detains those individuals initially?
Mr. Samaniego. No, sir, let me explain. If it is under the
threshold--and I do not know if you are familiar with that
word, but if someone comes in, for example, or tries to cross
the border with 48 pounds of marijuana, it falls under the 50
pound threshold that the Federal Government has.
Mr. Deal. So they will not take the case as a Federal case?
Mr. Samaniego. They will not take the case, they call us or
the police department. We respond, we pick up the individual,
store the vehicle, bring in the evidence and so forth and
charge him with a State crime.
Now there is another program that I think our Congressman
Reyes is very familiar with and instrumental in getting for El
Paso and the southwest border, is the reimbursement for costs
to house those individuals as well as the prosecution, all the
expenses of going through the judicial process.
Mr. Deal. Do you have an estimate as to the number of cases
or percentage of cases that actually come under your State
prosecution jurisdiction versus the Federal? Do you have any
opinions or numbers on that?
Mr. Samaniego. The last figure that I heard, and I may be
off, I believe was between 300 and 400 cases a year.
Mr. Deal. That come to the State level prosecution.
Mr. Samaniego. Through the State, here in El Paso, yes.
Mr. Deal. And that is because--one of the phenomena we are
hearing is that the size of the shipments across the border are
decreasing and the quantities--more of them, but smaller in
sizes. One of the implications that would have, of course, is
that if they are under that threshold limit, they are going to
put greater pressure on local jurisdictions versus the Federal
jurisdictions. So obviously that is going to affect your
operations, I would think.
Mr. Leon. Absolutely.
Mr. Samaniego. Yes, sir. I believe at one time, they were
confiscating the load with the vehicle and then sending the
individual back across. I do not think that is acceptable, so
we came into the picture and--but there are a lot of vehicles
that come across with 46, 47, 48, 49 pounds. They seem to know
exactly how much they can put in there and maybe the ordeal or
the penalty may be less than what they would get otherwise in
Federal court.
Mr. Deal. How do you all operate on the forfeiture
provisions? What agreements do you have with regard to
forfeitures? I would assume that if it is a case that is
exclusively going to be prosecuted in the State court system,
do you get all of the forfeitures in those cases or do you have
agreements worked out with sharing of forfeitures, either
confiscated vehicles, cash, etc? What is your agreement?
Mr. Samaniego. We do confiscate the vehicle and if it is
awarded to El Paso County, we will auction it off. Most of them
are junkers, they know there is a possibility they are going to
get arrested and the vehicle seized, so most of them are 1980
models.
Mr. Deal. Is that determination made, there again, based on
whether or not you are going to have to handle the case at the
State level? Is that the determining factor?
Mr. Samaniego. Well, if we get the case, the only asset is
the old automobile really, there is no money involved or
anything else.
Mr. Deal. What about if you have a seizure of money.
Mr. Samaniego. Well, we do get quite a bit of drug
forfeitures awarded to El Paso County from DEA or the FBI or
Customs, agencies that we work with, and let me tell you, that
money is a blessing. We are able to buy equipment, we are able
to train people. If it was not for that, we would be in bad
shape.
Mr. Deal. So that is money you get on top of the other
reimbursement programs that we have talked about here.
Mr. Samaniego. Yes, sir. If we participate in a case with
any of the other Federal agencies, and there is a seizure of
funds or automobiles or homes, we are entitled to a portion of
it.
Mr. Deal. Is there a formula that you follow on that or is
it case-by-case determination?
Mr. Samaniego. I believe the Federal Government has a
formula that they use.
Mr. Leon. Congressman, as far as the Police Department, we
have a tremendous working relationship, of course, with the
Sheriff's Department and the FBI/DEA. When it is a Federal
seizure, most of time it works out to about 80/20 percent, we
pick up about 80 percent of whatever was confiscated. When it
goes through the State courts, we have an agreement with the
district attorney here where for their cost, it is about 25
percent, so it is 25/75 percent.
Mr. Deal. OK.
Mr. Leon. And I agree with the sheriff, it is a tremendous
help insofar as augmenting our budget for training purposes and
what-have-you. But I heard earlier in some questioning as far
as what are we doing, is there money coming back--there is a
tremendous amount of money coming back into Mexico and we are
intercepting some of that. We started what we call the GRAB
unit, ground, rail and air, and again, it is multi-agency, it
is a HIDTA initiative and we have been able to in this fiscal
year alone, we have intercepted just in that one unit, over
$700,000 in cash.
Mr. Deal. And you share that forfeitures at the local
level, some of it going to the Federal I assume.
Mr. Leon. Well depending on how it is staffed, some of it
will be Federal, some of it will go to the State and we share
with the DA or if it's Federal, then it goes 80 percent/20
percent.
Mr. Deal. Thank you.
Mr. Leon. Yes, sir.
Mr. Samaniego. Every time we have a seizure and we are
involved, we have to put in a request to share in the
forfeiture.
Mr. Deal. Yes.
Mr. Samaniego. So it is case-by-case.
Mr. Deal. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. Let me briefly for the record state
a couple of things on HIDTA, some of which we may be able to
fix a little, some of it is far beyond our ability to fix. Some
of it I am exasperated with.
We are having a major discussion right now whether there
should or should not be a Southwest Border HIDTA. I, former
Speaker Hastert when he chaired this subcommittee, and others,
strongly pushed the last administration under General McCaffrey
in particular, to organize the southwest border. There was some
resistance initially not only in the HIDTA but in the
management of the southwest border. Because logic would tell
anybody looking at the border to say this needs to be looked at
broadly, not narrowly, that each subsection is going to argue
that they need more because there is never enough dollars,
there is never enough to meet it. But somebody has to be
looking at a broader perspective and say OK, if we harden over
here, they are going to move over here; if we harden over here,
they are going to move over here; and to think ahead. Every
baby boomer like myself was raised under Vietnam and always
felt like the guerilla guys are always two steps ahead of us,
we are one behind, how do we think ahead and anticipate the
next move, not just react. That is the concept of trying to do
it.
In the process of trying to do that, some Senators and some
Congressmen have more clout in the Appropriations Committee,
have more clout over here or there, and it does not fully make
sense to look at how the dollars are divided along the border.
It is more of you look at the different States and try to
figure out how to combine States. Partly what happened since we
started the HIDTA program is Houston got a HIDTA, Dallas got a
HIDTA for north Texas and all of a sudden Texas started to get
more HIDTA dollars because the Arizona border HIDTA already had
Tucson and Phoenix as subparts of it. So when new Texas HIDTAs
came up, the Senators from the other States are saying Texas is
getting more dollars. So some of your dollars have been
diverted to other parts of Texas in the original funding
formula because those HIDTAs were not there. So it is not that
the dollars are not coming to Texas, it is that the more
populous areas of Texas and their legislators were stealing it
from--bottom line, not literally, but you know what I mean--
were taking it from it in the distribution of the border
States.
Furthermore, New Mexico hardly has any border and now
Albuquerque and Santa Fe are in the top of their HIDTA and the
question is, is this a border HIDTA and do we have a border
strategy. We are trying to decide whether to wall off
subsections so the appropriators cannot get at it, to move it
around. In addition, quite frankly, the program is supposed to
be high intensity drug trafficking Areas, not high intensity
usage areas.
I had an offer early on to make my area a HIDTA, but I did
not take it because I thought the program was supposed to be
drug trafficking areas. Yes, drug trafficking occurs
everywhere, but the question is how do we prioritize on a
national perspective. But Tip O'Neill's old adage, all politics
are local, has got--whenever you see a huge bundle of money,
everybody is in it. And I honestly do not know whether we are
going to get this unscrambled.
Clearly in narcotics if we do not control the south border,
it expands and becomes exponentially more of a problem north.
But do not hold your breath that we are going to be able to fix
the HIDTA problems. We will probably deal with it a little. I
know the drug czar understands--Director Walters--understands
the pressures in this concept, but whether we get this redone
with all of the fingers in the pie and the political reality of
the situation, I do not know; is the answer to your question.
So we will do the best we can given the budget pressures we
have and it is very hard to say OK, Houston, by the way, you do
not have a problem, that is one of the biggest cities in the
country, they have a huge drug problem. They tell us oh, yeah,
the big loads are coming into there, they are moving, they are
jumping the border. It is very difficult to sort through. But I
wanted to share with you because you are at the point of one of
the major crossings in the whole system and I wanted to share
with you the complexity of why it is so hard as individual
Congressmen to look at it and try to fix it. You know, you can
put as much pressure as you want on your Congressman and he is
only going to be able, quite frankly, to fight say Senator
Domenici, Congressman Kolbe, who is the appropriations
cardinal, Senator Kyl in Arizona--we each do what we can and in
the House, we have to get in little packs in order to--clusters
of us to be able to battle a Senator over here. It is not an
easy process, he is working hard to do that, we are trying to
look at the overview. But do not hold your breath on this one,
this is very hard to try to--the HIDTA program has moved in
ways none of us intended it to do.
I also know that every community in the country with
illegal immigrants and narcotics is struggling with jail space,
struggling with reimbursement, struggling with different kinds
of challenges. Your numbers are huge and what we have to figure
out in a national perspective is if we do not deal with it at
the border, it is only exponentially going to increase past
that.
I do not get elected by the people in El Paso, I get
elected by the people in Indiana. The people in Indiana see
their local problems and do not necessarily see the full
connection to the border at El Paso no matter how much I want
to talk about it. With the local sheriff saying my jail is
overcrowded here and there, I am elected by them, that is the
dilemma we face in the political system.
Hearings like this help raise it. Statistics like to give a
13,000/589 number probably overwhelms most people's numbers, it
is helpful to understand. And then when we say by the way,
there are people there 10 times and you are not picking them
up--well, where would you put them. It becomes a fundamental
challenge for members who ask us that. That is helpful to
understand.
I would like to also ask for the record, from my knowledge
of the border, and just trying to figure out how this works,
and maybe Chief Leon could address this as well, Sheriff, with
the possible exception of San Ysidro, as you move east from
there it is less, this has the most population on the U.S. side
at the immediate border crossing. There are some cities back up
clearly if you are going toward Phoenix or going toward San
Antonio. What are some of the unique challenges you face
because it is not as though there is a buffer zone before you
get to the city? Furthermore, to an outsider trying to figure
out how to drive around this area, you are clearly going along
and Mexico is to my right; no, Mexico is to my left; no, Mexico
is north of me. Could you explain some of the challenges that
you face in local law enforcement with just the intermingling
and the ability to bring in narcotics, how in the world would
you deal with terrorism--one guy trying to bring across
something?
Mr. Leon. You know, Congressman, there are smugglers who do
very well--there will be situations where they will stick a
duffel bag through a culvert and there will be a car waiting
and within seconds it is gone and they just run back into
Mexico.
Mr. Souder. Would you elaborate on what you mean by the
tunnels?
Mr. Leon. It is a sewage system that runs even to the heart
of downtown El Paso, huge tunnels in some places where you can
even drive a truck through.
Now one of the problems that we have here in El Paso is
flooding when it does rain because they have grates, some of
those tunnels have grates in them and of course, the debris
will collect and it will just flood certain portions of the
city. So those smugglers will smuggle people, they will smuggle
narcotics, they will smuggle anything they want through that
tunneling system. And this is something that our mayor is
addressing, we are working with the Federal agencies to address
this issue.
We are within, as you just mentioned, seconds of Juarez,
where we used to have a tremendous auto theft problems here. In
2 minutes they are across the border, many times we would see
them drive it across the border and there is nothing we could
do in most instances. Now, we do not have the problem that we
used to. I think Dallas, San Antonio, Tucson, Albuquerque have
a much bigger problem in auto theft side as compared to El
Paso. But because of the proximity, there is an area in El
Paso, where we have citizens assaulted if their car breaks down
on a certain street. Now we are working very closely with the
Border Patrol and that seems to be easing away.
As you know, just some months ago we had some Federal
agents assaulted. So it does add tremendously to our burden,
where other cities would not worry about their tunneling under
the city because there is no smuggling going on under there,
but we do.
Mr. Souder. Sheriff, do you have anything to add?
Mr. Samaniego. We have somewhat of a little different
problem than the city police officers do. We patrol a lot of
rural areas and right now, the closer you are to the center of
El Paso, the more Border Patrol you see along the border with
Operation Hold the Line, and let me say that I think they have
done a tremendous job reducing the number of people that were
crossing into El Paso, and the crime rate has gone down as a
result. I always gave them credit for that. It was our
Congressman that started that process or that concept.
But the farther you get from downtown El Paso, you start
seeing wider gaps between Border Patrol units or any other law
enforcement, so there is a tremendous opportunity for anyone
that is waiting on the other side, waiting for the Border
Patrol car to go by and then they give the signal and here
comes a bunch of people on foot or trying to drive across the
river bed.
So I do not think with the manpower that the Border Patrol
has or we have, there is no way that we can control the border.
And that scares me. Anyone can come across and they can bring
whatever they wish to bring with them. I think it is
something--we keep talking about this war on narcotics or the
war on drugs, but we have not really committed the troops that
are needed for everyone here to do the job. Every individual or
every pound of narcotics that leaves El Paso, somebody else is
going to have to deal with the problems. Everything that we
stop here, you do not have to worry about somebody else having
to work a case or pick up somebody with an overdose, etc.
The problem is here. They have increased Federal manpower
in almost every city north of here. Yet, this is where the
drugs originate. They go in all directions. I think it makes
sense to take a little more notice of what is going on here and
do something about it.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Reyes, do you have any other comments?
Mr. Reyes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to make a
couple of observations for the record.
First of all, the chief and the sheriff made mention of the
uniqueness of the issues and the problems that they have to
confront because of the proximity of the border. Literally, if
you will go to Anapra, which is about 10 minutes away from
here, you will see that the railroad tracks parallel the border
area, in some areas as close as you and I are sitting here to
the front row of the auditorium. We have had the distinction of
being probable the last area in the country that systematically
was experiencing railroad hijackings. They would stop those
trains in that area, they would dump cargo from the railroad
boxcars and drag it across the border. We are talking about
everything from tires to clothing, to television sets and there
is a lot of goods that are shipped by train right through this
very area.
The FBI agents that the chief was talking about actually
were working an operation in that area that I am describing to
you and got badly mauled and beat up, almost killed, by this
gang of train hijackers.
Those are the kinds of issues and problems that
collectively law enforcement agencies have to deal with here.
The only thing I would ask the sheriff to clear up is when he
mentioned the word troops, you were not talking about military.
Mr. Samaniego. No, sir, no.
Mr. Reyes. OK, good.
Mr. Samaniego. I do not think the military--and I have all
the respect in the world for what they do, they are trained to
kill, fight wars. We are dealing with a different situation
here, this is not a war where everybody is shooting at each
other. It takes a very special, well-trained individual to work
the border, to do--and we have had a couple of incidents where
young Marines were placed on the border and the results were
tragic. I do not think we need them on the border. We need to
increase the Border Patrol, the Customs, Immigration, all the
other agencies that deal with the problem of now terrorism on
top of everything else.
Mr. Reyes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Deal.
Mr. Deal. I am not going to another round of questions, but
I do want to thank all of you for being here and thank you for
what you do.
Mr. Souder. I too want to thank you for all you do. Like
you said, anything you intercept means it is not in my home
area or somewhere else, somebody is not getting killed. We hear
anywhere in the Nation where we go, where we hold a hearing,
everybody we have talked to, 75 to 85 percent of all crime is
drug and alcohol related, whether it is child support payments,
bankruptcy, child abuse, spouse abuse as well as direct drug-
related crimes. And some of these leftists around the country
who act like we should back off of narcotics and everything
would be just fine--our families and kids and communities would
be a wreck if it was not for the work that you and others in
law enforcement are doing. And it is hard enough to do the
battle now and we thank you for your efforts.
With that, we will move to panel No. 3. Mr. Bob Cook,
president of the Greater El Paso Chamber of Commerce; Mr. Ruben
Garcia, Truancy Prevention Specialist, Ysleta Independent
School District and Mr. Jose Luis Soria, Clinical Deputy
Director, Aliviane Drug Treatment Center. If you would please
stand and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that each of the witnesses
responded positively.
How do you say your school district?
Mr. Garcia. Ysleta [pronouncing].
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much for coming. It has been a
long hearing. You have the advantage of having heard the
others. I very much appreciate you participating in this and
making sure we round out--we have some hearings where we focus
directly on drug treatment, we have had hearings where we were
focusing--because we also have oversight over the Commerce
Department--on trade. But when we try to come in, we try to do
a holistic view to make sure the hearing record picks up the
diversity of the challenge in prevention and treatment and
trade, so that we do not have the hearing record just look like
our only focus is on law enforcement, which is a critical
component and is a direct oversight responsibility of this
committee.
So Mr. Cook, you are first up.
STATEMENTS OF BOB COOK, PRESIDENT, GREATER EL PASO CHAMBER OF
COMMERCE; RUBEN GARCIA, TRUANCY PREVENTION SPECIALIST, YSLETA
INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT; AND JOSE LUIS SORIA, CLINICAL
DEPUTY DIRECTOR, ALIVIANE DRUG TREATMENT CENTER
Mr. Cook. Chairman Souder, Vice Chairman Deal, Congressman
Reyes, thank you for this opportunity. We appreciate that you
are taking into consideration the concerns of business and
commerce as we deal with these issues.
My name is Bob Cook, I am the president and CEO of the
Chamber and our Chamber represents over 1,100 businesses in the
El Paso region. Our primary function is to develop a regional
economy that creates jobs, that expands the tax base and
improves the quality of life for all the citizenry in this
region. And on behalf of the Greater El Paso Chamber of
Commerce, I would like to welcome you to our community.
Until I realized I was taking the oath, I was prepared to
tell you we are the largest international border community
anywhere in the world, but I guess I must change that to we
believe we are the largest international border community
anywhere in the world. Our borderplex here consists of over 2
million population and, as Congressman Reyes suggested earlier,
the real number is probably somewhere between 2\1/2\ and 3
million people. We are home to approximately 1,000
manufacturing operations on both sides of the border. Many of
these manufacturing operations relate to one another. A plant
in El Paso will sometimes supply multiple plants with certain
component parts in the city of Juarez. Over the centuries, El
Paso has been a trade route linking the north to the south,
east to the west for native tribes, Spanish explorers, western
settlers and today's global commerce.
I am not going to go into all of my written testimony but I
do want to hit some highlights and try to paint a picture for
you with the map that I have provided you with there, and you
might want to take out your map and I will talk about some
things on there in just a few moments.
Our community has capitalized on the opportunity to grow a
manufacturing and trade-related economy based on geographic
strength. In 2001, more than 668,000 commercial vehicles
crossed our bridges. About 20 percent of all NAFTA trade
crossed into the United States through one of our ports of
entry here in El Paso. In that year, the goods imported through
El Paso valued approximately $22.7 billion while exports
through El Paso going southbound were valued at approximately
$16 billion.
Now look at the map. I want to try to paint a picture for
you here and I hope this is not too elementary, I certainly do
not want to be. But I think it is important to understand the
vital relationship between El Paso and Juarez.
As you look at this particular map, it is very difficult
when you first look at it, to see where one city stops and the
next one begins. But in this particular map--and you may need
to help me with the colors here because I am color blind--the
upper portion of the map, the light blue areas, I believe that
is light blue, is El Paso. And then the beige colored area to
the south is our sister city of Juarez, Mexico. You can see the
extensive transportation linkages that exist throughout this
region, how they interconnect with one another and I want you
to see that the relationship between our two cities is just as
vital as the relationships that exist between Minneapolis and
St. Paul, between Dallas and Fort Worth, between Chattanooga
and those northern communities of Georgia, there along the
State line, and Washington, DC, and Arlington, VA.
And imagine, if you will, as you think about those
communities and you think about how our communities are inter-
related, there are literally four bridges that connect our two
communities, and at some point as travelers go across those
bridges, they are going to be stopped by a Federal agent and
those Federal agents are asking questions and their vehicles
are being subjected to inspection. And by the way, we believe
that those inspectors are legitimate and necessary, so this is
not an argument against what is going on. They are legitimate
and necessary inspection and interdiction efforts that are
occurring on those bridges. And we understand that national
security and the health of our Nation is at risk.
But they have a tremendous impact on us, nonetheless. And
that impact is measured often in lost time and productivity,
because there are business relationships and business
transactions, legitimate business transactions that are
occurring back and forth across those bridges on a daily basis.
There are family and friendship relationships that are trying
to occur back and forth across those bridges. There are
children trying to attend school back and forth across those
international bridges. And vehicles spend sometimes hours at a
time idling on those bridges. And again, the impact is measured
in lost time and productivity.
There are environmental issues due to vehicular emissions
there, and frankly, there is just a great disincentive for
legitimate commerce and passage to take place.
What I will say is I have a lot of things in my written
testimony. We see the answer is not in stopping these
inspections or these interdictions but making them better
through technology, and we talk a lot about technology that we
are piloting here on this part of the border and the need for
increased staffing at these ports of entry.
We are proud of the relationship by and large that we have
had with the Federal agencies here on this part of the border
to help expedite the movement of legitimate people and
legitimate commerce back and forth.
If I could make just one other statement. One of the
technologies that we have implemented here is called a
dedicated commuter lane where individuals are going through
criminal background checks and other types of rigorous
inspection to determine that they are low risk for traveling
through a special dedicated lane between the cities of El Paso
and Juarez. As of right now, we have over 15,000 users
registered and approximately 10,000 vehicles. And it is
interesting to note that by using this technology during peak
hours, we are able to clear more traffic through that one lane
that exists on one international bridge than in El Paso's
largest international bridge with all 10 lanes open. So it is a
great testimony to the success of pre-clearance technologies.
We are advocating for the same kinds of things for cargo and
even looking at it for mass transit on our international
bridges.
And by the way, the dedicated commuter lane that does exist
on our downtown bridge, our Chamber of Commerce owns it. We saw
this as a huge need to help expedite the movement of people
back and forth across our border and we invested more than $2.2
million to build that lane and its facilities and we lease it
back to the Federal Government.
Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. It was a little bit unfortunate
example to pick, Chattanooga in Nathan's district in the north
part of Georgia, because every time I try to drive from Indiana
to Florida I go through and the first thing when you come into
his district you see this monument, the sign, for the
Chickamauga Battlefield where they tried to kill the last time
the Yankees tried to go down through his district coming from
Chattanooga. [Laughter.]
Mr. Garcia.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cook follows:]
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Mr. Garcia. Thank you very much. My name is Ruben Garcia
from Ysleta Independent School District and El Paso Independent
School District. It is certainly an honor and a privilege to be
here before you.
Congressman, I would like to thank your staff, because I
was one of those late-comers that you were gracious in giving
me 24 hours to put something together.
I am giving a different skew here. The impact of drug trade
on the population of the city, which is the 21st largest in the
United States and the fourth largest city in Texas, and what I
tried to do is--I have been working in this area for around 30
years--categorize into four basic areas which constitute
education, income, health and quality of life. I think you did
a pretty good job, Congressman, of giving a synopsis of the
impact it has once--although we are not with law enforcement, I
think they have done a great job, but the fact of the matter is
they do get across and it is having a very negative impact in
our communities.
I am not going to go over my testimony, which is there.
What I did do last night is I did some additional points of
interest that I would like to share.
Traffickers are using minors to carry drugs across the
border, known as mules, and because the penalty to minors is
small, they are usually released back into Mexico the next day.
Also, heroin is inexpensive right now. We are experiencing many
new heroin addictions on both sides of the border, Juarez,
Mexico and El Paso. One quarter of a gram of heroin dose used
to be $25. Now you can get it on the streets anywhere in Juarez
for about $5.
Many drive-bys committed by American youth along the border
are committed while high on glue or other inhalants, a cheap
high. Every Friday and Saturday, you see thousands of American
youth cross into Mexico to dance, drink and get drugged, known
as the three Ds.
Along the border, we have youth that belong to tagging
crews, the party crews, drugs are very much part of this
phenomenon through parties called raves.
Drug pushing along the border is a must if youth go into
gangland of importance, so the more they get into, jump-ins,
drugs and criminal activity is a big factor. In border cities
such as ours, youth take pride in drug accessibility. They
proudly wear this by brandishing a three dot tattoo on their
bodies, which means my life on drugs.
By the way, Ricky Martin used in his movie and song, which
they glamorize. It is really sad. Many youth gang jump-ins are
done while girls and boys are under the influence of Rophypnol
or downers. Many times the girls are gang raped as part of a
ritual and many times without their consent.
It is well known that drug trafficking along the border
brings into play many unique and tough situations for our
youth.
In conclusion, I would just like to say that unfulfilled
needs and expectations have an effect not only on the youth,
but also on society which has lost the talent and contributions
of a substantial portion of our generation. Society pays in
economic terms as these youth are treated for substance abuse,
incarcerated for criminal activity and enter the welfare
system. Society pays in the sociological and emotional terms
when it produces fewer stable marriages, fewer productive
workers and few law-abiding citizens.
To stop the cycle of poverty, poor health and illiteracy,
society must address the impact of the border substance abuse
and drug dealing with El Paso youth. The cost is immeasurably
unacceptable.
Thank you for letting me make these comments.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Garcia follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Could you just, for the record at this point,
this really is not a question, but you focused on a number of
very specific as well as a few general points. Could you tell
us a little bit of what you do with the school system?
Mr. Garcia. Absolutely. I run a truancy and dropout
program, sir. And basically we work with the courts and I will
tell you that a lot of kids--I have never seen a gang member
that did not start as a truant and I can tell you that we have
dealt with thousands over the last 3 or 4 years and I would say
probably 70 percent of them have a substance abuse problem. I
would say that of the gangs that are involved, the majority are
involved in some kind of criminal activity.
Mr. Souder. And when you say you work with the school
district at this point, are you a consultant to them or----
Mr. Garcia. Yes, sir, we have contracts to work with them.
Mr. Souder. And have you done this for a long period or did
you do something before that in this area too?
Mr. Garcia. I have worked for about 30 years in this area,
sir.
Mr. Souder. With juveniles and truancy.
Mr. Garcia. Yes, sir.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. Mr. Soria.
Mr. Soria. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, subcommittee
members. I would like to make a change to my initial
presentation. I welcome you to our Sun City. I think Mother
Nature has played a trick on me and maybe I should say the dust
bowl.
But anyway, I also want to express my sincere thanks at
being provided the opportunity to present before you today. My
name is Jose Luis Soria. I am employed by Aliviane NO-AD, Inc.,
a community-based chemical dependency prevention, intervention
and treatment organization. I am the clinical deputy director
for this organization. My testimony to you today will focus on
the humanistic aspect, but it will also take into account a
holistic approach to the drug trade and the disruption of
social and human institutions that this activity has on our
community and, in general, to the State of Texas.
The drug trade has created a catastrophic dilemma in the
southwest and especially in and around the El Paso area,
inclusive of the outlying rural communities. I will not
elaborate regarding the west Texas rural counties--Hudspeth,
Presidio, Culberson and Jeff Davis--or as better known and
referred to as frontier west Texas. I think that the speakers
before us have presented enough information regarding those
areas.
This is not to say that other areas of our Nation have not
felt the scourge of this practice on our citizens, but as we
all know, the El Paso area, due to its geographic and
topographic uniqueness, has proven to be a preferred area for
its illegal trade. We must also take into consideration the
economic dependence that has metamorphosized between our city
and our sister city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and other border
cities that create a close economic or social tie to the north
side of the border. This I believe is very important, the
closeness relates to our cultural ties, the heritage and the
lack of a sustainable economic resource on both sides of the
border has played an integral part in nurturing and
facilitating this lucrative, yet most detrimental activity.
This multi-million dollar ``business'' has affected our youth,
our criminal justice system, our economy, our healthcare system
and most importantly, our quality of life.
As I stated previously, I will not be redundant and
describe the areas of west Texas or southern New Mexico, but I
do want to point out a couple of special areas that I think are
very important. Our regional economic plight is a major
contributing factor that has helped expand the involvement of
many of our citizens, especially our youth, in this unsavory,
illegal, yet lucrative act. I believe Mr. Garcia alluded to
that point. Even though many of our citizens initiate their
involvement on the business end--the means of making money,
most often, they find themselves becoming victims of ``the
trade.'' Once this occurs, of course, their psychological,
physical and social functioning erodes very quickly. They soon
become a statistic that is associated with the criminal justice
system, our social welfare system, and of course our healthcare
system. I believe Sheriff Samaniego and Chief Leon alluded to
those two major points of interest. Since involvement is not
based on an isolationist basis and the substance abuse is
inclusionary of the family, we now have a grimmer picture.
Everyone in the household becomes a victim. Thus, that has an
additional effect on the economic resources of the city of El
Paso.
I will not preach to the choir, as the saying goes, since
this distinguished panel is comprised of many talented and
knowledgeable individuals. I will expound the need to establish
and continue efforts that provide for various elements in the
war against drugs. First, interdiction is necessary in order to
curtail the importation of harmful substances into the State.
The proposition here is of course that less drugs that come
into the country, the less victims we shall have. We must
maintain a vigilant effort in this area, combined with
collaborative and coordinated aspect with our neighbor to the
south, since it will take a concerted effort to reduce the
trade.
Second, we must ensure that resources include the
availability of programming at all levels to avail those
prevention, intervention and treatment services needed by the
citizens being confronted with substance abuse related
problems. The Center for Substance Abuse Prevention [CSAP] and
the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment [CSAT] have proven
that the application of the appropriate services when needed by
the individual can have significant impact on the reduction and
complete stoppage of substance abusing behaviors. In essence, I
am requesting that we utilize CSAT's premise: Treatment Does
Work, and that we must maintain the availability of service at
a high level of conscientiousness as we carry out efforts
through the different levels of the drug trade.
In closing, I would like to reiterate that the drug trade
within the El Paso area and southern New Mexico has a very
detrimental impact on the citizens of El Paso. As stated
previously, I presented to you based on a humanistic aspect--
not on an economic aspect, not on a law enforcement
interdiction aspect, but tried to emphasize the human side of
it.
In closing, I want to thank you once again for this
opportunity and hope that you consider all presentations made
here today to develop the most appropriate policies for this
social problem. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Soria follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Could you explain a little bit what your drug
treatment center is, is it a long-term, outpatient,
combination, mostly juvenile, seniors, alcohol, cocaine,
heroin--just some of the types.
Mr. Soria. It is a very comprehensive--in fact, it is
Texas' second most comprehensive treatment program. It is a
program that provides intensive residential services for the
general population, women and children's programming. It has
intensive and supportive outpatient services for adults. It has
an intensive and supportive outpatient youth treatment
services. It provides prevention, intervention and family
services programming. We have offices in the El Paso area, in
Alpine, TX and one in Van Horn, TX. We also have our infectious
diseases unit, prevention unit, which comprises programming for
HIV risk reduction testing, counseling, tuberculosis and Hep-C
services, sir.
We work within the schools, we work within the judicial
entities, we work with the juvenile judges. We work with the
adult probation office and the State parole office.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. We'll go to a round of questioning
here.
Mr. Cook, clearly one of the things everybody agrees on
that we are trying to figure out how to do on a national basis
are these fast type lanes and I commend the Chamber for having
taken a direct initiative while we are trying to figure out how
to do it in a lot of places. In Detroit-Windsor, that has been
a big help. Would you be receptive and do you believe the
business community would be receptive in this area to, if
somebody abuses that extra privilege of a fast lane, whether it
be a truck clearance, auto or other, that the penalties for
violations should be double or triple? In other words, we are
only going to spot check, but we do not want--the question is
how can, if you get a special privilege, we have some kind of--
--
Mr. Cook. I think there is no question, we would be
supportive of that. We have seen these kinds of things as
extremely beneficial to the local economy and to our businesses
individually here, and we would not want to see any activity
continue that would put that at risk. So we would be very
supportive.
Mr. Souder. We met on the north border hearing and a number
of Canadian trucking companies said that they would go along
with that. One of the big problems--and if you have any
thoughts that you would like to add to this--is who would get
the penalty and how we could be just in figuring that out. That
is also a standard problem we have--is it the shipper, is it
the trucking company, is it the driver. What if the cab is
different than the load he is hauling, and we need a good clear
way to establish that because it becomes pass the buck when we
actually catch somebody.
Mr. Cook. What I would like to do, Mr. Chairman, is just
consult our foreign trade community here over the next few days
and then we will submit that to you in writing, if that is OK.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Garcia, in your opinion, one of our most difficult--let
me give a couple of things and you can give a little bit of an
answer today and if you want you can add more in depth--
prevention is--we say our programs in Colombia are only working
medium well, we are having troubles on the border. I have met
hundreds of drug addicts who have gone through six or seven
treatment programs. It is very hard, it recurs, sometimes it is
more of an insurance thing--it is complicated treatment.
Similar on prevention. In other words, in looking at how do we
make our prevention programs more effective. We are doing
reauthorization of the drug czar's program. One of that is our
national media campaign. We would appreciate any thoughts you
have on that, particularly how it is--what we could do to
better target and influence at risk youth as opposed to those
who are already persuaded that drugs are bad.
A second thing is the largest single dollar amount is the
prevention programs in the schools, Safe and Drug-Free Schools,
which are basically so watered down around the country, it is
very difficult to figure out--I was very active in the
reauthorization of that and it was very frustrating. We have
like 27 uses that people can use for the money in any given
school. I finally got a little clause in that says they have to
at least mention at the tail end drugs are bad. But at one
point, I got so frustrated, I offered an amendment that the
funds could be used to improve educational skills, because
obviously if you can read and write and get better education
skills, you are less likely to get on drugs too. The point,
however, of that program was supposed to be a direct program on
anti-narcotics. And any thoughts you have that we might look at
in school-based prevention programs that would be more
effective, particularly in reaching at-risk kids, particularly
junior high, particularly males and often we have a separate
problem with suburban rich kids than we do--which by broad
definition my kids would fall into--than we do in Hispanic and
African-American kids. And I am not sure we pick up those
nuances.
Any thoughts you have on a national ad campaign, prevention
programs in the schools or other targeted things we could do,
particularly as we look at kids who are already caught up in
the probation system and are now coming back out into the
community, either while they are in the prison system and in
the probation system and before they are coming out.
You can take a brief stab at that here, but I would welcome
any specific suggestions you have in that area.
Mr. Garcia. I would like to, first of all, say that I will
think about those and do the best I can here, but I will
certainly submit something in writing along those lines.
I belong to the Dropout Task Force with the Texas Education
Commission and we have representatives from all over the State,
superintendents, what-have-you. This is exactly what we are
looking at. We all know that Just Say No never worked--not in
this part of the country. I think prevention efforts are
important. You know, if you look at my testimony, here in El
Paso, a large portion are single parents, they are just making
ends meet with two jobs, and there is a lot that can be done at
the schools working with at-risk, working with these kids,
doing--getting the community involved. There is not enough
resources and never will be, but I think it is important to get
the criminal justice, the educational entities, community
services such as Aliviane provides. That is what we are doing
here, trying to approach it from a holistic standpoint, because
it is very difficult.
And so that is what we are focusing on right now in the
State of Texas with this task force, is to provide prevention,
intervention services, get them at the front end before they
wind up, you know, in the criminal justice system and prisons
and, you know, where it affects our tax base, our welfare
system and so forth.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. Mr. Reyes.
Mr. Reyes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My first question is for Mr. Cook. As you know, we have had
kind of a departure control system, that means that people
would get checked coming into the country and would be checked
leaving the country. Can you share with us an opinion of how
that would impact our area here, if at all?
Mr. Cook. OK. That is something that we spent a lot of time
talking about within the commercial and industrial community
here in recent months. We are very concerned about the impacts
of an exit control system, particularly if we try to implement
it before the proper technology is in place, and particularly
if we do not see a dramatic increase in the amount of
resources, particularly human resources, staffing, at those
international ports of entry, than what we currently see right
now.
As I alluded to earlier, we are seeing trucks and vehicles
in line on our international bridges sometimes as long as 1, 2
and 3 hours. Part of the problem is because we do not have
enough staff to man all northbound lanes on those ports of
entry at all times. And if we are going to do something that is
just merely going to take resources away from that effort to
now check southbound, then we see a much larger negative
economic impact on this economy than what we have seen
historically.
And let me tell you how that translates. With China really
emerging onto the scene in the last couple of years as a
manufacturing force, just in the last 18 months, we have lost
more than 90,000 jobs in the city of Juarez alone in production
and manufacturing, manufacturing-related jobs. We feel like if
we are going to do something to try and turn that trend around,
we will not be able to compete on labor costs against China--
Mexico cannot compete on labor costs with China--but where we
can compete is because of our geographic proximity between our
two countries and enterprise in those two countries, if we can
expedite trade north and southbound through those ports of
entry, if we can somehow through the utilization of technology
and increased staffing make those products and services flow
more efficiently, then we can somehow counteract the negative
impact that we are seeing, that is coming against this area
from China right now.
So Congressman, we are very concerned about the
implementation of those exit control programs.
Mr. Reyes. Thank you.
My next question is for Mr. Garcia and Mr. Soria. I would
like to know what is the average age of your clients, in
particular focusing on school age, and then has the pattern
changed in the last 3 to 5 years and if so, is there a
difference between urban and rural in terms of the clientele,
the services and the impact in that 3 to 5 year period?
Mr. Garcia. Congressman Reyes, let me respond that we have
seen approximately 6,000 families and students in the last 3
years and we get them from age 7 to 18. Insofar as--you know,
most of the districts we work with are urban. I think Mr. Soria
could speak more to the rural, what kind of trends they are
seeing there.
Mr. Soria. Adding to Mr. Garcia's comments, I think there
is a distinctive difference between urban and rural, even the
ages and there are certainly some drug patterns involved that
the communities do have.
For example, in the rural areas, you see a high incidence
of alcohol abuse among young--and I mean young, 9 to 11 year
old--males, which we attributed to being part of the cultural
processing; you know, the rite of passage kind of thing.
In the El Paso area, we see a higher incidence of inhalant
abuse, amphetamines and barbiturates coming across the river,
and the age average there is between 10 and 11. Lately, we have
seen an increase on the cases that we see here in the El Paso
area where the females are taking on a greater number
dysfunctionality than the males. Traditionally, it has been
males, we have seen this trend I guess in the last 6 months.
Mr. Garcia. Absolutely. Also, in addition, we have seen
more females getting involved in gang-related activities. So
those are the differences.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Deal.
Mr. Deal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cook, one of the things that I think all of us would
like to see is to allow commerce to move without undue
impediments. That is why one of my real concerns and I suppose
one of my pet peeves is the fact that one of the ways that we
could do that would be for Mexico to be more cooperative on
dealing with the two issues that are our major problem; that
is, the flow of drugs into our country from their country and
the flow of illegal immigrants from their country into our
country.
If those would cooperatively attempt to address those
issues more aggressively on their side of the border, then we
would be able to reciprocate without having these undue
impediments as they cross the border. Would you agree with
that?
Mr. Cook. I do not know that I am fully capable or expert
enough to answer fully there, but that may very well be the
case, sir.
Mr. Deal. Well, I think, you know, we have had a better
working situation, although it is now somewhat in question,
with Canada. And part of that freer flowage has been that there
has been mutual cooperation on both sides of the border with
mutual goals in mind and I think that is one of the messages
that we all need to send to our counterparts across the border
here.
Mr. Cook. And let me say, in our Chamber in the last year,
we have been undertaking a more proactive effort to work with
business groups on the other side of the border to jointly
lobby issues, both in Washington and Mexico City, that impact
trade. And I think this is a message that we could help deliver
from you and other Members of Congress through our business
community contacts in Mexico back to Mexico City.
Mr. Deal. Well, I think we all need to work in that
direction on that.
Mr. Garcia, as a former juvenile court judge, I deeply
appreciate your comments and the magnitude of the problem and
it is a huge problem. And it is certainly one that we all
share.
I have a concern, because I see in my area that gang
activity has a direct linkage with, in our case, the
distribution of drugs within the community. Is there a
connection here on the border between the gangs and the drug
activity, either in bringing it across the border or in some
distribution chain once it crosses?
Mr. Garcia. In my opinion, I think so, most of them are
involved in some kind of either distribution or, you know,
selling it. We see a lot of those coming into our playgrounds,
unfortunately, and recruiting younger ones to get involved.
There are certain gangs here that are pretty much involved in
that kind of activity; yes, sir.
Mr. Deal. Have your schools adopted any policies with
regard to dress codes or anything else that would prevent the
display of gang colors, paraphernalia, etc?
Mr. Garcia. We have identified, particularly in the lower
valley, some campuses that had some gang-related activities and
they have what is called site-based management and some
campuses have done that, come out with school codes; you know,
the dresses that they wear, blacks and silvers and bandannas
and--you know. So some have and some have not.
Mr. Deal. I think we all of course are searching for what
to do with those who are addicted and into the system. Have the
programs that--Mr. Garcia, I would simply ask maybe Mr. Soria
if you would maybe comment briefly and then perhaps followup
along with Mr. Garcia on the two programs that the chairman
alluded to, the media program and the safe schools program, as
to their effectiveness. Have you had working relationships with
those activities?
Mr. Soria. Yes, sir, primarily the--Aliviane NO-AD has been
in the El Paso area for the last 32 years. Throughout its
history, it has formed a network and collaborative effort that
has worked with the various entities throughout El Paso City
and the county. I think that, as I alluded to in my
presentation, maybe in the written documentation, not in the
verbal one, the problem is a community-wide, state-wide,
nation-wide problem and it will take collaborative efforts from
every one of those entities involved in order to provide the
most appropriate direct services at that appropriate time of
the child's development, or in the parental engagement.
We work very closely with the school programs and the drug
free school programs sponsored by the Federal Government and by
the State of Texas. We also work very closely with programs
within the school system to engage and have a transitional
process the follows the child from the school campus into the
home environment. In other words, it has to be a complete
transitional process so everybody involved can get into the
picture.
Mr. Deal. Just one real quick final question. There has
been an ongoing debate in drug policy in this country as to
whether or not the availability of drugs has any direct
relationship to the usage. Some would argue that it does, some
would argue that it doesn't. Obviously you are here very close
to a huge source of available drugs. Is there any statistical
information that would indicate whether or not that proximity
to a large amount of illegal drugs translates into a larger
percentage of the population using those drugs? Do you know?
Mr. Soria. I think several studies have been made. The most
current one will be the tobacco use surveys that the Federal
Government has done. Since the usage of any type of substance,
whether legal or illegal, is a result of a combination of
factors, I do not think that any study can preclude and say
that any one single factor is the causal reason for a person
doing drugs. I think it is a combination of physical,
psychological, social, environmental, familial and other types
of elements that do affect that individual.
To give you an example, the suicide rate among teenagers is
the highest of all ages in the United States. There has been no
specific reason identified for that phenomenon, but yet it
still exists. So I am saying that it would be very hard to say
and just get one specific reason why. But we must take into
consideration that it has to be a conglomeration of elements,
that is why it has to be holistic in its approach.
Mr. Deal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Soria, do you do drug testing and followup
or is it self-reported?
Mr. Soria. No, sir, we utilize the urine toxicology
screening in two ways. One, of course as a deterrent. It is a
mind game really, if the person does not know when they are
going to get tested, that often helps deter the individual from
usage. We also use it as a means of checking for true
estimates.
Mr. Souder. Do you keep followup records for like 6 months,
2 years, 5 years?
Mr. Soria. Yes, sir, according to Federal law and State
law, we are supposed to keep records for 3 years under the
Federal requirements, State law says 5. Our CEO wants to keep
the records forever. We have records dating back to 1970.
Mr. Souder. So you can--when you keep those records, do you
have records as to whether those individuals have entered into
other treatment programs post taking yours?
Mr. Soria. Yes, sir. We are--under the State of Texas, we
fall under the Texas Commission of Alcohol and Drug Abuse and
basically it has a client identification processing where
initially it kind of follows up the individual receiving
treatment services. Now through higher tech innovations, the
Commission is moving toward a high tech client identification
computerized system; yes, sir.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. And I know we have had a long day
here, I wanted to just make a brief comment on the backhaul.
There is a huge problem when we are not getting the money going
back. There is just no question. I mean we can holler all we
want at the Mexicans where the narcotics are coming in, but the
turnaround is yeah, the money is coming in the United States
and your people are still working and moving the money. This
has to be addressed. And the proof of the pudding is that if we
do back checks and find stuff, we are going to do back checks.
The Canadians are complaining on the north border, they
actually have cooperative teams pretty good about trying to
catch it, but in the two experiments in Montana and Niagara, we
are finding guns and money going the other direction, or we are
finding B.C. Bud coming in and we are shipping cocaine and
heroin. We actually have as many drugs going into Canada as
they have coming in to us almost at some borders.
Now what we need to do is figure out how to do this same
fast pass system. Then the next challenge for you as a business
exec is now to not drive small business guys out because they
cannot do the large system that the large guys do. And I think
your point is well taken, that we have to simultaneously be
getting our technology up at the same time we are doing it, but
I see this as a coming thing, because when we deal with other
countries, part of their reaction is you are quick to try to
watch coming in, but you are shipping it to us. And they, quite
frankly, in Mexico, are not going to have the resources with
which the deal with it, even if there were questions of
complete integrity here.
Mr. Cook. Mr. Chairman, I want to make sure I was clear on
my comments to you. We are not opposed to the exit control
system, we are concerned about the implementation of it.
Mr. Souder. Because you are getting it in both directions
then.
Mr. Cook. Precisely.
Mr. Souder. At the GM plant in Fort Wayne and meeting with
one of the Canadian Parliamentarians who was a GM plant manager
there who was going to be the Fort Wayne manager--I have the
largest pickup plant in the world--that there are 100 border
crossings between Canada and the United States and I am 140
miles from the border in the making of each pickup. So you take
that from 5 minutes to 20 minutes to an hour, you have
dramatically increased the cost of pickups.
Mr. Cook. That is right.
Mr. Souder. And so I understand the dilemma but this is not
going to be easily solved, particularly in the homeland
security where, fortunately since September 11, we have been
able to intercept everybody. But what I have been warning
everybody along the borders and the stake that the border has
is the first time the FBI was a new Director, we were
reorganizing, it was a relatively new administration. The
second time we have a terrorist attack in the United States, if
that comes, for example, parts through a truck, if Atta crosses
a border, the American people will not be as tolerant to back
off the intensity that we had on September 12, which was kind
of the disaster day for business and commerce, the rest of
September 11 and September 12, you could not function in the
United States with that kind of discipline. So we have to be
thinking in those terms, because we know the terrorist risk is
not going to go down, the narcotics, as we work to get
legitimate, kind of semi, quasi-legitimate things where things
shut down. We have met with the Swiss banks and put tremendous
pressure for tracking the money, they are going to go to
illegal money, illegal means smuggling immigrants, smuggling
diamonds, smuggling mostly narcotics, to fund terrorist
efforts. So combined with the traditional pressures you have,
hits on homeland security are going to make your job,
particularly at these border crossings, huge in trying to work
with the Federal Government in trying to figure out creative
ways like you did on the leasing of those lanes, talking to
other Chamber groups around the country, some of the inland
places need to be invested in the border point too.
Mr. Cook. Yes.
Mr. Souder. And understand that having--trying to work out
these differences on bill of lading and how specific they need
to be can speed the VACIS machines. Yes, nobody likes to say
what is going to be on that truck until 1 hour before it has to
go to the border, but the more specifics we have, the easier it
is at the border crossing, not to slow them down. And this is a
huge economic dilemma, as you have said.
Mr. Cook. Yes. And let me say too, we are currently working
with Sandia Labs in this community too on the types of
technology that can be developed that will help these very
issues that we are discussing, and we are very hopeful that
sometime in the near future, we are going to even be able to
leverage additional investment by Sandia to come down here to
the border and have people on the ground directly studying
these issues and doing original research on these issues.
Mr. Souder. Any other comments or questions?
Mr. Reyes. Just a comment. In fact, we are going to be a
test bed for a new system of technology called pulse fast
neutron analysis that, if it works, if it is field tested the
way it has worked in the laboratories, it is not inconceivable
that we will have, for the first time, a technology that we can
build nothing but commercial bridges or ports of entry, that
will be able--you heard the testimony from the Customs Port
Director that said on the average what they have now takes
about 7 minutes to do the scan. This technology can do it in a
matter of 2 minutes and it can simultaneously look for over 200
things that you focus on it. It can be chain-linked so that
instead of one truck or one container, it can do three
simultaneously in a 2-minute period.
So that is the kind of technology that I think is going to
make a difference for us. And we are literally on the threshold
of it. We are anticipating testing it here in Ysleta certainly
by summer or fall of this year.
And again, just thank you for doing this hearing. I know we
threw a lot of information at you, but I intend to also, for
the record, also give you some additional information.
Mr. Souder. Thank you, and one of the tough questions that
we are going to have is that machine is $12 million.
Mr. Reyes. Well, actually that machine----
Mr. Souder. That will go down as----
Mr. Reyes. It will go down, it will go down to less than $3
million.
Mr. Souder. The bottom line is that it may be that business
and industry is going to have some choices here to help share
some of the cost of that, because time is more valuable than
money, as long as it is a shared type of thing and does not get
disproportionate just to the borders. But those are going to be
difficult questions because that is the type of machinery we
need to go toward.
Mr. Deal.
Mr. Deal. Well, Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank these
witnesses and all the others and the people who have been here
at the hearing today, and also to express my appreciation to
our fellow Member of Congress and able representative of your
area, Mr. Reyes. Thank you very much.
Mr. Reyes. My pleasure.
Mr. Souder. Thank you again for coming, for being patient,
for being our cleanup hitters on today's hearing. And with
that, the subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:20 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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