Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee - U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D-RI): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining us today. Just quickly, of the 304,000 that were discussed, how many of those folks eligible for deportation are presently federal inmates. Do you know?

SEC. CHERTOFF: I don't know the answer to that. I'm sure only a fraction are.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Well --

SEC. CHERTOFF: I'm sure most of them are still --

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Presumably a very small fraction, but if you could get that number, I would appreciate it.

SEC. CHERTOFF: Sure.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: In terms of our evaluation of that question, you've indicated that there are concerns about the treatment of the inmate in the host country if they were returned, particularly being subject to torture. That would be one concern. Another concern, I assume you would agree, would be inmates who are so dangerous that we'd rather keep them locked up tight in the United States rather than face the risk of reentry if we don't have confidence in the security of the system in the home country --

SEC. CHERTOFF: Well --

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: -- major heads of drug-dealing organizations, things like that.

SEC. CHERTOFF: I guess -- yes. You have a really bad guy -- if we have -- if we've got a sentence that's a life sentence, I'd rather keep him locked up for life than send him out where they -- unless I'm confident that the host country will let this -- will keep them in jail.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Yeah. So that's -- that would be an issue.

Are there reciprocality issues? Would you be concerned that Americans would be -- we'd have to treat, say a --

SEC. CHERTOFF: No. No, I -- I don't want to over -- the issue of the torture is a very small number --

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: I understand. I mean, so that's not a --

SEC. CHERTOFF: -- so that's not a big issue.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: -- spot some of the issues.

SEC. CHERTOFF: The largest issue is, frankly, some countries are just very dilatory about taking their people back. China's really the worst in that respect.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Yeah.

SEC. CHERTOFF: Interestingly, the Latin American countries are quite good and we work with them, and they're very effective in taking their people.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: And has the experience been that if they're released into those systems, they actually are kept?

SEC. CHERTOFF: It hasn't been uniform. Sometimes some -- unfortunately, some of the countries in Latin America don't have the capability. We try to work with them. We've given them assistance in identifying people who are being sent back who are dangerous so they can try to keep them in jail. But once they've served their sentence, as you know, we can't just keep them in jail and the host country can't necessarily keep them in jail. And that's a problem. That is a problem of us.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: And would you have any problem incarcerating in the United States an American who was convicted of a foreign crime in a foreign country and deported from that country for an immigration violation on the same terms that we're talking about, in which we would deport foreign nationals subject to incarceration in their home country pursuant to a --

SEC. CHERTOFF: I think -- I think it's -- I think it has to be done by treaty. In other words, we have these prisoner exchange treaties. So I know with Mexico, for example, if you get a 20-year sentence in Mexico, we have an arrangement where you can -- as a U.S. agent, you can serve your time back in the U.S. and vice versa. I think if someone were deported without that, we would have trouble putting them in jail unless we could prosecute them under our own laws.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: So the treaty would be a key component.

MR. CHERTOFF: That's right.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Okay. Okay.

MR. CHERTOFF: We have that with -- I know we have that with Mexico.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: On a different subject, are you familiar with the OSIDEF program?

SEC. CHERTOFF: From my last job, it's dimly implanted in my mind, yeah.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Familiar enough to describe it briefly for people who are listening and don't know what we're talking about?

SEC. CHERTOFF: It may be -- my knowledge may be out of date. Back when I was head of the Criminal Division and when I was a prosecutor, it was an -- Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force that was designed to bring together federal and state authorities to focus on -- you know, more organized narcotics trafficking organizations.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: And it's still going and very active and very helpful, in your estimation. Is it not?

SEC. CHERTOFF: I -- I have -- to the extent I know. But I have to say I don't have a lot of visibility into it.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Yeah.

The fusion center program that the administration has embarked on in variety of different areas -- are you familiar with that?

SEC. CHERTOFF: Yeah.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: There is evidently an OSIDEF -- to use one term -- fusion center, to use another -- not far from where we're sitting right now whose function is to fuse -- to bring together information from a variety of federal law enforcement agencies to enhance the mission of protecting us from organized criminal organizations that traffic in narcotics. And I am informed that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement folks refuse to participate in it, won't send someone to the meetings, won't link databases to the -- what is called the COMPASS program, which is the computer network set up for the fusion center to integrate ATF, FBI, Secret Service -- all the different law enforcement computer databases.

I'm interested -- and I understand that the Border Patrol is now beginning to look at participating, but to date hasn't. Since those are both DHS agencies, I'm wondering if you know why they're refusing to participate in this function.

SEC. CHERTOFF: I had not heard that, so I'll just have to find out.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Would you? Because I think it makes sense. Between the two of us, we can agree that if the purpose of the OSIDEF function is to protect this country from organized criminal efforts to engage in narcotics trafficking, the Border-Customs function is a pretty darned essential part of that equation.

SEC. CHERTOFF: Oh, there's no question about it.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: And when you have Treasury agencies, Justice agencies and all sorts of other kind of agencies -- and you and I both remember; I was a U.S. attorney, as you may recall -- it can be pretty complicated to chase through multiple data bases if you had to find a particular individual. To coordinate those in these fusion centers seems like a pretty good idea.

SEC. CHERTOFF: I don't disagree with that. I just don't know enough about the specifics to give you an answer. But I'll find out about it.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: If you could find out why they're refusing to participate and if there could be -- if there's a reason that they aren't doing it, I'd like to try to get through that reason. If there's no reason, if you could clear whatever bureaucracies --

SEC. CHERTOFF: No, I will look into that.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: If you could let me know when you'll get back to me.

SEC. CHERTOFF: Okay.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Thirty days, 60 days, 90 days -- pick a number. Any time is good with me, just so I --

SEC. CHERTOFF: Why don't we take 45 days as a compromise?

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Forty-five days. I'd appreciate it, Mr. Secretary. Thank you.

SEC. CHERTOFF: I will do that.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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