Hearing of the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee - Department of Homeland Security Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2009

Interview

Hearing of the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee - Department of Homeland Security Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2009

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REP. JOHN CARTER (R-TX): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And Mr. Secretary, good to see you, glad you're here; hope this isn't too painful. Your job's pretty painful as it is.

I've got to get it back to the Texas border, or the Mexican border -- Arizona, New Mexico and California included. When I was down at the border, the Border Patrol reported to me -- this was about a year ago, maybe eight months ago -- that they get fired upon regularly from the Mexican side of the border. We've now seen what is very courageous, as far as I'm concerned, on the part of the Mexican government. They have sent troops -- at least through Nuevo Laredo, that I know of for a fact, and they have had a fairly intense gunfight in Nuevo Laredo with the Mexican troops.

These cartels, we've seen what they did in Columbia -- and the same people. We've seen what they did in southern Mexico. We know what they're capable of doing. And they can fight warfare just about as good as regular Army troops, and they obviously demonstrated that in Nuevo Laredo.

Now, as Mexico attempts to drive them out, they're driving them in our direction. Okay? And they're going to cross the border into Texas or Arizona or New Mexico, but in Nuevo Laredo, at least, they would cross into Texas.

My first question -- I don't know the answer to this, and I'd like to know it as I assume it's some kind of international treaty. Why, when fired upon, can law enforcement officers not fire back into Mexico? That's a question I'd like answered first.

Then, secondly, if they start across into Texas -- first off, I don't know if everybody's all been down to that border, but if you're right there at Laredo, yeah, there's lots of folks there. But if you get about 20 miles upstream or 20 miles downstream from Laredo, there's not anybody out there but people sneaking into the country and a few people riding fences. It's real wide-open country full of a lot of things you don't want to step on.

And so it's -- that -- out there, they could be in 30 miles before we even knew we were in there. I want to know what the confrontation and fire-back policy would be upon people who invade our country into the state of Texas, both from the federal government and, if the federal government doesn't do it, is there anything by treaty that would prevent the state government fighting back?

SEC. CHERTOFF: I'll try to give you a general answer. Let me caution by saying I'm not -- I don't have all my law books with me, so I'm going to be -- I don't want to be giving legal advice here.

But the general rule is this: The fact -- we -- in order to engage in self-defense or to protect themselves, the Border Patrol are entitled to discharge their weapons. You know, there are rules of engagement. You should start, where possible, with non-lethal force but if necessary you use lethal force.

We have sometimes done that across the border. If fired upon from across the border, our agents have shot back across the border. I'm not aware of any treaty that prevents that. Our preference is to have the Mexicans actually address the problem on their side of the border, and we've actually built some protocols so that when something happens we can contact the Mexicans, and they come in.

But, you know, at bottom, if our agents are fired upon and they need to protect themselves, they're entitled to do it and they can fire back. That's certainly also true within the United States, and we want to make sure they have the capability to defend themselves. I hate to keep (hearing ?) back to the fence, but part of the reason we are putting fencing in some areas is precisely in order to be a force protection measure to protect the Border Patrol.

I had the unhappy circumstance a few weeks ago of being with the family of an -- of maybe the first agent during my tenure who was deliberately killed by smugglers. He was run over by a vehicle. If we had vehicle barriers that were effective in that area, that vehicle wouldn't have come across. So I take everything we're doing -- fencing, virtual fencing, enhancing the Border Patrol -- I take it very seriously as a protection measure in addition to an anti-crime measure.

REP. CARTER: Well, there seems to be some confusion because I was told by more than one agent that they -- they're -- in fact, they told me a story about a female agent who had been shot in the hip and was under fire from across the border. And they basically had to crawl in under fire and pull her out and not fire any shots across the border. And they were under specific orders not to return fire. And so agents had to crawl in and pull a wounded female agent out under fire in -- north of Laredo. Now this was a year and a half ago. Okay? You know --

SEC. CHERTOFF: I'm subject to being corrected on the law, but I know of at least a couple of occasions where we have had agents fire back. They try to use non-lethal force and that's -- I believe that's appropriate. It's a last resort, not a first resort.

REP. CARTER: I agree with that. I believe that our law enforcement policies are appropriate policies. But also our law enforcement policies -- once you're fired upon, you return fire. And I don't think an invisible border ought to be any barrier to returning fire, especially in a circumstance where, at least our experience on the Texas border is, we're outgunned about, you know, 90 to one because they're using automatic weapons and we're using handguns.

Thank you for your answers.

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