Hearing of the Homeland Security Subcommittee - Fiscal Year 2005 Budget Request for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Federal News Service March 17, 2004 Wednesday

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE HOMELAND SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE SUBJECT: FISCAL YEAR 2005 BUDGET REQUEST FOR THE U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT

CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE HAROLD ROGERS (R-KY) WITNESS: MICHAEL J. GARCIA, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

LOCATION: 2358 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:

REP. HAROLD ROGERS (R-KY): The committee will be in order. Mr. Secretary, we're pleased to welcome you here. Michael Garcia, assistant secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to present his Fiscal Year '05 request for U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE.

Secretary Garcia was confirmed in his present position last December, and this marks the first time he's testified before the subcommittee. Secretary Garcia, you already have a good share of experience under your belt. You have shepherded the new ICE bureau during the first year, joined together a huge investigative mission from two differing agency cultures, begun to focus on improving the detention and removal function, focused on modernizing the air and marine integration mission, and brought the Federal Protective Service and the Federal Air Marshals Service under the umbrella of an agency with a law enforcement and security culture.

You have a great background for this task. You served with distinction as a federal prosecutor, working on cases such as the first World Trade Center bombing case, the Ramzi Yousef air bombing conspiracy and the bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. As assistant secretary of Commerce for Export Enforcement you gained experience with strategic trade investigations and as the last acting INS commissioner, you got a taste of the strenuous task you face in building a successful agency from the ashes of that organization.

Today we expect to hear about your progress in coping with Immigration and Customs Enforcement challenges. You have inherited a huge agency with close to 15,000 employees, about 8,000 of them in the investigative arena, and a budget approaching $4 billion. We want to know what your priorities are and what you are doing with those resources.

We are aware that you have success stories such as investigations of financial vulnerabilities and money laundering, drug trafficking, child predators, and traffickers in foreign artifacts. We are interested in how ICE has built on and improved the traditional INS and Customs investigative missions to address alien and drug trafficking. A good example of the leverage you have benefited from was the case last year in Victoria, Texas, where 19 people, including children, were found dead in the back of a tractor-trailer. By joining your financial and immigration expertise, you followed the money, arrested and indicted the ringleader and thirteen other co- conspirators, and rescued a three-year-old boy.

Yesterday, Undersecretary Hutchinson announced a $10 million Arizona Border Control initiative to intensify efforts to gain control over the border and deter and interdict the smuggling and trafficking that plagues the region. We hope to hear what part ICE will play in that effort.

You have inherited critical assets, such as Air and Marine Operations and the Federal Air Marshals Service, and some new resources to prevent terrorism, such as the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, SEVIS. We're very interested in seeing that your stewardship of these tools bears fruit, that vulnerabilities such as surveillance gaps on our borders or from drug traffickers are reduced and that you make the best use of investigative and intelligence tools to prevent terrorists from violating our immigration or customs laws, and that you succeed in making ICE a model of professionalism and cooperation in working with federal, state, local and international law enforcement agencies.

An area of special concern for me is the internal immigration enforcement function at ICE. With an undocumented alien population of between eight to 10 million, by most people's account, including about 465,000 fugitives and absconders, it is essential to the credibility of our immigration system. Enforcement also serves to deter those who would abuse our system. We expect to hear from you today on your efforts in that area, and how you will achieve significant reductions in backlogs.

We look forward to hearing your testimony, which of course we hope you will summarize for us. We will file your written statement as a part of the record. Before I recognize you let me turn to my colleague, Mr. Sabo, for any remarks he might wish to offer.

REP. MARTIN OLAV SABO (D-MN): Well thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Garcia welcome to the committee. I just have two brief points to make. First, even though the Federal Air Marshals are in your bureau now, I won't ask you about their budget problems because you haven't overseen them for very long. Next year, we'll have more questions in that area.

However, today I'm introducing a supplemental funding bill for the Air Marshals. My bill would provide an additional $13.5 million to Air Marshals this year so they can hire up to the staffing level we all agreed to after 9/11. The funding in the bill is fully offset by a reduction to department operations. Departmental operations is nowhere near the staffing level that we funded in the FY 2004.

My bill merely makes the savings that they have accrued half way through this fiscal year due to this hiring problem and uses it to fund Air Marshals. In no ways do I prevent department operations from meeting its hiring goals for the rest of the year. I think it makes good sense and I hope other members can support it.

Secondly, it seems to me that the key ingredients for an effective Immigration and Customs enforcement operation is good information. Your officers depend on it to do their jobs. I think some of your current information and communications systems need improvement and I plan to ask you about that. And I look forward to hearing your testimony.

REP. ROGERS: Now Mr. Secretary, you're recognized for whatever time you may consume.

MR. MICHAEL J. GARCIA: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. Good morning, Congressman Sabo and distinguished members of the subcommittee. It's a pleasure to be with you today to discuss the president's Fiscal Year 2005 budget request for the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The request of just over $4 billion reflects the vital role ICE plays in the department's overall mission of ensuring the security of the American people.

A little more than one year ago ICE was formed by combining the investigative and intelligence arms of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, the U.S. Customs Service, including air and marine operations, as well as the Federal Protective Service and more recently, the Federal Air Marshals Service. By integrating these once fragmented resources the Department of Homeland Security not only created the second largest investigative agency in the federal government, but it also created a dynamic and innovative new law enforcement organization focused on homeland security, specifically border security, air security and economic security.

The primary mission of ICE in the Department of Homeland Security is to detect and address vulnerabilities in our national security, whether those vulnerabilities expose our financial systems to exploitation or our borders to infiltration. Early this month the dedicated men and women of ICE joined me in a celebration of our one year anniversary and our many accomplishments within the past year. This, of course, could not have been accomplished without the support of Congress in the 2004 appropriations.

Our accomplishments this year are many but I will highlight only a few. ICE is protecting the U.S. economic security, and since last March ICE financial investigations have yielding more than 1,300 arrests and seized $154 million in assets. In July, ICE launched Cornerstone, a comprehensive initiative that forms a new partnership with the financial, commercial and trade sectors to identify and mitigate U.S. economic vulnerabilities. Last fall, we launched ICE Storm, a comprehensive initiative to combat violent human smuggling organizations along the Southwest border, with a particular focus on Arizona.

ICE Storm has resulted in more than 2,200 administrative and criminal arrests, 170 indictments and the seizure of more than 80 weapons and nearly $2 million. Local police credited ICE Storm with a more than 30 percent drop in homicides in the Phoenix area in the last quarter of 2003, compared to the same period of the previous year. In July of last year we began a sweeping initiative targeting child sex predators worldwide under Operation Predator, which fuses the authorities and resources of virtually every ICE component into a comprehensive campaign against child sex offenders. To date Operator Predator has produced unprecedented results with the arrest of more than 2,000 child sex predators nationwide.

The ICE Federal Air Marshals, or FAMs, became a distinct ICE division in November 2003. ICE agents are being cross-trained as Federal Air Marshals, giving ICE FAMs of cadre of trained agents when needed. Since September 11, 2001, ICE FAMs have provided security on hundreds of thousands of flights, protected millions of passengers and flown millions of miles. Their efforts have helped keep the U.S. civil aviation sector free of terrorism since September 11.

The president's Fiscal Year 2005 budget will continue to strengthen ICE's efforts to protect the homeland through its unique investigative and enforcement tools. The proposed 2005 budget applying to enhance the department's commitment to securing the homeland is designed to build upon the strong foundation I have described. The president's '05 budget request seeks over $4 billion for ICE, $302 million more than '04, which represents an increase of 8 percent.

The requested increases include $186 million for ICE to fund improvements to immigration enforcement both domestically and overseas, including a more than doubling of current worksite enforcement efforts, increased resources to combat benefits fraud and investigative violations of SEVIS and US-VISIT systems, and approximately a $100 million increase for the detention and removal of illegal aliens.

Detention and removal of illegal aliens present in the United States is critical for the enforcement of our immigration laws, and the requested funding will expand ongoing fugitive apprehension efforts, the removal from the United States of jailed illegal aliens, and additional detention and removal capacity. Critical to the removal process is ICE's ability to effectively litigate cases before the Immigration Court. The budget request includes a $6 million enhancement to provide additional attorneys to keep pace with an increased caseload. Our budget also seeks $14 million to support our international enforcement efforts related to immigration, including enabling ICE to provide visa security. The budget request also seeks $40.5 million in total enhancements for Air and Marine Operations for long range radar and increased P3 flight hours.

While many challenges lie ahead, we continue to build and foster a premier law enforcement agency from the powerful tools and authorities we have been given. The Fiscal Year 2005 budget request provides the resources to enable ICE to manage its responsibilities and continue its work to secure the homeland and protect and serve the American people. I look forward to continuing to work with you to accomplish these objectives. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, this concludes my prepared statement and I, of course, would be happy to answer any questions you may have at this time.

REP. ROGERS: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you for the statement. Let me ask you about the legacy INS that you inherited. INS, one of my favorite agencies over the years and the Commerce, Justice, State where we moved around with them for 20 years, finally concluded that it was not a money problem. We kept throwing money at the problem and they didn't know how to deal with it. And so we finally went on a binge and we abolished the agency and it got flipped around up in the air and bopped down in your lap. And mine too again. I thought I'd gotten rid of it when I left Commerce, Justice, State but here it comes back like a bad dream sometimes. So we've got to deal with this thing.

We've got to eight to 12 million undocumented aliens in the U.S. I don't know what the figure is. I doubt you do, do you?

MR. GARCIA: I've heard those figures, Mr. Chairman. I think another figure is seven million I've seen on the Homeland website. I think that's the range and, of course, it's a very difficult number to pin down.

REP. ROGERS: And there's the problem: we just don't know how many we have, and we've got to get a handle on that. I'm told that over half of them came here under a visa and simply overstayed. US- VISIT hopefully will help us solve that problem, although we tried that, called entry-exit, for many, many years without success. But we are pouring money into US-VISIT and hope that we can get a handle on who's here and for how long and whether or not they've left the country when their time is up.

At any rate, I'm told there are some 465,000 absconders, people who left after having been ordered deported, that you've apprehended 297,000 plus, that you've ordered removed some 56,400. And of that figure, 80.5 percent have been removed, 45,400, and that you're holding 22,600 now, which is 3,000 above the budgeted level but who's counting? What is the (a) the current estimate of how many illegals are here, and how many of those do you think have criminal records?

MR. GARCIA: Mr. Chairman, as to the first question, as we discussed earlier, the number that DHS uses is seven million; obviously a very difficult number to pin down in terms of how many illegal aliens are present in the country. The number for alien absconders that you mention, I have heard 400,000 with a number of-subset of criminal aliens with final orders of 40,000. Criminal aliens subject to removal is a difficult number as well because some of them may have status, but because of their crimes should be removed from the country. So they're technically not illegal now but should be subject to removal. I don't have a figure for that. But the subpopulation of alien absconders, fugitives, for criminals is 40,000, best estimate.

REP. ROGERS: How do you plan to deal with those illegals with a criminal background?

MR. GARCIA: A number of different ways, sir. If you take the absconder population, we've prioritized criminal aliens, particularly sex offenders under Operation Predator. We have a number of alien absconder teams in place. We're seeking an enhancement to place 18 more fugitive apprehension teams in the field to go after particularly the priority criminal, illegal aliens here, the final order absconders that are in place. We've also sought money for the institutional removal program, incredibly important part of getting at the criminal alien population before they're able to leave prison. Also very cost effective since it minimizes the time we have them in our own facilities.

So in a combination of looking at the source problem, that is the institutions, and then the fugitives who are out on the street and then again prioritizing the worst of the worst. Going through and looking for the violent offenders, those with records of violence, particularly against children, and making them our top priority. We instituted basic law enforcement procedures or tools like a Top 10 list. And criminal alien absconders-we never focused on the criminal aliens in the experience of the INS. We do that now. Our Top 10 list-within the first few weeks we captured nine of those most wanted and the 10th was confirmed to have left the country.

REP. ROGERS: In talking with the Border Patrol people and in dealing with the apprehension of criminals coming across the border, we're having trouble trying to get the FBI criminal fingerprint files available to Border Patrol and your agents throughout the country, to be able to check detainees' fingerprints against the criminal files-the FBI criminal files.

Tell me how you're dealing with that.

MR. GARCIA: I'm aware of the issue. As you mentioned, Chairman, I was the last commissioner of the INS and I was dealing with this in that three-month period. Problems of compatibility IAFIS, you know the issue in terms of matching up our fingerprints. A critical issue for identifying wanted fugitives. We have the horrific case in Texas. We're working-I know Undersecretary Hutchinson testified on this issue as well-working very hard to match up those databases. There are some compatibility issues that remain. It's of critical importance, I agree with you, in terms of our ability to detect criminals returning to this country.

REP. ROGERS: Well, it is a major problem, is it not?

MR. GARCIA: Yes, it is.

REP. ROGERS: Is it mainly a technical problem, the two prints versus 10 prints?

MR. GARCIA: That's my understanding of it, sir.

REP. ROGERS: Has the FBI been cooperative in trying to fix it?

MR. GARCIA: Yes, they have. And when I was in INS, the Department of Justice more so I was dealing with, was trying very aggressively to move forward on that front. In fact, driving a lot of that effort my experience, again, when I was in DOJ.

REP. ROGERS: Well, this is a major source of major crime in the country, granted?

MR. GARCIA: Yes.

REP. ROGERS: I mean, you're saying there's 40,000 criminals in the absconders, people who have been ordered deported but who have left, ran off. That's a goodly group of criminals who have nothing to lose, if you will. And it just seems to me-and I've gained the-extracted the promise out of Secretary Hutchinson and Secretary Ridge that this will not stand; that we're going to solve this thing and it's not going to take four years. What do you say about that?

MR. GARCIA: I agree with that, Mr. Chairman, and I will work with the secretary and undersecretary to get that done.

REP. ROGERS: Well, it's something that we're going to continue to ask you about because people are dying as a result, with the latest case two nuns I think in Washington State-Oregon, strangled to death with their own-one of them with their own rosary by one of these people who had been detained at the border, released and unknowing that he was a criminal, a murderer. And that happens, it seems now, routinely. So we're going to expect this to be fixed.

MR. GARCIA: Yes, sir.

REP. ROGERS: Now, what part will ICE play in the Arizona Border Control initiative announced just yesterday?

MR. GARCIA: Mr. Chairman, since late last year we've had Operation ICE Storm. I referenced it in my opening remarks. Our part of it really focuses on the organizations, the investigations into the organized criminals who are smuggling humans across the border into safe houses primarily in the Phoenix area and then receiving large payments and sending them on into the interior of the United States. We've brought additional agents, 50 agents. We've brought financial agents as part of that to follow the money, seize the money to shut these organizations down. Additional bed space, as you mentioned in your remarks, is clearly critical to our immigration enforcement policy. Some Air and Marine assets in support of the border patrol efforts in the Tucson sector to the south.

But the ICE component is the focus on investigations, dismantling organizations, seizing assets and detaining criminals and illegal aliens. And, again, our very high success rate in the several months we've been up have seen reductions in violent crime in the Phoenix area.

REP. ROGERS: How long will that program go on?

MR. GARCIA: Indefinitely, sir. We're trying to work with investigations to find permanent positions to fill the 50 or so temporary agents we have in place. We're committed to being there to address this violence as long as we're needed.

REP. ROGERS: Is there money requested in '05 for this?

MR. GARCIA: Not specifically for the ICE Storm project, but in other ways to enhance the immigration enforcement program, which will allow us to have more assets dedicated to these projects.

REP. ROGERS: Now, the number of absconders is elusive as well, but I'm saying 465,000 that in your budget justification you mention. That's where we get the number. How does that number compare to your '04 goal?

MR. GARCIA: We obviously have goals of reducing that number over time. Part of what plays in to that calculation is a number of final orders that are being issued on an ongoing basis. We don't want to be creating more absconders as we're picking up people who have been on the run for 10 years. Our ultimate goal is to achieve a greater than 100 percent, in terms of how many people with final orders we detain and remove over how many are issued for the year. I believe our goal for '05 is in the 80 percent range on that ratio and we continue to work to increase it, doing a number of different things. Not only the fugitive teams but also ensuring that we don't create the absconders by using detention facilities, by using alternatives to detention, community based programs. And also, Mr. Chairman, a new pilot project we did in Hartford where once a final order was issued we actually detained the alien at the court proceeding, because we found that community based and other alternatives work up to that point, but then we're seeing large absconder numbers once the final orders are issued.

REP. ROGERS: Why can't we do more of that detaining?

MR. GARCIA: Again, bed space issues and also legal issues, frankly, Mr. Chairman. The detention decision is subject to review on the basis of flight risk, danger to the community, the usual issues that go into making a determination of whether somebody is detained. ICE can make a determination in terms of bail, but it is also subject to review through the Immigration Court proceedings.

REP. ROGERS: How many ICE detention and removal officers are dedicated to fugitive operations?

MR. GARCIA: Right now we have eight teams across the United States -- 18 teams, I'm sorry. Eighteen teams with approximately seven members per team solely dedicated to fugitive operations. We also have a headquarters operation that supports that in terms of looking at follows and leads to send out to the field.

REP. ROGERS: And are you asking more personnel next year?

MR. GARCIA: Yes, we are. Yes, we are. We are asking for a $50 million enhancement, 118 FTEs to support that fugitive operations program.

REP. ROGERS: So how many additional people would that need?

MR. GARCIA: It's 118 FTEs in the request, that's where I'm looking at. In terms of number of teams, 30 additional teams again with seven members per team.

REP. ROGERS: So you have 18 teams now. You're asking for 30 additional teams, right?

MR. GARCIA: That's correct, Mr. Chairman.

REP. ROGERS: Now, what will we get for that?

MR. GARCIA: We're looking at a number-we're pegging a number for each team of 500 per year.

REP. ROGERS: So how many additional apprehensions would that amount to?

MR. GARCIA: Doing the math, I believe that would be 15,000.

REP. ROGERS: And so that would get you-what percent then of apprehensions would that get us?

MR. GARCIA: In terms of the 400,000 number?

REP. ROGERS: Yeah.

MR. GARCIA: Fifteen thousand plus the original total for the 18 teams would be -- 9,000, would be about a 25,000 total target apprehension number. Of the number of 400,000 would be-I can't do the percentage for you right now, but it would be 25,000 as a target number. Six percent?

REP. ROGERS: Yeah, between 5 and 6 percent.

MR. GARCIA: Six percent, yeah.

REP. ROGERS: All right, thank you.

Mr. Sabo.

REP. MARTIN OLAV SABO (D-MN): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Last year DHS announced that 2,500 ICE agents would be trained as Air Marshals to augment the Air Marshal force when necessary. I understand that 100 ICE agents have been identified and trained to date. When do you think you'll reach the total number that you're planning?

MR. GARCIA: Congressman, I could update that. It's closer to 200 have been trained. I believe the exact number is 184. We're proceeding with the next group of 100 agents now, projected 800 by the end of the year and then we'll continue from there with groups of 100 until we reach a total contingent. We --

REP. SABO: I want to interrupt here. I don't want us to reveal classified info here, I'm not sure we are? But we're getting around it pretty close here.

MR. GARCIA: It is a sensitive area, Mr. Chairman, and I apologize. We look to meet the goals of our training along the lines of the discussions we had in the closed session. The numbers that you cite are again higher now and we're continuing with the program.

REP. SABO: Are these people fully trained --

MR. GARCIA: Yes.

REP. SABO: -- to do the same thing?

MR. GARCIA: They are considered Federal Air Marshal-trained as an Air Marshal, although they are teamed with a FAM, teamed with another --

REP. SABO: Okay. Because we heard some testimony last week that as you develop a system for keeping track of other law enforcement people, that they will be somewhat helpful but not have the same role as an Air Marshal?

MR. GARCIA: That's correct, Congressman. You're referring to the Force Multiplier Program.

REP. SABO: But for these trained agents the training is the same, but they are not available on a regular basis but for times of crisis?

MR. GARCIA: Exactly right. This is training that would-they would be considered FAMs under the FAM service and used as such with existing FAMs. The other program really is a briefing, not a training program.

REP. SABO: We recently received a report from the department on the role of the office of Air and Marine Operations and securing the homeland. The report states, and I quote: "The northern border requires the law enforcement response that has been achieved along the southern border." It appears that there were nowhere near that and I don't see the budget making any significant inroads. Am I wrong?

MR. GARCIA: You're correct that we are nowhere near the presence we have on the southern border on the northern border. What we are doing on the Air Marine front in terms of the northern border, Congressman, as you're aware, are the two projected facilities in Bellingham, Washington, and in Plattsburgh, New York, which are going forward using resources, Air Marine and budgeted money for projected-and look to open a third facility in the coming year. Those operations TDY personnel right now, aircraft in Bellingham and some used in Plattsburgh, are really in the process of being built up. So it is-as your statements indicate, it's a project where prior to 9/11 there was not much of any presence on the border. It's going to be a long term project to build up a substantial presence there. Air Marine is committed to that and is working very hard to get those facilities in Bellingham and Plattsburgh up to --

REP. SABO: So any funding for the third place in the budget?

MR. GARCIA: Yes, there is, sir.

REP. SABO: How much? Could you give us personally some detail on that?

MR. GARCIA: Yes, I will, Congressman, and let me get back to you on the number that's in '04.

REP. SABO: The office of Air and Marine Operation states that current funding limits the operation of your P-3 aircraft to approximately 25 percent of what you could provide. Your budget includes $28 million to increase P-3 flights from 200 to 600 per month. Will this get you to 100 percent?

MR. GARCIA: No, it will not, Congressman. I believe that number will get us to less than 50 percent of capable hours.

REP. SABO: A question on the absconders. We've got some reports of people mistakenly on that list. There's the case of a Russian who was a permanent legal resident working for the United States, left the country, came back, was arrested. Apparently some old asylum papers were there and hadn't caught up to the fact that he was legally here. Is that an aberration or is there-are --

MR. GARCIA: (Cross talk) -- to say it was a single unique episode in the annals of the INS. As the chairman mentioned in his opening remarks, there were significant problems with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. We encounter problems with that type of record keeping. That was a particularly egregious example. I have seen examples where notice wasn't documented in the file, leading to legal problems later on in an absconder case where the absconder claimed he didn't know he had a final order of deportation. Problems of that kind much more frequently than the example that you cite. It's a case where we have to go through files. It's a paper system, as you're well aware, for the most part. Very time consuming and extensive.

REP. SABO: Not computerized at all?

MR. GARCIA: Not computerized in terms of the documentation, only in terms of where the file is located. Very, very difficult documentation. We're very careful in doing that. Unfortunate incidents-luckily that's the only one I know of of that kind, but again I have seen incidents where notice documentation-notations weren't made or documents weren't placed in the file, which have caused us problems in the absconder field.

REP. SABO: I notice that the criminal aliens that were arrested last year went up from 53 percent of all removals from 47 percent in 2002. Do you have any percentage that you have as a goal as you get additional enforcement people? You know, targeting the criminal aliens seems to make lots of sense to me.

MR. GARCIA: It makes lots of sense to me too and it, frankly, was something that was not done very well in the past.

REP. SABO: Do you have some goal that --

MR. GARCIA: I don't have a goal in terms of a number because, Congressman, we're looking at capacity in a lot of cases. I have fugitive operations teams. They exhaust leads, they're going to be working on fugitive cases.

So that's going to mean when they're not working a criminal case, they're going to work a civil absconder as well.

REP. SABO: I assume that fugitive criminals are the more difficult to find?

MR. GARCIA: Exactly so, and particularly when-they may be more savvy, but they may also have been picked up for additional crimes and be in a local prison somewhere that might make it difficult for them to look-for us to look for. Given our exit control, some of them-some of all the absconded population may have left the country, so it is a difficult process.

REP. SABO: Last year GAO issued a report on individuals who have had their visas revoked, and they found that ICE was not investigating to locate these individuals and may still be in the United States. And I am not sure even of the communication between the people who revoke visas and yourself. It just doesn't seem to make sense, particularly somebody the visa is revoked because of potential terrorism threat.

MR. GARCIA: I'm aware of that issue in terms of when it surfaced. I can get you an update on where we are in terms of anyone who's out there. I know there are issues in terms of visa revocations themselves and how we work with the State Department in removing people who have had their visas revoked. There are some legal issues in terms of removals, even after a visa has been revoked, that we're trying to work through with the Department of Justice and the State Department.

REP. SABO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.