Hearing of the Crime, Corrections and Victims' Rights Subcommittee - Alen Smuggling/Human Trafficking
Federal News Service
HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE CRIME, CORRECTIONS AND VICTIMS' RIGHTS SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: ALIEN SMUGGLING/HUMAN TRAFFICKING: SENDING A MEANINGFUL MESSAGE OF DETERRENCE
CHAIRED BY: SENATOR LINDSEY O. GRAHAM (R-SC)
LOCATION: 226 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.
WITNESSES: PANEL ONE: JOHN MALCOLM, ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, CRIMINAL DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE;
CHARLES DEMORE, INTERIM ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF INVESTIGATIONS, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, BUREAU OF IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT;
ROBERT L. HARRIS, DEPUTY CHIEF, U.S. BORDER PATROL, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, BUREAU OF CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION;
PANEL TWO: ROBERT CHARLETON, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, DISTRICT OF ARIZONA;
JANE BOYLE, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS;
SHARON COHN, SENIOR COUNSEL, INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE MISSION
BODY:
SEN. JOHN CORNYN (D-TX): Thanks, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to all the witnesses who are with us today and the second panel as well that we're looking forward to hearing from. I just have very brief remarks but I want to say that you all have my profoundest support and empathy, I guess, for the tremendous challenge you have. Unfortunately I think the challenges are huge and we have not yet met those challenges when it comes to controlling our borders, dealing with exploitation of those who have come to this country in order to try to find a better way of life. And of course in my state of Texas, we've seen recent tragedies dealing with the phenomenon we are talking about today, and I am grateful to Chairman Graham for convening this subcommittee hearing so we can talk more about it and what we can do to combat it.
I know the facts of the Victoria, Texas case have been widely reported, but I think we can all gain from being reminded of the disturbing facts. In May of this year, seven documented aliens were found dead inside of a tractor trailer. The victims ranged in age from 7 years old to 91 years old. These suffered a death while riding the back of a trailer with possibly over 100 others from Mexico into South Texas. Investigators believe the temperature in the truck exceeded 100 degrees.
As of July 17, 2003, a total of 14 defendants have been charged with the various smuggling related crimes arising out of this incident. Despite this case, smugglers continue to use sealed railroad cars and tractor trailers to move illegal aliens through the South Texas smuggling corridor, and I think we've seen that they are only limited by their imagination in terms of the means and methods by which they bring their human cargo across the border. Only days after the discovery in Victoria, Texas, 16 other migrants were discovered in a tractor-trailer only an hour away.
The news of these instances has saddened and angered me, and I think many others. The criminals involved preyed on these families' desire to come to the United States for a better life. I believe these callous and willful actions not only claimed lives and endangered others, but threatened the national security of our country. I understand the chairman is investigating legislative proposals to increase the penalties for human traffickers and I applaud him and support those efforts whole-heartedly, and offer my assistance in any way I can possibly provide.
Let me just say in conclusion I appreciate your presence here and you have the support of not only this committee but the entire United States Congress and the American people to try to deal with the enormous and, sometimes it seems, overwhelming challenges we have when it comes to regaining security of our borders and dealing with the profoundly sad and tragic exploitation of those who cross our borders seeking a better life. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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SEN. CORNYN: Just so we understand the scope of the problem, a number of-a couple of you I guess have differentiated between human trafficking and alien smuggling, and I assume those are both done for a profit motive. Is that correct, Mr. Malcolm, in your experience?
MR. MALCOLM: Yes, Senator. The difference between the two, very simply, is that people who are trafficked are brought in by force, fraud or coercion and once they reach their destination they're enslaved in either domestic labor, farm labor or sex labor situations. People who are smuggled have paid a fee for the purpose of coming in to this country, and once they pay those fees, often being exorbitant, they're set loose into the community or they join loved ones to make it on their own. But they're both highly profitable activities.
SEN. CORNYN: But I assume that if someone is willing to, for money, traffic in human beings or assist in the smuggling of human beings, there's no reason why that same person, interested in a purely profit motive would not cooperate with terrorists in infiltrating our country. Would you agree with that, Mr. Demore?
MR. DEMORE: Yes, sir, I would. In fact, we know of Middle Eastern nationals who are resident in third party countries, Ecuador, Uruguay, other countries that actually facilitate the movement of aliens from the Middle East through transit countries destined to the United States.
SEN. CORNYN: Well, for example, in my state of Texas we share a 1,200 mile common border with Mexico, and some have concerns and I share those concerns about consequences of human smuggling when it is people who are coming across the border merely to work here, and what happens to them. But I also have a concern about others from other countries who may come to Mexico and across our borders because they know that that's a porous border. It's getting less porous all the time, I hope, but still porous nonetheless.
Mr. Harris, in your experience or your agency's experience, have you seen that phenomenon?
MR. HARRIS: Could you clarify the question?
SEN. CORNYN: Sure. People coming from other countries to a place like Mexico to cross our border on the U.S. Mexican border, rather than entering through some other route because they know that that is a vulnerable border to trans-border crossings.
MR. HARRIS: Certainly. As I stated in my opening statement, Senator, we arrest on average over a million people a year, by and large the bulk of those, over 90 percent of those are from the country of Mexico. But the people that we encounter from other countries, just name pretty much any country in the world, we arrest people from those areas. We have this year arrested about 250 aliens that we refer to as from special interest countries, where there is a high degree of interest by the United States government.
The bulk of those arrests occurred on the U.S. Canada border, but these were not-you know, the majority of them were not people actually crossing the border, they were encountered by other law enforcement agencies during (jail ?) check and what have you.
SEN. CORNYN: So those apprehensions could include countries that are state sponsors of terrorism on the State Department's watch list for example?
MR. HARRIS: Certainly. But by and large, along the U.S. Mexico border we have not encountered any significant increase or any significant numbers of those people crossing the U.S. Mexico border. Certainly we do recognize it as a vulnerability, but in terms of apprehensions and what have you, we've seen nothing significant.
SEN. CORNYN: You catch about a million a year?
MR. HARRIS: On average, about a million a year. In fiscal year 2000, 1.6 million, 2001, 1.2 million. Last year was 970,000, 980,000, around there. We expect a similar number this year.
SEN. CORNYN: Do you know how many make it across that, due to lack of resources or whatever the reason may be, technology, that you don't catch? Or what percentage you do catch?
MR. HARRIS: There's-I don't have a good answer for that question. I'll tell you that right now I've heard and seen some of the estimates. I will tell you that in areas where we do have adequate resources, where we've implemented our strategy, where we have sufficient personnel, equipment and technology, we're much better at being able to come up with that number, especially where we have the camera systems and centers and what have you. We can tell pretty much what comes across the border and then account for what we catch and what we don't.
But in areas where we don't have those kinds of resources we don't have a good way to get that number.
SEN. CORNYN: I've seen figures, it seems to me-and I'm not trying to be precise here, but somewhere in the order of hundreds of thousands that still come across our borders that are not apprehended. Would you have any reason to disagree with a number in the 200,000 range?
MR. HARRIS: I would have to look at those figures and how someone would come up with those types of estimates. The figure that I see most recently referred to is the census data about how many illegal aliens we have in the country, although I would say that those do not necessarily represent people who cross the border between the ports of entry and escape. A lot of those people came into the country legally through the ports with proper documents and did not leave the country.
I understand the department has been working diligently to establish a means of tracking those types of people to make sure that they do leave the country.
SEN. CORNYN: The figure I've seen is about 40 percent of our illegal immigration is a result of people who've overstayed their visas, which would leave I guess 60 percent who've gotten here without any legal authority whatsoever. But I guess it's really a hard question to say, you know who you catch but I guess you don't know who you don't catch.
MR. HARRIS: Certainly, very difficult to measure. We know obviously we're not catching everybody, we think we're getting much better at it. But obviously we do have some work left to do in a lot of areas, especially along the southwest border.
SEN. CORNYN: The figures I've seen are we have between 8 to 10 million undocumented immigrants in this country. I was shocked to learn I guess, Senator Chambliss in his subcommittee last week that we have about 300,000 people currently in the United States under final orders of deportation. They've exhausted all legal remedies, and we simply don't know where they are, so the problem is huge in magnitude.
Two quick other subjects I wanted to ask about. Perhaps, Mr. Malcolm, this one would relate to you, Chairman Graham has called this to look at what sort of penalties that the Congress might enact or consider to deter this sort of reprehensible activity, but we have a problem, I guess, particularly with Mexico and other countries that simply will not extradite their citizens if they are subject to a death penalty. I believe that also extends to those who are given-who have potentially a life sentence. Is that correct?
MR. DEMORE: I believe so.
SEN. CORNYN: So that's certainly, I guess, Mr. Chairman something we're going to have to consider and certainly something that the State Department and in our discussions with our neighbors in Mexico-if we're going to ratchet up the penalties, whether we're going to get the kind of cooperation that I believe we need with neighboring countries and other countries in terms of extraditing those criminals to this country for proper punishment.
Finally let me just ask Mr. Demore, a couple of weeks ago I filed a bill called the Border Security and Immigration Reform Act of 2003 which I hope will restart the discussion about a guest worker program in this country. I simply want to ask you, if Congress is able to come up with a legal means for people to come from other countries to this country to work and then to return to their home country with the money that they've earned, will that relieve some of the pressure that we feel now because people feel like they have no means to get here legally so they simply turn themselves over to human smugglers and others who have no concern for them at all?
MR. DEMORE: Well, sir, if the Congress were to be so inclined, we would work with the Congress to make sure that whatever methodology was imposed would be-we would safeguard the national security interest in the context of working with you
MR. CORNYN: And I don't mean to put you on the spot and ask you endorse some legislation, but it just makes sense to me, Mr. Chairman, if there was some legal means for people who wanted to come here and work and then return to their country, then there would be less people who would turn their lives over to these human smugglers and suffer perhaps death and horrible injury in the process because they really feel like they have no other way to get here. Thank you very much.
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SEN. CORNYN: I just have a couple of questions in conclusion.
Chief Harris, I know we were talking about the number that the border patrol catches each year and I wonder if you would please after the hearing go back and try to provide us an answer. The border patrol's best estimate about how many people come across the border that, for one reason or another, you're unable to catch, and do come into the country illegally each year. Would you get that information for us, please? And then you mentioned there are, did I hear you correctly, you said there are now 1,000 border patrol agents on the 4,000 mile U.S./Canadian border?
MR. HARRIS: They're not there yet, Senator, this was just directed we have gone out with the initial job announcement, we're making selections for those positions now but we're shooting to have those 1,000 agents upon the border by the end of this year.
SEN. CORNYN: And how many are there now?
MR. HARRIS: About 600.
SEN. CORNYN: Six hundred. And do you know how many agents are on the 2,000 mile U.S./Mexico border?
MR. HARRIS: Approximately 9,500
SEN. CORNYN: And I know we've talked to Mr. Hutchison and others about employing technology including things like unmanned aerial vehicles, America's a leader in technology so a lot of the things that we've used to supplement and augment are human resources, I think, or are going to be more helpful so that you don't have to literally have an agent posted every few feet on the border. No one's suggesting that that would be a good alternative but I'm hopeful that we will be able employ the most modern technology we have to be able assist you in doing what I think we all realize is a difficult and challenging job.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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SEN. CORNYN: Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to first direct questions to Mr. Charlton and Ms. Boyle about cooperative efforts with local and state law enforcement authorities. I think we've heard from the first panel that the federal government probably can't do all this by itself including those of you who are the frontline prosecutors for federal law violations. But, Ms. Boyle, would you perhaps in the Melina (ph) case that you described, talk about the role, if any, of local and state law enforcement authorities to complement the work that you did. And, if there wasn't an involvement of those law enforcement officials, whether you think that would be beneficial or whether you would consider that to be problematic for some reason?
MS. BOYLE: Senator, let me tell you first generally that state, local and federal authorities have never worked as well together as they have since September 11 on all fronts. In this particular case, just to hone in on that. I don't know that we would have gotten the investigation off dead center if we hadn't had tips that were initially given in 2001 to the Fort Worth Police Department. I believe they received some anonymous letters.
They were extremely cooperative and this is the Dallas Police Department, the Fort Worth Police Department in particular, and the sheriffs offices of both cities were very, very involved in our efforts in the Melina case with the former INS and the FBI. We could not have done this without the efforts of those local agencies. They helped us plan the operation. Probably the most crucial part of this operation was what we call the raid and that was the evening that we went in under very precarious circumstances. You're going to bars at night with all sorts of individuals frequenting them. So under very precarious circumstances we planned this together with the local law enforcement authorities and in turned out very successful.
But we could not have done it without their help, without their intelligence. Their intelligence was very key. We are finding these days that local law enforcement play a crucial role in providing us the intelligence we need to carry out major federal operations. So this was a perfect example of that. So from my experience in the Melina case, it's a prime example of the great work of local law enforcement and their contribution to our efforts.
SEN. CORNYN: Mr. Charlton, what about your experience?
MR. CHARLTON: Senator, in April of this year we initiated in our district Operation Desert Risk which was our attempt to address the very issue that you're talking about, Senator. We invited state, local and tribal law enforcement officials to join federal law enforcement officials in addressing the issue of alien smuggling on the border. We received a very good response from state, local and tribal law enforcement officials because everyone recognizes that alien smuggling is not just a federal problem or issue. It is a problem which affects all of our local communities as well and begins to affect the quality of life issues for our state, local and tribal enforcement officers and the community.
We are continuing this operation through the summer months which are our most critical months in Arizona and we will terminate this operation in October after which we will look at the data which we have collected to determine whether or not we have, in fact, seen an effective reduction in the kinds of crimes both in smuggling and collateral offences that surround smuggling offences in the district of Arizona.
REP. CORNYN: As Ms. Boyle knows in Texas when I was in a previous life as attorney general of Texas, we worked closely as state law enforcement officials with local and federal authorities on gun crime and what we encountered before we initiated the Texas Exile Program is what, frankly, I think what the 9/11 Report demonstrated, Mr. Chairman, at the federal level is we weren't playing as well together as we should or working as well together as we should.
And I know I'm glad to hear-gratified to hear-what both of you have said about the work that you're doing but we just have to figure a way to get more resources into the game, particularly when we're talking about homeland security, we're talking about these horrific crimes that you've described. I just think we need to do everything we can in the Congress to encourage and indeed to require that sort of cooperative effort. One area that I know that does not necessarily relate-or it might to some extent-to what we've talking about here today is simple information sharing.
And you mentioned the intelligence, Ms. Boyle, that you received from local law enforcement officials. Well, the problem is I'm afraid in too many times it comes from the bottom up but it doesn't come from the top down. In other words, federal intelligence agencies don't share information, not only with one another, they don't share it with state and local law enforcement officials. And I know there are concerns with regard to maintaining the confidentiality of that information but there are certainly methods to eliminate the most sensitive information and provide the functional information that's needed in order to fulfill the most complete role possible when it comes to dealing with crimes of this nature and other nature as well.
Ms. Boyle, as terms of the organization of the Melina organization, would you describe for us-I mean, are we talking about the sort of mules, I mean, the low level people that you are able to successfully prosecute. You said some remained in Honduras. In other words, were you able to cut the head off the snake or were you dealing with some lower level people or some combination.
MS. BOYLE: We did get four individuals that we believe are at the top of the organization, Senator, as well as the mules. Again, thanks to all of the intelligence that we were able to gather. It is a very lucrative business and it is operating out of very poor countries. So the incentive is almost impossible to stop someone's inclination towards getting involved in that. I believe this organization was fairly well dashed. I will tell you though that that doesn't mean others won't spring up in its place but I think we just have to be ready to go after them when they do and make sure they know the United States will not tolerate this kind of crime.
But we were able to get individuals at the top of the organization. I believe at the very top. And for reasons I can easily and be glad to get into however we were not able to secure the types of sentences I think that these individuals deserved.
SEN. CORNYN: You said they were five years-to the order of five years.
MS. BOYLE: They were. We had one over five and I think three others that were slightly under five.
SEN. CORNYN: I agree with you that given the nature of the offences that that does not seem like a proportional sentence and we'd be interested in learning more about your suggestions as to what we can do to address that.
Ms. Cohen, let me, as a father of two daughters, I must tell you-and just as a human being-the story that you conveyed about sex trafficking and what we might be able to do about it is chilling. I guess my question to you though is if there are Americans who are committing these offences in foreign countries, what sorts of things specifically can we do, this Congress do, recognizing that things that happen in foreign countries are difficult for our laws to reach, what sorts of things can we do in your opinion to get at and address those sorts of heinous acts?
MS. BOYLE: Senator Cornyn, the Congress has graciously and brilliantly, I think, passed the Protect Act which changes the sex tourism law that was currently on the books. The old law required that the U.S. Attorney's Office be able to demonstrate that a sex tourist traveled overseas for the purpose of committing a sexual crime but they had to prove that the intent was formed in the United States in order to secure the jurisdictional hook. The new Protect Act takes that away and simply requires that the U.S. Attorney's Office prove that an individual traveled overseas and committed an act and removed that intent requirement domestically.
The old requirement, sort of, suggested that the FBI investigators would be able to find neighbors of the sex tourist in Oklahoma or somewhere and have them say, yes, he told me he was going overseas to have sex with a 6-year old. Very difficult to prove.
Now that's gone and all you have to prove is that the person did in fact travel to Cambodia, have sex that was illegal in the United States, for example sex with a minor, and you can prosecute them here in the United States.
These are sex tourists who travel and come back. They're businessmen. They're doctors or lawyers. They travel. They spend a lot of money to crime they don't believe they could get away with committing in the United States so they travel overseas to commit that crime. And now I think Congress has given the Department of Justice the tools that it needs to convict them here in the United States.
I should also add that it really, in my opinion, only takes a few meaningful convictions to create that deterrent effect that you were talking about because these areas get known. For example, this area, Sfe Pah (ph) in Cambodia, become known because of websites and Internet chat rooms. The example of how effective deterrence can be use is after we were able to secure the raid in Cambodia and rescue the girls and have the perpetrators arrested, the Internet chat rooms that covered that area called Sfe Pah, were saying the party's over in Cambodia.
And that's the kind of information flow that you want to generate. And I think a few convictions here in the United States were send that message that sex tourism by Americans is not going to be permitted any more.
SEN. GRAHAM: Thank you, Senator Cornyn.