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The State of America's Border Security

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The State of America's Border Security THE STATE OF AMERICA’S BORDER SECURITY Senator Ron Johnson, Chairman Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs United States Senate 114th Congress November 23, 2015 MAJORITY STAFF REPORT Table of Contents Executive Summary .......................................................................................................................3 Key Highlights .....................................................................................................................7 Part I: The U.S. – Mexico Border ...............................................................................................15 Physical Barriers and Technological Detection Capabilities in the Sectors ..................................16 Fencing and Infrastructure ................................................................................................17 Technologies ......................................................................................................................22 Experiences on the Border .............................................................................................................28 Border Patrol .....................................................................................................................28 Local Law Enforcement .....................................................................................................29 Local Landowners ..............................................................................................................30 Transnational Crime at the Southwest Border ...............................................................................31 Cartels ................................................................................................................................31 Drug Smuggling .................................................................................................................32 Human Smuggling and Trafficking ....................................................................................34 Gangs, Criminal Aliens, and Special Interest Aliens .........................................................35 Part II: The U.S. – Canada Border ............................................................................................36 U.S. – Canada Joint Operations .....................................................................................................38 Threats to the Northern Border ......................................................................................................39 Terrorism ...........................................................................................................................39 Drug Smuggling .................................................................................................................43 Human Smuggling and Trafficking ....................................................................................44 Threats on Tribal Lands.....................................................................................................44 Part III: The Maritime Border ...................................................................................................46 Agency Collaboration and Joint Missions .....................................................................................46 Threats along the Maritime Border ................................................................................................48 The Atlantic Coast and Caribbean .....................................................................................50 The Pacific Coast ................................................................................................................52 The Great Lakes ..................................................................................................................54 U.S. Ports ............................................................................................................................54 Part IV: U.S. Ports of Entry ........................................................................................................56 Visa Waiver Program .....................................................................................................................56 1 Refugee Resettlement ....................................................................................................................59 Biometric Entry-Exit Program .......................................................................................................61 Preclearance Agreements ...............................................................................................................64 Part V: Understanding the Root Causes of Immigration.........................................................66 Central American Migration to the U.S. ........................................................................................67 HHS Response ....................................................................................................................68 DOJ Response ....................................................................................................................70 DHS Response ....................................................................................................................71 Mexico Response ................................................................................................................74 U.S. Assistance to Central America and the Dependency on Remittances ........................75 Unauthorized Immigrant Populations ............................................................................................77 Demographics of the Foreign-Born and Native Born Population.....................................79 Labor Participation and Incentives ...................................................................................81 Conclusion and Recommendations for Proposed Legislation .................................................83 Appendix A: Key Findings of Fact from Border Security Hearings and Roundtables.........94 Appendix B: Key Findings of Central America Trip ...............................................................99 Appendix C: Acronyms .............................................................................................................103 2 Executive Summary For decades, politicians from both parties have vowed to secure our national borders and fix our broken immigration system. Unfortunately, the tough talk has yielded little, if any, real or lasting results. Since the 1986 comprehensive immigration reform that promised to fix the problem once and for all, Congress has passed dozens of laws promising significant reform while the illegal immigrant population has steadily grown from a supposedly 3.5 million in 1986 to approximately 11 million today. Since becoming Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, I have made border security a top priority. The Committee has held 13 hearings and 3 roundtables related to the subject and visited the southwest border, northern border, and Central America. Our efforts represent the necessary first step in solving any problem: a sincere attempt to fully understand and properly define it. Despite dedicated and often heroic efforts from both the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and local law enforcement, the accumulated testimony and information the Committee has gathered yields an inescapable conclusion: America’s borders are not secure. This current state of affairs is clearly unacceptable. A secure border is not only a prerequisite to a functioning legal immigration system, but it is essential to maintaining national security and protecting public health and safety. To understand how porous our borders truly are, consider testimony from former Drug Czar General Barry McCaffrey and Rear Admiral Peter Brown stating we are interdicting less than 10 percent of drugs crossing our land borders and only 11-18 percent crossing our maritime borders. These metrics not only reveal the lack of a secure border, they also point to a root cause— perhaps THE root cause—of the problem: America's insatiable demand for drugs. This demand fueled the rise of drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations that have grown and expanded their product lines to include most forms of illegal drugs and human trafficking. Sex trafficking is extensive and the drug cartels often use economic migrants as a diversion for even higher value drug and human smuggling. As product moves through Central America the drug cartels have dramatically weakened the public institutions and rule of law within those nations. The resulting corruption and criminal impunity enjoyed by gangs and extortion racketeers have led to high murder rates, destroyed economic opportunity, and created significant incentives to migrate to America—the so called “push factors” of illegal immigration. Although significant, these push factors pale in comparison to the pull factors, or incentives, that fuel illegal immigration. Even during periods of slow economic growth, the opportunities that abound in America relative to other countries are the most powerful incentives for both legal and illegal immigration. The significant wage gaps that exist between America and our southern neighbors are the metrics that prove the point. 3 While economic opportunity is the single greatest incentive, we have created numerous other incentives within our laws, regulations, and through the lack of enforcement. We create sanctuary cities where
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