ACTING SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY KEVIN K. MCALEENAN HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION JULY 18, 2019 Serial No. 116–49 Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform ( Available on: http://www.govinfo.gov http://www.oversight.house.gov http://www.docs.house.gov U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 37–933 PDF WASHINGTON : 2019 COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Chairman CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Ranking Minority Member ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona Columbia VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina JIM COOPER, Tennessee JODY B. HICE, Georgia GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI, Illinois JAMES COMER, Kentucky JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas HARLEY ROUDA, California BOB GIBBS, Ohio KATIE HILL, California RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland CHIP ROY, Texas PETER WELCH, Vermont CAROL D. MILLER, West Virginia JACKIE SPEIER, California MARK E. GREEN, Tennessee ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota MARK DESAULNIER, California W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan FRANK KELLER, Pennsylvania STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands RO KHANNA, California JIMMY GOMEZ, California ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, New York AYANNA PRESSLEY, Massachusetts RASHIDA TLAIB, Michigan DAVID RAPALLO, Staff Director RUSS ANELLO, Chief Oversight Counsel AMY STRATTON, Clerk CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Minority Staff Director CONTACT NUMBER: 202-225-5051 (II) CONTENTS Page Hearing held on July 18, 2019 ............................................................................... 1 WITNESS The Honorable Kevin K. McAleenan, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 5 Written opening statements and the witness’ written statement are available at the U.S. House of Representatives Repository: https://docs.house.gov. INDEX OF DOCUMENTS The documents listed below are available at: https://docs.house.gov. * Letter to McAleenan from Reps. Garcia and Krishnamoorthi; submitted by Rep. Krishnamoorthi. * Questions for the Record: from Chairman Cummings, Rep. Wasserman Schultz, Rep. Khanna, and Rep. DeSaulnier. * Questions for the Record: response from the U.S. Department of Home- land Security. * Rep. Gerry Connolly’s Statement for the Record. (III) ACTING SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY KEVIN K. MCALEENAN Thursday, July 18, 2019 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM Washington, D.C. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Elijah Cummings (chairman of the committee) presiding. Present: Representatives Cummings, Maloney, Norton, Cooper, Connolly, Krishnamoorthi, Raskin, Rouda, Hill, Wasserman Schultz, Sarbanes, Welch, Speier, Kelly, DeSaulnier, Plaskett, Khanna, Gomez, Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Jordan, Gosar, Massie, Meadows, Hice, Grothman, Comer, Cloud, Gibbs, Higgins, Norman, Roy, Miller, Green, Armstrong, Steube, and Keller. Also present: Representative Escobar. Chairman CUMMINGS. The committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time. We are convening to hear the testimony of Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan. I want to briefly address the spectators. I already saw two signs being held up, so I want to address you. We welcome you, and we respect your right to be here. We also ask in turn that you re- spect—we ask for your respect as we proceed with the business of this committee today. It is the intention of this committee to pro- ceed with this hearing without disruptions. If a disruption occurs, listen up, a Capitol Police officer will go up to the individual, in- struct that they cease demonstrations. If the individual does cease, no action will be taken. However, if the person does not cease, you will be asked to leave. We are grateful for your presence here today and your cooperation, and we want to move this hearing along quickly. Every time I have to stop and the police have to address issues like that, that just slows us up. I would also remind all Members to avoid engaging in any ad- verse personal references. I now recognize myself for five minutes. Today, the committee is examining the Trump administration’s inhumane policy of separating children from their parents at the border and the dangerous conditions in which they are being held. Last Friday, we issued a staff report summarizing data on children who were separated from their families by the Trump administra- tion. This report was based on information that we forced the Trump administration to produce to the committee pursuant to bi- (1) 2 partisan subpoenas after they refused to provide it voluntarily for months. The report found that the administration’s child separation policy was more harmful, more traumatic, and more chaotic than pre- viously known. The report also describes specific case studies of 10 children who were separated by the Trump administration, includ- ing several who were under the age of two. We sent our report to the Department last week, and we will be asking our witness about these children this morning. Today, we will hear from Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan. He was originally invited to testify at our hear- ing last week, but he asked for that appearance to be postponed until today. We accommodated his request, and we thank you for being here today. Mr. McAleenan is one of the key architects of the Trump admin- istration’s child separation policy. Last April, he sent a memo to Secretary Nielsen explaining how they could, and I quote, direct the separation of parents or legal guardians and minors held in im- migration detention, end of quote. He also recommended going for- ward with this policy, and she agreed. They separated thousands and thousands of children from their parents under this policy until public outrage and a Federal court forced them to stop. Mr. McAleenan and other senior administration officials admit- ted that one of their purposes of separating children from their families was to deter immigrants and asylum seekers. General Kelly said this—and Attorney General Sessions said this, and Mr. McAleenan admitted as much in an interview last June when he said, and I quote, the intent, unquote, of the policy to, and I quote, the policy to dissuade crossing between ports of entry, end of quote. Tragically, under Mr. McAleenan’s leadership, the Trump admin- istration failed to track separated children and families so they could be reunited. Mr. McAleenan has claimed that the administra- tion, and I quote, kept very careful records when the relationships between parents and children. But that is not accurate. Our com- mittee has now obtained data, under subpoena, showing a chaotic system in which children and parents were repeatedly moved to multiple facilities and which parents were repeatedly deported without any idea of where their children were. Our findings are corroborated by multiple reports from the inde- pendent inspector general and the Government Accountability Of- fice, which concluded that the Trump administration made no seri- ous effort to track separated children and had no plan to reunify them. Finally, while Mr. McAleenan has acknowledged overcrowding at the detention centers, he has claimed publicly that the reports of filthy and dangerous conditions are, quote, unsubstantiated, end of quote. This is simply not accurate. Last week, we heard testimony from the IGs that substantiated these reports in a graphic way, and they provided photographic evidence as well. The administration wants to blame Democrats for this crisis, but it is the Trump administration’s own policies that are causing these problems. It was the Trump administration that imple- mented the, quote, zero tolerance policy, end of quote, separated thousands of children, and increased the number of people in de- 3 tention. It was the Trump administration that canceled effective policies from the last administration that reduced unnecessary de- tentions. It was the Trump administration that shut down the fam- ily case management program in which social workers helped mi- grant families find attorneys and navigate the court system with a 99-percent success rate for attending court appearances and check-ins with ICE. It was the Trump administration that ended the Central American Minors Program, which allowed children fleeing Central American countries with a relative in the United States to apply for asylum from their home countries. These were all policy decisions made by the Trump administra- tion. They all increased the number of people being held and un- necessarily detained, and they all contributed to the conditions we are now witnessing. The damage the Trump administration has in- flicted and is continuing to inflict will impact these children for the rest of their lives. As I’ve said, when we’re dealing with children, it’s not the deed; it’s the memory. It is the memory that will haunt them until they die. Today’s hearing is one more step in our com- mittee’s effort to determine the scope of this damage and begin to address it. With that, I yield to the distinguished ranking member, Mr. Jor- dan. Mr. JORDAN. The President says there’s a crisis, asks for $4.5 bil- lion. The Democrats said it’s fake, it’s contrived, it’s manufactured, it’s not a real crisis. Then the real crisis gets even worse, and what do the Democrats do? They blame the President of the United States, and they blame the hard-working people who work for Mr. McAleenan on the border, when everyone knows what has to be done. Everyone knows this. You’ve got to fix the asylum law. You’ve got to fix the Flores decision. You’ve got to build a border security wall.