 Here, it's a great pleasure to be back at CSIS, especially to be in this beautiful new facility, I think well over a year ago, I had the opportunity to deliver some remarks on another non-controversial topic, drug policy at CSIS. So to be back and have another non-controversial topic, such as immigration, border security, et cetera, is just a delight. So thank you again, and let me go ahead and start with a few things. I've had about 100 days as the CBP commissioner, so when you're thinking of all the tough questions, I've only had 100 days, so I'll be able to dodge some of them if they're particularly difficult. I think it's a perfect time though to talk about an evolving vision for CBP, and also to talk about some of the very pressing concerns that we face and also where our agency is headed. So let me first talk about the workforce, because I think that's actually the premier part. We have soon to have 62,000 employees in 40 countries, a wide range and diversity of people and skill sets. And as many of you know from the Federal Employee Survey, we don't do particularly well when it comes to the morale in the department. And so working on that is particularly a critical item for me. I'm the first commissioner to be confirmed by the Senate in now over five years, and I think it's helpful when you've gone through the confirmation process. The previous commissioners were incredible people. I have the greatest respect and admiration for Alan Burson and David Aguilar and Tom Winkowski, and they did a tremendous job, and they certainly had the full support of the administration. But I think it's also critical that you have the support of the Senate in these issues. During the five years that I served President Obama as his drug policy advisor, I had that opportunity to work very closely with people on the Hill. So communication, having the support of the administration, having the support of members of Congress, I think is helpful to this large and diverse workforce. You know, for most of the history, our workforce on the border was very much divided and very independent among federal agencies. Borders, air operations, ports of entry were all served by different federal agencies. But since 2003 and since the 9-11 commission in the founding of the Department of Homeland Security, we've had one unified border agency, and that's allowed us to really work and to try and craft a comprehensive border strategy to not only secure those borders, but also to support our economy. And many of you know we have this dual mission with the facilitation of lawful trade and travel and the security of the borders, and they're not mutually exclusive. Let me give you just some idea of the breadth and the depth of what the people at CBP do on a daily basis. They process a million passengers and pedestrians, 67,000 truck rail and sea containers. They make 1,000 apprehensions a day. This is all on a daily basis. They arrest 22 wanted criminals. They seize about 12,000 pounds of narcotics, about $300,000 in undeclared currency, about almost $5 million worth of products that violate intellectual property rights. In addition, 440 agricultural pests at the US ports of entry, 4,379. I'm being a good fed by giving you all these numbers. 4,379 agriculture materials that require quarantine to protect our agriculture industry. If you wanna know more about Capra Beetles later, I'll be happy to discuss those in depth. To carry out that mission, they have become, as Kat mentioned, the largest law enforcement agency in the United States. But we rely on our employees for our success. And even when you look at our budget, the vast majority of our budget is in our salaries and our personnel costs. In order to fulfill that mission, it is absolutely vital that we do everything we can to support that workforce. There are many ideas to enhance the workforce that involve recognition, that involve support, but also a strong mention from every leader within CBP to that workforce, that people's health, taking care of their families, making sure that those things are premier, are the critical and important thing. And we're doing lots of experimentation, lots of experimentation in expanding telecommuting, changing the environment within the organization. But I think when that message comes across from all of the leaders, many of whom are seated here in front of me today, when that message comes across from all of the leaders about the importance and the value that they place in employees, then I think that translates well. And you know what, the better that workforce does, the more efficient they are, the less sick time on and on. But many of you know this and we're hoping that we're going to be able to improve the way we show on that Federal Employee Workforce Survey. And this is also an important issue, as many of you know, with Secretary Johnson and also with our Deputy Secretary, Allie Mayorkas. When we work with this vision, we're going to improve that productivity and we're just better capable of carrying out our mission. Carrying out our mission though really involves sharing information and creating community. Partnerships and information sharing are the heart of all that we do. In the first 100 days, I have worked very hard to travel across the country actually in many places around the world to visit with our employees and to listen to them and to have town halls. And also to enforce through relationships the important international relationships, particularly with places like Mexico. Our counterparts in law enforcement, customs, immigration, intelligence, security, and foreign affairs. And in Peru, I joined the Director's General of Customs of the Western Hemisphere to consider regional risk management strategy. So we do a better job here in the United States government on interagency collaboration. And in turn, we have to do a better job on international collaboration. I did the same thing in Spain, meeting with members of the World Customs Organization. And a lot of this, of course, is not only to promote that lawful trade and travel, but also to make sure that the supply chain is secure and not vulnerable to crime and corruption. And in the Middle East, I spoke with our Arab leaders, with Arab leaders about building the capacity for more secure trade and travel. And the unified border management system that is being replicated around the world is modeled on the good work that's been done by CBP here in the United States. And it's a truly collaborative approach. And when I listened, by the way, to all of these different, my counterparts, whether it was in customs or border security forces, more and more and more, you hear the talk from them that it's not just about the collection of revenue, that it's not just about the trade and facilitation, which is often at the heart of customs organizations in other countries who don't have the dual responsibility that we have. Security concerns were absolutely preeminent. Over and over, they brought up increasing concerns about security. And we have models and we have things that we can offer to other countries to help improve that. We have to work with our industrial partners. We have an extensive interagency collaborative network. In Washington, we have lots of interagency meetings that everyone understands and appreciates the value of those relationships. And as a result, CBP and its network of partners, we have prevented, we meaning a collective we, have prevented potentially dangerous individuals from coming into this country. Those are often cases, of course, that we're not allowed or cannot talk about publicly. But I've seen it time and time and time again. We have private sector partnerships, so it's not just the interagency and it's not just our international partnerships. When you think about our networking and sharing of information with government agencies, we have to include the industry as part of that. An example would be the ACAS system, the Air Cargo Advanced Screening Program. After the Christmas Day attempted bomb, or after the, excuse me, after the air traffic worldwide was disrupted in 2010 with the printer cartridges from Yemen, things changed dramatically and people really stepped up to the plate from the private sector along with the government to develop a system that is risk-based and makes so much more sense in again protecting the country. We needed to receive data in advance on air cargo and the industry stepped up, FedEx, DHL, UPS and TNT. Those express industry shipping companies handle almost all of the air cargo globally. And when we put the problem on the table as a result of what was discovered with those cartridges, those private sector partners worked with us to come up with a solution. And I think ACAS is an excellent example. Automated Passport Control would be another one. The more information that a CBPO, Customs and Border Protection Officer, has at a port of entry, the more information that they have where they don't have to spend time doing data entry and typing into the computer. If they have that information because someone has already scanned their passport through that kiosk, then that's more information or more time that they can devote to processing people and to moving legitimate travelers through the system, but perhaps then spending more time where additional scrutiny is needed. So the automated passport controls are important. You've read extensively about the Syrian foreign fighter issue. We're actively engaged in that again with the interagency. It's certainly been no secret in the remarks that Director Comey and others have made about concerns. And certainly the concerns just recently raised in Belgium and France were highlighted this particular threat. And it's important that we are a part of that. The need for illuminating this and working more closely with our foreign partners is not only helpful to our safety and security here in the United States, it's certainly more helpful to the safety and security of our partner nations. That employee morale, I wanna get back to that with a little more in depth, is important because so much of what we do is also based upon those resources. So we have huge significant improvements in technology, in training, et cetera, but so much of what we do is labor intensive. And some of it, when you look at all the technology and many of you travel so extensively and you go through the ports, I hope you're a global entry member, by the way, and go through the ports, it's so fascinating to see all of the technology that's so helpful, but it's also so fascinating to see an experienced and knowledgeable CBPO that is there recognizing the importance of their mission to protect this country, but also having the skills to be able to identify. And every single day when I mentioned those significant seizures of cash and narcotics and others, the prohibiting of people that shouldn't come to the United States, a lot of that is actually based upon the work and the skill set that those people have. So the more we do to improve their training, their development, recognizing their performance and thanking them, the better off we all are. We're going to expand our ability within CBP, again with a very large organization, to let people know about career path opportunities and perhaps additional training and where we can also be a partner with the interagency and let people have an opportunity for a period of time to work in some other location and to learn other things. I've never been more impressed with a workforce than I have been with CBP. When this job was being talked about within the White House and I was asked about it, in case I knew anybody, I raised my hand, what about me? And I had that opportunity because I've had the chance over the years serving the president to work on something called the Southwest Board of Counter-Narcotics Strategy. Every two years we update that. So during the time that I worked on three of those for the president, I was able to spend a lot of time with CBP, a lot of time on the Southwest border meeting with them and I said, I knew this was a place I wanted to go. Not that I was anxious to leave the White House, but I was anxious to also get into operations. Let me talk about something that has been in the news a lot, the unaccompanied children. The number of children that CBP is encountering on the Southwest border has increased by 92% over last year. I'm talking in the fiscal year numbers. Many of them are girls, many more are under the age of 13. It has created a humanitarian crisis. Secretary Johnson on May 12th determined that this would be a level four condition of readiness within the Department of Homeland Security. That's a determination that the situation has exceeded the capacity of CBP and ICE and that we needed additional DHS resources. He chose the deputy chief of the United States border patrol to be the DHS federal coordinator. I think it tells you the importance that he places on these individuals that are on the front lines but also the recognition that they were going to work closely with their counterparts. So making sure that these children are taken care of is a huge humanitarian act and I've been down there several times. Chief Fisher and the front row and many others have been down a number of times to McAllen or into the Rio Grande Valley to look at this and I would tell you that those border patrol agents are doing yeoman work. They're doing an incredible job but also the bringing together of the interagency, having Coast Guard Corpsmen deal with these kids, many of whom by the way, in fact most of whom by the way have never been treated by a doctor or a clinician until they've been encountered by us. FEMA has done an absolutely tremendous job. They know disasters, they know about coordination, they know about engaging the interagency and they know about working closely with state and locals. So director or administrator, Fugate and the men and women of FEMA have done a great job on this and as you know from Secretary Johnson's remarks yesterday but also his visit on Mother's Day to McAllen that he also takes this very personally and it's very high on his radar screen as it is among every member of the Obama administration. This group, they're all working together to ensure that these children are transferred out of our border patrol facilities quickly, that they go to health and human services and that they can provide from the moment we encounter them, from the moment we encounter them with nutrition, education, medical care, et cetera and then we expand that later through HHS and others to include housing, to include mental health care, et cetera because many of these kids have been tremendously traumatized. The vast majority as you well know are from Central America. They're fleeing hardships, they're fleeing economic conditions, they're fleeing violence within their own countries and many are also seeking reunification with their families. While these children await the immigration proceedings that they are then under, HHS is working with these children and relatives to place them here in the United States into longer term facilities. The CBP custody, the DHS office of health affairs, the Coast Guard, many others I've talked about and so many volunteers, the Texas Baptist Men's Association, many, many other NGOs that are involved in helping to provide food, clean clothing, shower facilities, et cetera. It's a tremendous operation. We're working hard now to launch the public affairs campaign in these other countries to talk about one, not only the dangers that these kids face by being placed in the hands of coyotes who are involved in smuggling them, not only those dangers, but also the dangers they face in other ways. But also the clear recognition that regardless of what is being considered now in Congress for a comprehensive immigration review that they would not be entitled to a path to citizenship as a result of entering the country now at this point. CBP along with our partner law enforcement agencies has surged criminal investigators to break the backs of smuggling organizations that are involved in this, oftentimes for large amounts of money and oftentimes they could care less about the safety of those children in their care. So we're working hard to make sure that those people are apprehended and the Department of Justice is working hard to make sure that they are prosecuted. So we've responded to the needs of these children. Our border patrol agents have brought in there and our CBPOs at the ports of entry also where these kids can walk up a bridge and turn themselves in. They've brought in their own clothing, they've done so many other things that is beyond any skill set that they have and certainly something they didn't sign up for. Use of force is another issue so I'll change topics dramatically. The use of force is particularly by the border patrol has received a lot of attention in the media. CBP has been criticized for its lack of transparency regarding our policies and procedures. About two weeks ago we began to change that. Even earlier Chief Fisher began working very hard to make sure that the policy changes and the training changes that are needed because you can't just issue a piece of paper that all of this was being done too. So we're working within CBP and within CBP's leadership to be more transparent, to be more open to improve policy, to improve training and I think you'll see more to come in that particular area. So let me just say that CBP has succeeded, I think, in unimaginable ways to improve our technology, our innovation, our vision. We know that people want to come to the United States. So even though we hear quite often about the wait times at airports or the wait times at seaports, people want to come to this country and over the last four years, every year we've seen travel and trade increase. They want to do business in this country. They want to trade in this country. This is a safe country and CBP helps very much to make it that way. And that's why people want to come here. But also because in many ways you can do business in this country without having to be overly concerned at all about corruption and payoffs. So when I think about all the work that CBP does to protect intellectual property rights, to make sure that everything they do at the borders particularly, to make sure that this is a safe and secure country and to make sure that trade and travel can flourish in a lawful and legitimate way is a huge difference. So those are just a few small things of an organization and a workforce that I'm extremely proud of and I couldn't be more honored than to have been nominated and confirmed and now leading that organization. So Adam, I think I'm ready. Thank you all. So I'm gonna moderate the following discussion here by starting off with a couple of questions of my own and then what I'm going to do is look to the audience to follow up with questions. And what I'd ask folks to do when we take questions from the audience is to raise your hand and when I call on you identify yourself and your affiliation before stating the question. So Commissioner, first of all, thanks so much for the remarks you made both in depth and breadth. I wanna touch on a couple of topics that you raised by way of kicking the discussion off. You talked about a problem that's on everyone's minds right now, that of the tremendous increase in unaccompanied minors that are being apprehended on the Southwest border and we talked about the humanitarian focus, the government-wide humanitarian response effort and you touched a little bit on what the government's doing to try and deter these journeys from being undertaken in the first place. I wonder if you can kind of talk more about whether you're seeing any impact from those kind of deterrence-related activities and how you're gonna be monitoring that and thinking about whether additional measures are required. Well, some of you are familiar with the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security prior programs to get messages out at that time a few years ago. They were concentrated more in Mexico but certainly in the Central American countries and actually that's where our concentration is now to say that it is an incredibly dangerous thing. It's dangerous to try and attempt particularly in the summer months to come into this country and to traverse really rugged locations. Every single day I get reports from the border patrol and our air and marine operations on rescues of people, dehydration, et cetera. You can't carry enough water physically to get across any of that terrain but we also need to make sure that in this new round of messaging, it's not only the danger to themselves, placing children in the hands of coyotes is incredibly difficult. There has been a lot of discussion and a lot of looking at our facilities which actually are although not as much now but have been overwhelmed by the number of people. I guess we need to actually show the same level of concern by many organizations about the danger these kids were in before they ever encountered somebody from the border patrol or customs and border protection who actually is a safe and secure individual for them but the last part of that message has to be that this is not a pathway to citizenship. What kind of an impact is this surge having on the kind of the underlying enforcement interdiction mission particularly along the southwest border? Well, it's taken away resources within the border patrol to concentrate on caring for these individuals that would normally be doing other enforcement duties and we have to look at alleviating that. Chief Fisher and others have taken on a temporary detail about 115 border patrol agents from other sections where they were less busy and I don't know any place on the border where they're not busy but where they were a little less busy and surge them into this area but the sooner they can get back to doing those other duties, I think the better. You talked about the use of force policy and the modification that had been made in it. Can you talk at all about how it's being received in the field? Well, I think that the message that I've tried to make sure is that one, to the people that are scrutinizing the use of force by any law enforcement agency but particularly the border patrol right now is that a written policy is a great first start but it has to be backed up with training. We've made changes in the training curriculum. We've made changes in the physical layout of the border patrol academy so that they have more of a real life situation for training on the use of force. It has to be reinforced through supervision and people have to be held accountable if force is used improperly. I don't know any law enforcement officer that opposes these ideas and the message that I've given in all of the town halls with the border patrol is that there is no apprehension of an individual, there is no seizure of any amount of narcotics and there is no vehicle pursuit that is worth being injured over. We will have another day and law enforcement officers all across the country recognize this so we do a very good job. We're gonna work very hard but we have to temper that attempt to apprehend with recognizing the risk not only to ourselves, not only to these agents, but the risk to others. Let me turn it over to the audience and again, if you could identify yourself into your affiliation, I'd appreciate it. Thank you for your remarks today. I'm Marisa Lino with Northrop Grumman Corporation but also a DHS alum. I wonder if, I have two part question. I wonder if you might discuss a bit what collaboration there has been with Mexico for working on its southern border and the second part of the question is what collaboration there has been with Canada for the northern border. Sure, Mexico's southern border particularly with Guatemala is, any changes or improvements that could be made there would certainly be a benefit not only to the government of Mexico, the country of Mexico but would certainly be a benefit to the United States. Many of these young people actually because of the changes in security along the border are not able to enter the United States or are being kept in what would be called stash houses that has a direct impact on Mexico. The United States knows something about the technology and the training and the skill set needed for border security and we continue to offer and work with the government of Mexico to help them with that issue. That's important. Canada, we also, when I was at the office of National Drug Control Policy we write the Northern Border Strategy, a very different 4,000 mile border that is easily accessed. And I think what I'd say about both of these things is that it's not about the sheer number of people or the amount of technology, it's about intelligence and information sharing and focusing your finite resources on the risk. The lady in the kind of pink shirt in the back. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Rosemary Sekiro. I'm the President of For Tomorrow. We focus on conflicts and violence prevention from Kenya and I'm best here in Washington, DC. Thank you so much for your presentation. Looking at the border security, I think I wanted to ask if you can talk something about Africa. This problem of border is everywhere. You can see in Somalia, terrorists and everyone. How do we do it as an international policy for this to be an international with the migration, security and customs because this will prevent terrorism entering because they go to another country, take another passport, get to another country, take another, then it's all confusion. So how do you look at that as an international policy and how can we collaborate in Africa and all over the world because the problem is all over the world, I think. I think that one thing that I would offer is that the customs and border protection has a personnel and we have attachés in I think 22 countries, we have personnel in about 40 countries, we have advanced training centers and others and working with our partners at the Department of State, we are very happy and have done it many times in many countries. We're very happy to share our lessons learned and frankly it isn't the United States coming in saying this is the way you must do it and this is the way it should be done. I think we're pretty happy to say you know what, here are all the mistakes that we've made, perhaps you can benefit from those mistakes, we're better at this now and when we leave those partnerships and when we leave from those training sessions which we do quite often, we are more knowledgeable and we have almost always walked away from those sessions having learned more than perhaps we've imparted but we have developed relationships, we'd be happy to follow up with you later and help in any way that we can. In the front row here, the lady in the purple. Yep. Thank you. Laura Oxford with Ridge Global, Secretary Tom Ridge's firm. You talked about air cargo scanning as well as some new port technology but how do you feel about the 9-11 Commission's 100% scanning policy and that pushback that's coming from that? Because there is new technology out there that is effective, it's passive so it has no effect on those around or the cargo inside and it can detect contraband. So what do you feel about that and the pushback? And I think many people in the audience know that the law requires 100% scanning, it also provides the Secretary of Homeland Security with the ability every two years to say that whether or not that can be achieved. 100% scanning based upon the technology that had existed somewhat in the past would have left cargo and trade stacked up either in the air or stacked up in ships quite a ways out from our ports. With that being said, technology has changed pretty dramatically and we are exploring a variety of ways to continue to look at this and of course, as you know, radiation monitoring exists with everything coming into the United States or almost everything coming into the United States. There are a variety of risk based approaches that we're using and then we also try to make sure that we have not just at the border the security screening but then further inland what are the security measures and that kind of layered defense that we can take. So I think we're very hopeful that we can continue and we will continue to look at the technology that's available to continue to move toward that scanning. The gentleman in the blue shirt. Thank you. Jose Castaneda from Tech America. You previously mentioned that it's not about the number of the sheer number of people on the border or the technology but it's about information sharing. Could you elaborate a little bit more about how you can become more effective with information sharing? First of all, we have to develop those trusted relationships with other law enforcement organizations and those law enforcement organizations such as Interpol or Europol or others can be particularly helpful. We've also done a better job and continue to move in this direction with something called pre-clearance. So pushing the borders out, expanding the borders beyond our borders. So when we look at being able to clear people coming into the United States and entering through customs 3,000 miles away such as in Abu Dhabi, it makes an awful lot of sense. So those are the kinds of things that we want to be able to continue to work with. You know, very much my law enforcement colleagues around the world, we've very much come to the conclusion that we're all in this together and the more that we can support and work with each other, the better off we all are. The gentleman in the yellow shirt in the back. Morning, thank you. Von Healy with NBC News. Over the years, border security measures have pushed a lot of migrants to go through more of the rugged, less city focused areas. But as for these kids, where are we seeing their highest concentrations of them coming through? The highest concentration is in the Rio Grande Valley. It is the shortest distance traveling from Central, those Central American countries through Mexico. So it is clearly in that particular area that we have seen the largest number of kids. As you know, apprehensions along the border had been decreasing. And but this is a particularly difficult situation, one because of the terrain in that area, but also because these are children. And apprehensions is probably the wrong word and counters is a much better word. These are kids that are saying, you know, I want you to take care of me. Because they're less focused on being cop by border patrol. I'm sorry. Because they're less focused on being cop by border patrol. And they're almost openly putting themselves out there. Oh, they're very openly, very much so. It isn't through great detective work. The gentleman in the jacket. My name is Charles Dahan. I'm an international advisor for AXION. I just arrived from Paris two days ago. Thank you for the global entry. It's very effective. My question is on the process and the children going across the border. Some of them, as you mentioned, are coming in for reunification for the families. I was born in Morocco. I went through the system and I understand how long it takes. Can you take less time for these children or for the paper process through the embassies or whatever to make it a little bit easier or faster? It can take years to get the paperwork done properly or legally. I mean, your point is excellent. If they're, you know, the legitimate lawful way to enter the country going through the embassy and going through that system. And that is certainly something that the Department of State is well aware of. But we also know that given the numbers of people that wish to come to this country and to remain in this country is an overwhelming amount. I know that I think the question's probably better answered by the Department of State, but I'm glad you raised that issue. The lady in the third row. Thank you for speaking today. My name is Ray Tolene. I work for former Assistant Secretary Bobby Charles. You know very well. I had a question. In a recent CSIS event on the posture of the Army National Guard, it was hypothesized that more guardsmen might be utilized on the Southwest border due to constraining budgets all around. I was just wondering if you can comment if that's really going to happen. I mean, I know there's obviously already partnerships in place, but and if not the guard, maybe who else might be utilized? Yeah, I was part of the administration when the surge of National Guard, I think about 1,200 guardsmen were deployed a few years ago when Secretary Gates and Secretary Napolitano were involved in that. I don't know of any plans involving the National Guard now but I know that customs and border protection has had a long and rich and fruitful history with the Guard, particularly in the areas of intelligence analytics, gathering information, et cetera. I would tell you that we have no better partner than the Department of Defense and Secretary Hagel in particular. He and the relationship that Secretary Johnson have is tremendous. The amount of technology that is being returned as a result of the drawdown in Afghanistan is very helpful and a lot of that technology can very much be used by us on the border and we've seen it transitioned very quickly to that. So there are some very good relationships going on and improvements there, thanks. The lady in kind of the tan jacket forward back. Hi, Meg Kolingowski with Navistar and you mentioned the transition of equipment. We are a mind resistant ambush protected vehicle manufacturer and now that the Army has deemed many of those excesses. We were just informed this week that DHS has requested 350. We've talked to Border previously and they didn't feel like they needed armored vehicles and I just wondered was the intent for those to go to Border Patrol or are you aware of that request? I'd like to pretend that I actually know the answer to that but actually I'm very much unaware of it but I'm certainly happy to look into it and try to get back to you. The gentleman five rows back in the Navy with the jacket. Hi, Patrick Gillespie from McClatchy. Yesterday at the press conference you acknowledged complaints that have been made about Border Patrol officers and you said those complaints would be investigated. Could you give a timeframe for those investigations and can you say when the names of the officers involved in those complaints will be made public? Sure, I would tell you a couple of things that one is that I think I pretty much demonstrated my commitment to having complaints investigated. My commitment to making the information as a result of those investigations known. I would tell you in reading a few of the complaints, the lack of specificity particularly when, where, what station, let alone the names of any individual is extremely troubling. The vagueness of the complaints is very concerning. That means that it will take longer and we will have to look at that. The other part that I'd mentioned to you is that I'm extremely troubled by the difference in, I'm extremely troubled by the fact that I've been down there a lot and spent a lot of time and I've seen these agents doing incredible things, taking care of these kids who were in dangerous situations. And I've done, I've watched them do everything from change diapers to heat formula. By the way, they don't have very good skills at some of these things. Having two children of my own, I know something about diapers but many of these are single young men who are not particularly good at that but they're really getting better. I've watched them bringing in their own clothing. I saw the pictures of a birthday cake for an 11 year old who had never had a birthday cake. I'm not quite seeing the kinds of complaints I'm hearing about and I'm a bit troubled because these men and women need our support. I don't have a timeframe only because the complaints are so vague and lack specificity so that it will take a while to drill down into what is actually being talked about. The gentleman with red tie in the back. Chris Denbow here on behalf of the Institute for Golf Affairs and you had mentioned earlier about the apprehension of potentially dangerous individuals trying to enter the country. I was just wondering if you could maybe detail or touch on the process which must be undertaken to either bar a foreign national or at least bring them to the attention of CBP or DHS. We have interagency agreements, interagency relationships so that information about individuals entering the United States that may be prohibited or barred whether it's on the no fly list or other databases that they by law would not receive admittance to the United States and so we work with these other agencies because we're actually the gateway or the entry point that we're kind of the enforcer oftentimes of those regulations. The lady in the front row here. Thank you. Peggy Orchowski on the congressional correspondent for the Hispanic Outlook. You said that many of the kids are girls and many are under the age of 12 but many is a very vague term. We're hearing that the vast majority are young males under the age of 18 but between 14 and 18 so I wonder if you could give more specific statistics and the other thing is if they don't have family here which already is kind of strange because their family by definition are here illegally so if our mission is to put kids who come in illegally with the parents who are illegal that's one thing, family unification but what if they have no family? They've just come in, they're under 18 and we consider them minors. What happens to them then? Are they gonna be deported? Is there any talk at all of deportation? So the issue specifically around the numbers has been a bit difficult because we have a number of border patrol stations where these encounters occur. We have a number of ports of entry and we have at times some definitional issues of family unit versus individuals. We have lots and lots of information. I think that what the secretary and I and others have stressed so clearly is that we recognize that this is an overwhelming number of young people in need of care and need of protection including as you said, many under the age of 18 but the vast majority of these kids needing our services, needing our support. I would tell you that health and human services is doing an admirable job under these circumstances to take these children within 72 hours so that they can either be reunited with a family member or placed in foster care and I would not comment on the deportation issue. The gentleman in the front with the cap. I'm Andre Silverzo and I'm one of the President, Obama's presidential partners founding member of Organizing for Action and a Businessman in Vietnam. Anyway, wonderful presentation but my question is this. One of the, the president has done such a wonderful job in trying to push for immigration reform and one of the ways that he's been blocked politically by people who are into Congress against immigration reform has been raising false questions but I mean there's questions about, well the border security, we will be for immigration reform when the border is properly secured. Obviously that's not legitimate but so my question is, is there somebody in the administration, I mean with whom yet you'd be in contact or somebody who can explain this or is chartered to explain this to the American people because not everybody can come and listen to your wonderful presentation and that's really my question because he has spoke people for climate change issues and stuff like that but how about immigration? I think that the person that is most knowledgeable and has been the spokesperson for the administration on the immigration issue is the head of the Domestic Policy Council Cecilia Muñoz who is incredibly knowledgeable about so many of the details, the border security issue is an important one, often times when we talk about border security and metrics it's often discussed, it's often also in the eye of the beholder and there is no question that there are more resources, more technology, more time, effort and focus devoted to border security over these last numbers of years than at any time in our nation's history but I think we all have to recognize that we have finite resources and that we're going to continue to work very hard and men and women of CBP are gonna continue to work very hard to uphold that responsibility. The gentleman in the gray suit. Andrew Mosier, Homeland Security Studies and Analysis Institute, it's just wondering you were talking about manpower and technology and border patrol, could you discuss what role unmanned systems have already begun to play and sort of where you see that going in the future? The technologies, I'm sorry, the technology systems that are already in play, was that? Well I think that I think the things that are most helpful that I've seen and listening to people on the border would be things like the tethered aerostats, the technology, as you know, we have unmanned aircraft also along the southern border. We have remote video systems that can be deployed that are also expand the kind of the eyes, the infrared systems that are a part of that also. All of those things I think are value added to the people that are working on the border. We've got time for two more questions. Ed. Mr. Commissioner, nice to see you again. My name is Ed Fox, I'm a private consultant but a former DHS personnel. I was astounded by your comment that the increase in the number of children in this category from last year, I think you said 92%. Yes. That's the unbelievable statistic, I don't know what the actual numbers represent, but normally if you see an increase of this nature, it's due to some factor, it's not just things as normal. Since the economy is not the draw that we had in past, is there an effort to identify what specifically, either by interviewing these children or elsewhere, what exactly is the spark here? Is there an individual? Are there groups of people? Is there a cabal working to take advantage of something? Do we know anything? It's nice to be able to stop it. You're left with the result of it, but the real problem is gonna be what started this and how can we deal with that issue? Sure, I mean I think that no one in the administration, particularly the secretary has tried to couch this and about the reason why in terms of other than exactly what we're seeing and exactly what we're hearing. So this increase didn't happen overnight, it's at about 47 or 48,000 right now. That has already doubled the number from the last fiscal year and the fiscal year before that was an increase, but nothing quite to the extent that we're seeing this year. You, we've seen surveys from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, we've seen other surveys and it goes back to those issues. There's always been a pull factor for people coming into the United States, but as we know Honduras has the highest homicide rate of any country in the world. So gang violence, other kinds of violence within those countries, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, are certainly a concern. The quest for an education, the quest for a better economy, the quest for safety and security are there and so is family reunification, a part of all of that. That's why we're trying to address in our comprehensive message to be broadcast in many modes to those countries, the fact that it's not only dangerous, the fact that this will not lead to a path to citizenship. Last question, the lady in the black. Hi, Laura Reese with CSE and also DHSLM. Could you talk about what is your take on implementing exit, biometric exit, given your work on the Southwest border and given technology now with smartphones and biometric software? Sure, the biometric exit issue is extremely important and it has a lot of value too. When we look at how can we decrease wait times here in the United States for people entering the country? So our continuing study of biometrics is important. I think at the end of this month, they'll be opening up a kind of an experimentation center on biometric technologies. We're gonna continue to explore that, but of course it's not just the biometrics that would be helpful. We know that they have to be put into an infrastructure and of course our airports really are not designed for biometric exit. All of that has to be put into an infrastructure and we also have to be very aware of the privacy and the personally identifiable information. It's a pretty complex set of things, but I would tell you we're exploring with a number of people and a number of very smart people in a very open way with members of, or with congressional staff, biometric exit programs and technology. Well, commissioner, thank you so much for your time. I think I'm not sure that many people in this country appreciate what a complex mission CBP has. You talked about processing a million travelers a day and part of that is obviously trying to find the very few high-risk travelers in the midst of the great number of mostly legitimate travel. And one of the things that CSIS has been doing for a number of years is being that interface between the government and stakeholders in the private sector, the community in general, and kind of bridging that gap and getting kind of greater visibility into the challenges that we're facing as a country. So thank you for partnering with CSIS to provide the kind of picture of CBP and the topics you're facing today. Thanks, Adam. Thank you all very much. Thank you.