 Good afternoon. Welcome to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. My name is Wong Zerati. I'm a senior advisor here at CSIS. Welcome to all of you. For those of you who haven't been to our new building, hope you like it and feel welcome at this new venue. Today, we're privileged and honored to have the Secretary of Homeland Security, J. Johnson, with us to deliver remarks on border security in the 21st century. It's an honor and privilege not only to have Secretary Johnson here, but to have him speaking on such a critical issue at a critical time for the nation's security as well as the department. I've gotten to know the Secretary over the last year, and I will tell you he's one of the most serious, sober, and substantive public servants I've met. And it's really an honor and a privilege to have him here at CSIS. You know the Secretary's background, so I won't recite his bio. But certainly, you know that he has a distinguished legal and public career. He has served in the public sector numerous times before his stint as the fourth Secretary of Homeland Security, served as the general counsel at the Department of Defense. He may have been running the largest law firm in the world. I don't know, probably about 10,000 lawyers or so. But dealing with some of the thorniest issues that the president and the nation had to deal with, from Guantanamo and terrorism to don't ask, don't tell policies. The Secretary was asked to come back to run the department in an enormous challenge at a critical time in our history. It's a department with enormous responsibilities, authorities, and capabilities. One that has responsibilities for everything from counterterrorism and cybersecurity to border response, natural disasters, and pandemics. And so today, we're privileged to have the Secretary speak to us about border security, one of the pillar responsibilities of the Department and of the Secretary, to talk about protecting our borders, to talk about what that means in the context of the variety of threats and actors that may threaten the United States. And this is a time, obviously, where these issues not only have national and homeland security import, but obviously play into the political dynamics with respect to the questions of immigration reform. And so it's with great honor and privilege that we have the Secretary here today. We will conduct this as we have other statesmen and speaker series for us. We'll hear from the Secretary, and then we will have a question and answer period, which we will moderate with discretion and some discipline. So with that, I want to introduce Secretary Johnson. And again, thank him for the privilege of having him here with us to talk about border security in the 21st century. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Juan. And I want to thank this terrific organization for the opportunity to be here this afternoon. Today I want to talk to you about the important subject of border security, particularly the security of our southern land border with Mexico. I see many good friends here, including my good friend, the ambassador from Guatemala, who I had the honor and the opportunity to spend time with this summer several times. In fact, over the last 15 years across the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations, our government has invested more in border security than at any point in the history of our nation. In fact, over the last 15 years, the number of apprehensions on our southwest border, a major indicator of total attempts to cross the border illegally, has declined significantly. It is now less than a third of what it was in the year 2000, and it's at its lowest level since the 1970s. In fact, over the last 15 years, the estimated number of undocumented immigrants in this country grew to a high of 12.2 million in 2006, dropped to around 11.3 million, and has stopped growing for the first time since the 1980s. Without a doubt, we had a setback this summer with the unprecedented number of unaccompanied children and others who crossed a narrow area of our southern border in the Rio Grande Valley in search of a family member and a better life in this country. We responded aggressively to this spike, and in fact, now the numbers of unaccompanied children crossing into the Rio Grande Valley are at the lowest they've been in almost two years. Can I have my next slide? Where did we go? There we go. OK, thank you. Whoops. OK. But this is not a mission accomplished speech. We can and should do more to best enforce the security of our borders. In this speech, I will discuss the past, present, and future of our border security efforts. Not enough has been said publicly by our government in a clear, concise way about our border security efforts on behalf of the American people. And in the absence of facts, the American public is susceptible to claims that we have an open, porous border through which unaccompanied minors and members of terrorist organizations such as ISIL may pass. In late June and July, names of Americans saw the images of the processing centers filled with kids. Far fewer Americans know that by early June, the spike in illegal migration by unaccompanied kids had turned the corner. And now it's, in fact, at its lowest number since January 2013. In September, the public heard a claim that four individuals with suspected ties to terrorism in the Middle East had attempted to cross our southern border. Far fewer know that, in fact, these four individuals were arrested, their supposed link to terrorism was thoroughly investigated and checked, and in the end, amounted to a claim by the individuals themselves that they were members of the Kurdish Workers' Party, an organization that is actually fighting against ISIL and defended Kurdish territory in Iraq. Nevertheless, these individuals have been arrested for unlawful entry, they are detained, and they will be deported. In the recent outbreak, there has been only one case so far of Ebola diagnosed in this country. Nevertheless, this department, my department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and CDC are heavily engaged. We are enhancing our Ebola screening of air passengers from the three affected African countries, and we are continually evaluating whether more is appropriate. As Secretary of Homeland Security, I'm committed to more transparency about our border security. This speech today is part of that effort. Given all we do today, it is hard to believe that as recently as 1904, we had virtually no border patrol at all. Our land borders were completely open to all forms of migration. In 1904, Teddy Roosevelt created the United States Immigration Service. This force consisted of just 75 men on horseback based in El Paso, Texas, responsible for the patrol of the entire 2,300-mile southwest border. It was not until 1921 that we began to restrict the numbers of immigrants who entered the country legally with the passage of something called the Emergency Quota Act of 1921. That law restricted yearly immigration to 3% of each nationality already present in this country, according to the 1910 Census. Prior to that, the only limits on immigration were restrictions on so-called undesirables. With the numeric limits created in 1921 came a dramatic increase in illegal immigration, which led to the creation of the US border patrol in 1924. Originally, the border patrol was part of the Department of Labor and was created to prevent illegal migration across our southern land border with Mexico and our northern border with Canada. In those days, there were actually more personnel devoted to the northern border than the southern border to prevent the smuggling of liquor into the US from Canada during prohibition. While other government agencies have faced cutbacks and limits in these times of fiscal constraint, our national leaders in Congress and the executive branch have chosen to build the border patrol to an unprecedented level in resources. Today's border patrol is itself one of the largest agencies of our government with a budget of 3.5 billion, a total of 23,000 personnel, 20,833 border patrol agents, and the largest ever level of technology and equipment. Let's look at that in more detail. In fiscal year 2000, we had 8,619 border patrol agents. Next slide, please, dedicated to the southwest border. In 2014, that number is 18,127 and growing. In fiscal year 2000, we had just 57.9 miles of primary fence along the southwest border. Today, we have 352.7 miles of primary fence. In fiscal year 2000, we had 10 miles of secondary fence along the southwest border. Today, we have 36.3 miles of secondary fence. In fiscal year 2000, we had just 10 miles of vehicle fence in the remote areas of the southwest border. Today, we have 299 miles of vehicle fence. If you include primary, secondary, tertiary and vehicle fence, today there is about 700 miles of total fence across the southwest border compared to just 77 miles of fence in the year 2000. In 14 years, we have built almost 10 times more fence across the southwest border. In fiscal year 2000, the border patrol had just 17 miles of all weather roads to get to and from the southwest border. Today, we have 145.7 miles of these roads strategically placed wherever we've determined that they are needed. In fiscal year 2000, we had just 29 miles of lighting along the southwest border. Today, we have 70 miles of lighting strategically placed in places where we've determined it's needed. 14 years ago, we had few, if any, underground sensors to detect illegal migration at the southwest border. Today, we have 11,863 of these devices. In fiscal year 2000, the border patrol had 56 aircraft. Today, that number is 107. In the year 2000, the border patrol had no unmanned aerial vehicles. Today, we have eight of these for surveillance of illegal activity over the southwest border. In the year 2000, the border patrol had just two boats to patrol the entire southwest border over waterways like the Rio Grande. Today, we have 84. In the year 2000, the border patrol had one mobile surveillance system. Today, we have 40. In the year 2000, we had little, if any, mobile video surveillance capability. Today, we have 178 of these. In 2000, we had 140 remote video surveillance systems. Today, we have 273 of these. In fiscal year 2014, the border patrol has 9,255 pairs of night vision goggles. In the year 2000, the border patrol had little or no thermal imaging capability. Today, we have 600 of these devices. Today, the border patrol has the largest deployment of people, vehicles, aircraft, boats, and equipment along the southwest border in its 90 year history. More than the large numbers of people and equipment, I have high regard for today's border patrol. In nine and a half months in office, I've been to the southwest border seven times. Over the hot summer, I observed the border patrol and its leadership take on the unprecedented number of kids and families crossing the border into South Texas. They did this in a calm and professional manner without complaint and worked overtime and took on duties far beyond the job description. I salute the border patrol chief Fisher for making the border patrol's use of force policy public earlier this year and rewriting it to more explicitly address instances of rock throwing at the border and the threat presented by vehicles. I salute CBP Commissioner Kerlikowski for making public the report of the Independent Police Executive Research Forum on the use of force by the border patrol. I also salute the commissioner for implementing a unified formal review process that will more effectively respond to, investigate, review and resolve any use of force incidents involving the border patrol in a timely manner. This nation's long investment, long-term investment in border security has produced significant positive results over the years. Illegal migration into this country peaked in the year 2000 reflected by over 1.6 million apprehensions that year. As you can see from this slide, illegal migration into this country has dropped considerably since then, reflected by the decline in total apprehensions from 1.6 million in 2000 to around 400,000 a year in recent years. The overall downward trend is no doubt due in large part to economic conditions in both the US and Mexico, but we're certain that it is also due in very large measure to the deterrent factor of our border security efforts. Apprehensions are at the lowest rate since they've been in the 1970s. Slide 24 makes this point. It reflects both the increase in border patrol agents and the simultaneous decrease in total apprehensions in the same period. The bottom line of all this is in recent years, the total number of those who attempt to cross our Southwest border has declined dramatically while the percentage of those who are apprehended has gone up. Put simply, it's now much harder to cross our border in evade capture than it used to be and people know that. The final indicator is the estimated number of undocumented immigrants in this country. According to Pew Research, the number grew to a high of 12.2 million in 2006, dropped and has remained at about 11.3 million ever since. So the population of undocumented immigrants in this country has stopped growing for the first time since the 1980s and over half these individuals have been in this country nearly 13 years. Meanwhile, Mexico has become our third largest trading partner with 507 billion in total two-way trade in 2013. It is the country's second largest goods export market and more than 1.1 million US jobs are supported by exports from Mexico. Our estimate for fiscal year 2014 and it is still an estimate at this point as the fiscal year just ended nine days ago shows a modest increase in apprehensions to about 480,000 reflected on that slide. This increase is almost entirely due to what happened this summer in the Rio Grande Valley. In fact, in fiscal year 2014, about 53% of all apprehensions across the Southwest border were in what we refer to as the Rio Grande Valley sector of the Southwest border indicated by the red arrow there on the slide. This summer we saw an unprecedented spike in illegal migration into South Texas. Almost all of this migration came from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. And as everyone knows, it consisted of large numbers of unaccompanied children and adults with children which presented a humanitarian dimension to the problem. You saw the photos of overcrowded processing centers in South Texas, unlike other spikes in migration in the past, many of these families and kids expected to be apprehended once they crossed the Rio Grande. They were not seeking to evade our border patrol agents and all our surveillance and they probably knew they could not. In response, we did a number of things. Our message was simple. Our border is not open to illegal immigration and that if you come here illegally you will be sent back consistent with our laws and our values. So we put additional border security and law enforcement resources into South Texas. We opened new processing centers across the Southwest to handle the additional illegal migration in McAllen, Texas, Nogales, Arizona and elsewhere. We reassigned hundreds of border patrol agents to the Rio Grande Valley sector to manage the increased apprehensions in that sector. We dramatically reduced the time it takes to repatriate adults from an average of 33 days down to four days. We added additional flights to repatriate people back faster to their home countries. We built more detention space in Artesia, New Mexico and Carnes, Texas. We dedicated resources to the prosecution of the criminal smuggling organizations, the coyotes that were inducing people to take the long, dangerous journey from Central America. We launched a renewed public messaging campaign in Central America, highlighting the dangers of the journey and correcting the misinformation that coyotes are putting out about free passes if you come to the United States. Vice President Biden visited Central America and met with the leaders there to coordinate our response. President Obama himself met with the presidents of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador in Washington to coordinate our response to the situation. The government of Mexico did a considerable amount to interdict migration from Central America. The good news is, since mid-June, the numbers of illegal migrants crossing into South Texas has gone down considerably. Slide 30, please. Can we go to slide 30? Well, if you saw slide 30, you'd see a big, sharp ski slope. We'll get there. Frank, and there we go. All right. The high water mark was June 10th, 2014. Since then, the number of unaccompanied children has declined steadily. The same thing has reflected on a monthly basis. Next slide, please. In May, 2014, 10,580 unaccompanied children crossed the Southwest border. In June, 10,622 crossed the South border. In July, 5,501, August 3,141, and September was 2,424. The monthly numbers are now the lowest they've been in almost two years. In terms of the year-end number, our original projection in January was 60,000 unaccompanied children would cross the Southwest border illegally in FY 2014. During the summer, we revised that projection upward to 90,000. The fact is the year-end number is 68,434, not far off the original projection of 60,000. The decline in illegal migration by parents who brought their children followed a similar path. Next slide, please. This year. Though the worst is over for now, from the spike this summer and the high in illegal migration 15 years ago, the president and I are committed to building an even more secure border and a smart strategy to get there. Much of illegal migration is seasonal. The spike in migration we saw this summer could return the poverty and violence that are the push factors in Central America still exist. The economy in this country, a pull factor, is getting better. Thus, there is still more we can and should do. First, as we are doing across the Department of Homeland Security in a variety of contexts, we will continue to build a risk-based strategy for border security. Our southern border is a mixture of winding river, desert and mountains. Simply building more fences is not the answer. My predecessor used to say, build a 50-foot fence and I'm sure someone else will build a 51-foot ladder. Today, we have the intelligence capability, surveillance equipment and technology to do more. Much of that is already deployed on the border today. We need to go further in this direction so that we can focus our resources where our intelligence and our surveillance tell us the threats exist. This is a smart, effective and efficient use of taxpayer resources. And here's a vivid example of what I mean. We know where the risks are. We need to focus on these areas and the risk areas start to move someplace else. We get there first. Second, to best accomplish our border security goals along the southern border and consistent with the overall Unity of Effort Initiative I announced in April. I have directed that the Department of Homeland Security embark on a common, department-wide southern border campaign plan. This plan will put to use in a strategic and coordinated way, the assets and personnel of customs and border protection, immigration and customs enforcement, citizenship and immigration services, the Coast Guard and other resources of the department when and if they are necessary. We're discarding the stove pipes that you see on this slide. To pursue this southern border campaign plan, we are first developing a department-wide strategy for the security of the southern border and approaches. We will then direct the resources and activities of the department's components accordingly. Our overarching goals will be effective enforcement and interdiction across land, sea and air, degrade transnational criminal organizations, and do these things without impeding the flow of lawful trade, travel and commerce across our borders. We're now in the midst of developing the more specific plan to pursue these goals and associated metrics, a planning team from across the department led by Coast Guard Vice Admiral Charles Michelle is developing lines of effort, actions and milestones to accomplish these goals in an effective, cost-efficient manner. We will then take the next logical step, which you see reflected on this slide, in this plan and establish three new department task forces each headed by a senior official of this department to direct the resources of CBP, ICE, CIS and the Coast Guard in three discrete areas. The first joint task force east reflected in the blue box will be responsible for our maritime ports and approaches across the southeast. The second joint task forces west will be responsible for our southwest land border and the west coast of California. And the third will be a standing joint task force for investigations to support the work of the other two task forces. These efforts, department-wide campaign planning and joint task forces will enable more effective, more efficient and more unified homeland security and border security efforts across our southern border and approaches. Finally, there is much more we can do to inform the public about our border security efforts on their behalf. Within the department, we are developing metrics for measuring and evaluating our border security efforts and we intend to make those metrics public. I'm bolstering our Office of Immigration Statistics by adding new statisticians. I have instructed that this office establish a linkage with all the components of the department with a border security or immigration mission so that the data publicized by this office reflects what is happening department-wide. With transparency comes responsibility. Those of us in public office and in the media, whether in describing the border, ISIL or Ebola, owe the public informed, careful and responsible dialogue. Not overheated rhetoric that is certain to feed the flames of fear, anxiety and suspicion. As I've said many times, homeland security means striking a balance. In the name of homeland security, I can build you a perfectly safe city, but it will be a prison. I can build more fences, install more invasive screening devices, ask more intrusive questions, demand more answers and alarm the public enough to make everybody suspicious of each other and simply stay at home. But this will cost us who we are as a nation. Of people who respect the law, cherish privacy, enjoy the freedom to travel and associate, celebrate our diversity and who are not afraid. In the final analysis, these are the things that constitute our greatest strength as a nation. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you. I think you've proved what I said in terms of serious sober and substantive presentation. You can see the new office of statisticians that you're setting up, they're gonna be busy under your watch. What you just presented, presented much like a prosecutor, making the case that the border is more secure than what is often reflected. I do have a lot of grief. I know you do. Talk to us a little bit about where you see the vulnerabilities, because you've obviously now announced this campaign plan on the border. That means that more needs to be done, both within the department and at the border. You've laid out where things are improved. Where are the vulnerabilities still then? Well, I wouldn't describe it as vulnerabilities, though I'll get to where I think we need to do more work. The Department of Homeland Security is 11 years old and in 2002, Congress brought together pre-existing components, Coast Guard, immigration components, Border Patrol, that, as you saw in the presentation, were around long before DHS, and so they have their own way of doing business, their own culture, their own headquarters, their own office of statisticians. And the way we've done business up to now is each component would make its own budget request up through the stovepipe. It'd come to headquarters, it'd go to OMB, and then it goes to Congress. And so we wanna do a couple of things. We wanna, at an earlier stage in that process, have a more strategic department-wide view toward what we need to deliver more efficient services for the taxpayer. And we also wanna have a more strategic department-wide look at, hey, what do we need in the Rio Grande Valley sector this upcoming year? What do we need on the Southwest border? Relying upon all the resources of the department, Coast Guard, CBP, ICE, rather than just receiving it all stovepiped. And so just this past summer, I saw the virtue of bringing to bear all these components toward one mission, which we need to do more of. And so when I'd go to McAllen Station, Texas, I would meet with border patrol personnel, I'd meet with CBP personnel in blue uniforms. I'd meet with immigration enforcement personnel, CIS personnel, FEMA, the Coast Guard. And literally the only person that all of them had in common in their command and control structure was me. There was nobody in between them and me in Washington. And so we wanna create a structure through a task force model that puts in place somebody geographically who's focused on Southwest border, Southeast border investigations so that we can bring a more strategic approach and have somebody at a slightly lower level than me focus on various parts of the country and what's needed there. And we'll approve the allocation of resources on the mission each year. So to me that is a better, more efficient, more strategic way of developing border security. Now the graphic I showed with the hotspots is my way of saying, hey, the proper approach, whether it's border security, aviation security is a risk-based strategy where you focus on where you see the hotspots. And we have the ability to do that through our technology, our surveillance capability to focus on where we see the illegal migration trending and we focus the resources there. And so that's what I believe should be the approach of the future. We've already begun to move in that direction and I wanna continue to make strides that way. Let me just cue off of something you said about sort of the management challenges. You know, one critique of the Department of Homeland Security was that it was colluding too many departments and agencies together, different cultures, different systems, et cetera. Is it a department that's too big to manage and maybe even more broadly, is the Homeland Security Enterprise that involves not just the department, but also the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice and others. Is it just too unwieldy at this point? Well, people ask me that question. The first thing I point out is you have to ask where were all these components before? And all these components under the broad umbrella of Homeland Security used to be in something like 20 different agencies of government. Ranging from Treasury, agriculture, justice, a lot of component heads who did not have a Homeland Security law enforcement core mission. And so we brought them together and interestingly, a lot of my European counterparts, a lot of my Middle Eastern counterparts have ministries of the interior with almost identical jurisdiction sets. And from my point of view, just in nine and a half months in office have seen the efficiencies that can be brought about by having all these components at one table for the purpose of a common mission. So I think it makes a tremendous amount of sense. Is it big? Yes. Should we consider a more efficient command and control structure, a more efficient supervisory chain? Yes, wouldn't then the slide you saw, the last slide is a step in that direction. One last question before opening it up is my prerogative, so apologies for the third question, but you focus very much on the Southwest border and the campaign there. Talk to us about your thinking about defense in depth with partners not just along the border but around the world. And so in the context of the summer crisis, obviously working with Mexican partners, Central American partners has become key, obviously. And then you look at the Ebola crisis, dealing with the issue of the transportation channels and what our partners around the world are doing and particularly what's happening in West Africa. How does the defense in depth of the Homeland Security Enterprise fit into your model and how you think about dealing with these issues? I spend a lot of time with my counterparts to the South and my counterparts to the North. I was in Ottawa last week meeting with Minister Stephen Blaney, my Canadian counterpart and other members of that cabinet. I've been to conferences with my European counterparts. I've visited with my Middle Eastern counterparts and we're building what I believe to be a better system of information sharing, of working together in common on border security issues, Homeland Security issues. I think that given the current world situation, we all appreciate the need to do that. And so I think we're creating a pretty good environment for doing that. When I was in office just a couple of weeks, I went down to Mexico for the meeting of our president, President Pena Nieto and Prime Minister Harper, the North American Leaders Summit. And there the focus is on lawful trade and travel and how to promote that between the three countries. There were a number of initiatives signed in 2011. The three leaders entered into our Beyond the Border Initiative which we're constantly pushing with different lines of effort. So there's an increased emphasis on working with other governments as I see it. All right, let's open this up. A little bit of the rules of the game. Again, if you're called on, the secretary's gonna call on you. Identify yourself please and please keep it short. We wanna have as many questions as possible and make it a question, please, not a commentary period. That's okay. Yes, sir? ISIS impacted border controls thus far. Well, ISIL is of course the most prominent terrorist organization on the world stage right now. And we're taking the fight to them in Iraq and Syria with air strikes and there's an international coalition that is being assembled that will participate in this overall effort. ISIL is obviously a dangerous terrorist organization. They've demonstrated a willingness to kill Americans in a very brutal public way simply because we are Americans. They've called for attacks on the West and they have very slick social media and very slick propaganda. So you put all those things together and in my view, they represent a very significant potential threat to our homeland for which we have to be vigilant. We're vigilant around a couple different things. One is the issue of foreign fighters. People who leave their home country go there, spend some time there, link up with some extremist elements and then return to their home countries. Either this country or a country that is in our visa waiver program. So we're very focused on tracking those individuals. I think the FBI does a pretty good job at that. And also we're concerned about, and this doesn't really go to the border but it is in my view a very significant issue to focus on. We're concerned about domestic-based lone wolf acts of terror inspired by the social media of these groups or the literature of these groups. And we've seen cases where somebody arrested, prosecuted, was motivated by some literature put out by a terrorist organization. I'm not in the business of singling them out because I don't want to give them promotion but in many respects that's the terrorist threat that I worry most about because it's the hardest to detect and it could happen on very little notice. And so one of the things we're doing in the Department of Homeland Security, in addition to partnering with law enforcement, is our countering violent extremism initiatives, outreach to communities in this country that have large Muslim populations. So two weeks ago I was in Columbus, Ohio and I was at the Islamic Cultural Center, the Nor Cultural Center right outside of Columbus, Ohio to meet with about 50 or 60 community leaders who themselves have the capacity to reach young people in their communities who may be tempted to turn toward violence. I was in a Chicago suburb where I did the same thing with a Somali-American community organization and I'm gonna be going to other cities, Minneapolis in a couple of weeks, Boston, Dearborn, Los Angeles and when I'm done I want to be able to reach personally a large percentage of the community organizations that themselves have the ability to reach people in this country in communities where that potential might exist. And so while we monitor threats from overseas, potential overseas threats in our intelligence community does a pretty good job of that. And while we're very focused on aviation security, we continue to be focused on aviation security. The new phenomena that I worry about are the foreign fighters and the threat of violent extremism here at home. I think those two phenomena in particular are new post-911 phenomena that our government needs to prepare for. Ornard de Borschkoff, thank you very much. Yes sir, right here. I am Ted Hessen, a reporter with Fusion. My question is, is the president still committed to taking executive action on immigration and what sort of action is he considering at this time? Yes, the president is very committed to taking executive action to fix our broken immigration system in the absence of action by Congress and so am I. And we're developing a set of reforms that I would characterize as comprehensive in nature, but within our existing legal authorities. There are a number of things we can do, and we should do, to fix our immigration system, which I anticipate will be announced somewhere between the midterm elections and the end of the year. I think that's what the president said. Okay, yes sir, right here. Thank you sir, I'm Matt LaRetunda with ABC News. A little bit louder please. Sir, I'm Matt LaRetunda with ABC News, thank you. On the question of foreign fighters, a recent bulletin from DHS went to local law enforcement warning that people who have gone to Syria and hence returned to the United States might be posing a threat. How worried are you precisely on the threat of foreign fighters that have already returned to the homeland? I think our law enforcement does a pretty good job of tracking individuals who may be tempted toward violence, who may be committing criminal acts or are about to commit criminal acts. And together between tracking individuals of suspicion in their travel, in their activities here at home and their activities abroad, I think we do a pretty good job of tracking these people. You can never know what you don't know, but when I look at the level of detail that goes into this effort and the systems we have in place, I have a reasonable degree of comfort that we're doing a pretty good job in that regard. I would not say I have a complete degree of comfort, but I have a reasonable degree of comfort that we're doing a pretty good job in that regard. Okay, right here, sir, with the gray suit on and the tie. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I'm wondering, where does, oh, Ben Ballin with Cross-Match Technologies. I'm wondering- What organization, I'm sorry? Cross-Match Technologies, we're a biometrics company. And I'm wondering, where does an exit program fit in your program for the Southwest border? Something that- Which program? Exit program? Something that Congress has mandated but not yet funded. Biometric entry and exit is the goal standard, but it costs money. And so we're working toward a biometric exit system, but it costs money. It's the goal standard. There are several important agenda items that I'd like to see completed, but I have to rely on my partners in Congress to do that. We need the right technology in place to do it efficiently, but biometric exit and entry is the goal standard. Okay, yes ma'am, right here. Thanks, I'm Julia Edwards with Reuters. You just laid out numbers to show how families and unaccompanied children from Central America, those numbers are dwindling. So why is it that we're continuing to build detention facilities and how long are we gonna keep that policy of detaining families without bond? Well, as I said in my prepared remarks, a lot of migration is seasonal. And so you look at the pattern this past summer of adults, adults without children, it followed almost identically the migration patterns in prior years in terms of the numbers and the trends. And so a lot of the migration you saw and a lot of that spike you saw is definitely seasonal, but then there was a pretty sharp drop off, which may have been attributed to a lot of the aggressive efforts we put in place, a lot of the public messaging. And so we've got a, in my view, guard against the same thing happening again. And so we wanna build additional capability that can be converted from one type of use to another on pretty short notice. And so I think there are some lessons learned from that experience, but we also don't wanna just totally dismantle all the things we put in place this summer to deal with that because it could come back again. And I watched the numbers several times a week. I used to watch the numbers daily. I watched the numbers several times a week just to detect any upward trends, but it could come back again because the traditional migration pattern for adults is right after the new year, it starts to inch up again and again and it peaks in early summer and then it drops off when it gets hot in the Southwest in the late summer. And so we could see the same thing come back again and I wanna build against that. Okay, I've got time for one or two more questions. Gentlemen, way in the back, that's you. Yes, with the gray suit. I got lucky. Arthur Orkis with the Polish Embassy. Mr. Secretary, my question concerns the visa waiver. I'm sorry, what's your organization? The Polish Embassy. My question concerns the visa waiver program that you had mentioned, as you all know. There are still some EU member states that are aspiring candidates to enter the program, but folks on the Hill are pushing back contingent on DHS publishing overstay numbers. Your predecessor assured the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senator Feinstein that that would happen over a year and a half ago. Curious, are you any closer to those numbers being published and do you anticipate with the ongoing ISIL threat any expansion in the foreseeable future for allied nations who supported the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan and continue to do so with the ISIL threat right now. Thank you. Okay, that's a three-part question. Let me answer it. First, as you probably know, the criteria for getting into the visa waiver program is statutory. So Congress sets out the criteria and we assess whether a nation has met it and is qualified. So it's set up by Congress. Subpart A, B was... Yes, overstay numbers, right? How can I forget that? There is a report in the works which I reviewed a while ago and I thought it needed some red teaming. I wanted to have some good scrutiny applied to it before we made it public because it's an important number and I want to be sure we get it right. So you know what red teaming means, right? So I wanted to have some scrutiny put to it to ensure that we've got it right. We've got the methodology right. In terms of dealing with the foreign fighter issue, we are evaluating whether there is more information we could get from participants in the visa waiver program with respect to people who traveled from their country to ours. So when a country becomes a member in the visa waiver program, they sign up to something called Homeland Security Presidential Directive 6 which is a series of security assurances and we want to see if we're obtaining all the information we could and should pursuant to those agreements. And so my folks and others are evaluating that right now. I think it's very important that we do that. Okay, let me go over here. Let's see. Yes, sir, right there on the end. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Greg Chen from the American Immigration Lawyers Association and you responded to the question that the reporter from Reuters asked before about the unaccompanied children and the families that are coming here by responding about the seasonal change and the numbers that are coming here. But the American Immigration Lawyers Association has had attorneys going on a volunteer basis to Arteja, New Mexico, which is a new facility that was opened in June to detain families. These are mothers and children, as you know well, who have come here from Central America that are being held in these jail facilities. And what our attorneys are seeing are that these mothers and children are coming fleeing violence, horrific violence, domestic violence, gang-based violence, much of which would qualify them for asylum and refugee status here in the United States at very high numbers. Our estimate is that it would be a great majority of these women that have strong claims for asylum. And as the Reuters reporter had asked before, Ayla's concern is why is the department, why is this administration continuing to build more facilities, not just the one in Arteja, New Mexico, but there's another one that's just opened in Carnes, Texas, and yet another one planned in Dilly, Texas that will bring the number of detention facilities for these families, mothers and children again, up to about 4,000. Why this massive expansion of detention when we're talking about asylum seekers here who deserve our protection? And we understand the surge issues, but these are asylum seekers that deserve real protection and can't be treated this way, especially mothers and children. A lot of the spike that we saw this summer were not just unaccompanied kids. Unaccompanied kids got the most attention, but a lot of it, perhaps on the same numbers, if not larger, were what we call family units, parents with kids, which is what you're asking me about. We have, we had detention space for about 34,000 individuals, only 95 beds total for family units, only 95 family unit capability out of 34,000. And so we believe it's necessary to build more of that capability. In the event we have another spike, like we had last summer, 95 out of 34,000 is just not acceptable. And so we believe it's necessary to build more of that capability just not acceptable. And so I wanna build additional capability that can be converted from one use to the other. I've personally been to Artesia. I was there when it first opened. Every time I visit Artesia or Nogales or McGallon, I spend time talking to the migrants myself, the kids, the moms and dads to understand why they made this journey. And I'm certainly aware of the issues that council have had with communications, with their clients at Artesia, and I've directed my folks to put in place a number of things to make the attorney-client relationship easier there. Because I certainly appreciate the attorney-client relationship. Okay, one more question. Yes, sir. Mike is coming. And then I might have one more for you. Okay. I have a two-part question. Mike, a two-part question. One related to the last question. You indicated in your prepared remarks for both you and the Vice President have visited Central America. My question is, did you come away from those meetings satisfied that they have both the resources and the will to help address some of the questions that precipitated some of that spike? The second question is that you talked about aviation security and particularly southern northern border security. Could you say a few words about your level of comfort on maritime security given as much as 99.5% of the goods coming to this country come in these cargo containers? Okay. Question one, Central America. First of all, in the course of my visit to Guatemala, I got to know the ambassador from Guatemala who's sitting right here in the front row. Was a wonderful public servant. And I had a good session with his president, both here and in Guatemala and the members of his cabinet and the First Lady. I came away from Central America from Guatemala in particular. Knowing that there was a very personal heartfelt commitment to encouraging their youth to stay at home. The First Lady of Guatemala was very committed to that. She put her heart and soul into it with a public campaign this summer, which I believe contributed to the downturn. Undoubtedly, there are issues of poverty and violence in Central America, particularly in Honduras and El Salvador and Guatemala. And so in our discussions, which included the president, President Obama, the vice president, myself, Secretary Kerry, we talked about longer term ways in which we can address those issues. We want to help in Central America with their border security efforts. We want to help government of Guatemala with their border security efforts. We have in place some resources to do that now, but we talked about more of that. And I believe that in the course of our dialogue, we came away with a renewed commitment to do better and to do more in that regard among all of us. And so we're gonna continue that dialogue and continue those discussions. Question two, maritime security. That was question three. Question two was... Is that as a maritime security? Yes, sir. That's port security. Yes. When I visit ports, like the Port of Los Angeles, I'm pretty impressed by our screening capability. We are pretty sophisticated at identifying high risk cargo by the profile of the manifest, the source, the country source, and then subjecting to secondary screening, a higher level of screening, stuff that fits the profile, that potentially problematic. So I've seen it, I'm pretty impressed by it. There's always room for improvement. I know our CBP folks are always looking for ways to improve by way of technology and otherwise. There's a law on the books that requires 100% scanning of every piece of cargo that leaves a foreign port by the United States government, which is a very large unfunded mandate. Put on the books in 2007. The statute creates the option for the Secretary of Homeland Security to waive it every two years. And I just waive it simply because we don't have the capability, the resources, or the money to put in place such a thing at every single foreign port, which we don't control, by the way. And logistically, it's not there. So we're developing, and I promise the principal sponsors of this law that we're gonna develop a plan to getting to 100% scanning. But we don't have the resource. Congress has not given us the resources to do that. But I've promised a plan to do that. We're developing it. I'd like to see us get to a higher percentage of what is being scanned right now. But I look at what comes into the country and the method we have for screening it all. And it's pretty sophisticated. So I take away from that, I think a pretty good news story. Okay. Yes, sir. Mr. Secretary, last question, and I apologize. Ani Bola. That's okay. Ebola, yes. We're now screening at five airports. Do we have the capability to deal with this? And do we have contingencies if things get worse? We very definitely in this country have the capability to deal with the Ebola virus. Every time there's been an outbreak of Ebola in the world, it has been defeated. And here in the United States, we have the best healthcare, the best doctors, the best hospitals, the best infrastructure. It is a treatable disease if it's caught in time and you receive the right medical care and the right medical treatment in time. We've had one diagnosed case of Ebola in the United States. The facts are that from the three affected countries, there's no direct flight to the United States. You have to transit through various different points, mostly in Europe. And on average, it's about 150 people a day that come from one of the three countries to any place in the United States, about 150 people a day, and 94% of them come into either Newark, JFK, Dulles, Chicago, or Atlanta. And so, given the nature of the disease, and given the public concern about the disease, about travel, we determined to enhance the screening we already have in place. So what's already in place is screening by local authorities in the three countries outbound when you get on the plane to leave Africa, where there's a temperature check and other things. The airlines have been given a lot of information about it. We give passengers information about it, what to do if you're feeling symptomatic and so forth. And we have been doing, by our CBP personnel, screening where you observe for the symptoms and you put people through the normal customs process. And what we decided and announced we're going to be doing is more active, aggressive screening at inbound at the point when you arrive, where we are going to have travelers from the three countries fill out a declaration with all your contact information, where you're gonna be for the next 21 days, your email, your cell phone, passport numbers, and all the normal stuff. In addition, symptomatic, are you feeling ill? You have a high fever, so forth. And have you been around anybody who's had Ebola that you know had Ebola, and where are you coming from? And additionally, we're gonna have temperature checks. Every passenger who comes in from the three countries, through a non-contact thermometer, we're gonna have this in place as early as this weekend. At the five airports, my goal is that we create internationally as many different checkpoints as possible for travelers who go through the system. So, thank you all very much. Join me in thanking the Secretary. Thank you.