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+
+ - ACCOUNTABILITY AND LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION'S CHILD SEPARATION POLICY
+
+[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
+[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ ACCOUNTABILITY AND LESSONS LEARNED
+
+ FROM THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION'S CHILD
+
+ SEPARATION POLICY
+
+=======================================================================
+
+ HEARING
+
+ BEFORE THE
+
+ COMMITTEE ON
+ OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
+ HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
+
+ ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
+
+ FIRST SESSION
+
+ __________
+
+ FEBRUARY 4, 2021
+
+ __________
+
+ Serial No. 117-1
+
+ __________
+
+ Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform
+
+
+
+ [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
+
+
+ Available on: govinfo.gov,
+ oversight.house.gov or
+ docs.house.gov
+
+
+
+ ______
+
+
+ U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
+43-714 PDF WASHINGTON : 2021
+
+
+ COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
+
+ CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Chairwoman
+
+Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of James Comer, Kentucky, Ranking
+ Columbia Minority Member
+Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts Jim Jordan, Ohio
+Jim Cooper, Tennessee Paul A. Gosar, Arizona
+Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
+Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Jody B. Hice, Georgia
+Jamie Raskin, Maryland Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
+Ro Khanna, California Michael Cloud, Texas
+Kweisi Mfume, Maryland Bob Gibbs, Ohio
+Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Clay Higgins, Louisiana
+Rashida Tlaib, Michigan Ralph Norman, South Carolina
+Katie Porter, California Pete Sessions, Texas
+Cori Bush, Missouri Fred Keller, Pennsylvania
+Danny K. Davis, Illinois Andy Biggs, Arizona
+Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Andrew Clyde, Georgia
+Peter Welch, Vermont Nancy Mace, South Carolina
+Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson, Jr., Scott Franklin, Florida
+ Georgia Jake LaTurner, Kansas
+John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Pat Fallon, Texas
+Jackie Speier, California Yvette Herrell, New Mexico
+Robin L. Kelly, Illinois Byron Donalds, Florida
+Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan
+Mark DeSaulnier, California
+Jimmy Gomez, California
+Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
+Vacancy
+
+ David Rapallo, Staff Director
+ Russ Anello, Chief Counsel
+ Elisa LaNier, Chief Clerk
+
+ Contact Number: 202-225-5051
+
+ Mark Marin, Minority Staff Director
+ ------
+
+ C O N T E N T S
+
+ ----------
+ Page
+Hearing held on February 4, 2021................................. 1
+
+ Witnesses
+
+The Honorable Michael E. Horowitz, Inspector General, U.S.
+ Department of Justice
+
+ Oral Statement............................................... 6
+
+Opening statements and the prepared statements for the witnesses
+ are available in the U.S. House of Representatives Repository
+ at: docs.house.gov.
+
+ INDEX OF DOCUMENTS
+
+ ----------
+
+ * First Focus statement for the record; submitted by Rep.
+ Johnson.
+
+ * ``Biden Surge: 3,500 Migrants Caught at Border Daily, `I'm
+ Scared at What's Coming','' , The Washington Examiner;
+ submitted by Rep. Biggs.
+
+ * ``Biden Administration Prepares to Open an Overflow Facility
+ for Migrant Children,'' news, CNN; submitted by Rep. Biggs.
+
+ * ``Eleven Iranians Arrested in Arizona After Jumping U.S.-
+ Mexico Border,'' article, The Washington Times; submitted by
+ Rep. Biggs.
+
+ * Letter from Rep. Biggs to the Honorable Alejandro Mayorkas,
+ the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, dated February 4,
+ 2021; submitted by Rep. Biggs.
+
+The documents entered into the record during this hearing are
+ available at: docs.house.gov.
+
+
+ ACCOUNTABILITY AND LESSONS LEARNED
+
+ FROM THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION'S CHILD
+
+ SEPARATION POLICY
+
+ ----------
+
+
+ Thursday, February 4, 2021
+
+ House of Representatives,
+ Committee on Oversight and Reform,
+ Washington, D.C.
+ The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:15 a.m., via
+Webex, Hon. Carolyn Maloney [chairwoman of the committee]
+presiding.
+ Present: Representatives Maloney, Norton, Lynch, Connolly,
+Krishnamoorthi, Khanna, Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Porter, Bush,
+Davis, Wasserman Schultz, Welch, Johnson, Sarbanes, Speier,
+Kelly, Lawrence, DeSaulnier, Gomez, Pressley, Comer, Jordan, ,
+Hice, Grothman, Cloud, Foxx, Gibbs, Higgins, Norman, Sessions,
+Keller, Biggs, Franklin, Herrell, and Donalds.
+ Chairwoman Maloney. Welcome, everyone, to today's remote
+hearing.
+ Pursuant to House rules, members will appear remotely via
+Webex. I know you are all familiar with Webex by now, but let
+me remind everyone of a few points.
+ First, you have been using active view for our hybrid
+hearings. This will still work, but grid view will give you a
+better perspective in a remote hearing. If you have any
+questions about this, please contact committee staff.
+ Second, we have a timer that should be visible on your
+screen. Members who wish to pin the timers to their screens
+should contact committee staff for assistance.
+ Third, the House rules require that we see you. So, please
+have your cameras turned on at all times.
+ Fourth, members appearing remotely who are not recognized
+should remain muted to minimize background noise and feedback.
+ Fifth, I will recognize members verbally, but members
+retain the, retain the right to seek recognition verbally. In
+regular order members will be recognized in seniority order for
+questions.
+ Last, if you want to be recognized outside of regular
+order, you may identify that in several ways. You may use the
+chat function to send a request, you may send an email to the
+majority staff, or you may unmute your mic to seek recognition.
+ Obviously, we do not want people talking over each other,
+so my preference is that members use the chat function, like
+email, to facilitate formal verbal recognition.
+ Committee staff will ensure that I am made aware of the
+request and I will recognize you.
+ We will begin the hearing in just a moment when they tell
+me they are ready to begin the live stream.
+ [Pause.]
+ Chairwoman Maloney. The committee will come to order.
+Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess
+of the committee at any time. I now recognize myself for an
+opening statement.
+ Today's hearing will examine the Trump administration's
+role in one of the darkest chapters in our country's history,
+as the entire world watched in horror while the U.S. Government
+literally ripped children from the arms of their parents.
+ The Trump administration's child separation policy was
+intentional, demoralizing, and infuriating all at once. It was,
+in a word, evil. We are still living with the consequences of
+this disastrous policy today.
+ As we convene this morning, hundreds of children still have
+not been reunited with their families and thousands more will
+forever carry the trauma of being pulled away from their
+parents with no idea if they would ever see them again.
+ Inspector General Horowitz's report on this policy is an
+important contribution to a much-needed reckoning. I would like
+to thank Mr. Horowitz for appearing before the committee today
+and for the work he and his office have done on this
+investigation.
+ As you know, Democrats on this committee have been
+demanding accountability for these child separations for years.
+In May 2018, shortly after the Trump administration started
+separating these children, I led a letter with our late
+colleague, Elijah Cummings, to then Chairman Gowdy seeking an
+investigation. He declined.
+ In June 2018, then Ranking Member Cummings pleaded with our
+Republican colleagues to stand up to President Trump and stop
+these separations. He was begging for help. Elijah's appeal
+that day to our Nation's better angels was powerful and I would
+like to play some of his words today from that hearing.
+ Inspector General Horowitz, you appeared before the
+committee that day so I am sure you will remember this.
+ Can the clerk please play Elijah's video?
+ [Video shown.]
+ Chairwoman Maloney. In the years since Elijah's plea, the
+inhumanity of this policy has only deepened, as the inspector
+general's report makes strikingly clear. The trauma inflicted
+on these children and their families was not an accident. It
+was the point. The Trump administration chose to use these
+children as weapons against their own families.
+ Attorney General Sessions and his top political appointees
+pursued their brutal zero tolerance policy, knowing full well
+that it would forcibly separate children from their parents.
+ Separating children from their parents was meant to deter
+immigration, no matter how valid their claims of asylum.
+ When U.S. Attorneys at the border expressed concern about
+what was being asked of them, Sessions ignored their pleas for
+help. He responded, and I quote, ``We need to take away
+children,'' end quote.
+ Let me repeat that. Quote, ``We need to take away
+children,'' end quote. That is what he said. The inspector
+general's findings complement our committee's own
+investigation, which revealed that the Trump administration
+misled the public about their rationale for the policy while
+actively downplaying the harm caused by child separations.
+ The IG's report makes clear that Trump administration
+compounded the harm of this policy through incompetence. They
+recklessly disregarded the objections of experts and failed to
+coordinate among agencies to track these children. They ignored
+obvious warnings from an earlier pilot program that experienced
+many of the same problems. It was a disaster from start to
+finish.
+ Now we need answers and we need to finally reunite these
+children with their families. On Tuesday, President Biden
+announced a task force to do just that.
+ It is astonishing to me that we had to wait for a new
+president to finally take this step. It is long, long overdue
+and we commend President Biden for rejecting the inhumanity of
+continuing to allow these children to live without their
+families.
+ You may hear that child separation started not under the
+Trump administration but under the Obama Administration and
+that immigrants were kept in so-called cages long before
+President Trump came into office.
+ It is true that during a particularly massive influx of
+refugees from Central America in 2014 temporary facilities were
+used to house migrants for 72 hours as they were processed and
+placed with family members or others.
+ But what the Trump administration did was significantly
+worse. It was an intentional policy of separating kids and jail
+everyone for weeks and months before they were deported without
+their children, and it was meant to inflict trauma so that
+others wouldn't come here.
+ The message was clear. Don't come here, and if you do,
+don't bring your children because we will take them away from
+you and you may never see them again. Although we can never
+undo what the Trump administration did, we must do everyone in
+our power to ensure that it never happens again.
+ We must also heal the wounds, both physical and emotional,
+that the Trump administration inflicted on these children. It
+is the very least we can do, and I intend to pursue that goal
+vigorously.
+ Before I close, I want to let everyone know that out of an
+abundance of caution I am currently quarantined after being
+exposed to someone with COVID. So, after the ranking member
+gives his statement, I will be turning the hearing over to Ms.
+Tlaib, who has generously agreed to manage the hearing on my
+behalf.
+ I will still participate in the question and answer portion
+of the hearing but Ms. Tlaib will be managing the remainder of
+the hearing.
+ So, with that, I now recognize the distinguished ranking
+member, Mr. Comer, for his opening statement.
+ Mr. Comer. Thank you, Chairwoman Maloney, and before I
+begin my opening statement I would be remiss if I didn't,
+again, say publicly that Republicans on the House Oversight
+Committee want to have these committee hearings in person. We
+show up for work.
+ We realize that these hearings are more effective, more
+efficient, and a lot more professional when they are held in
+person and, at the very least, we request that you would allow
+these hearings to be conducted like at least a third of the
+committee hearings in Washington and those are being held by
+hybrid where the members have the option of being in person if
+they want, and if they are concerned about COVID then they can
+do it remotely.
+ So, again, I want to publicly request that our next hearing
+will be, at the very least, a hybrid hearing.
+ Inspector General Horowitz, it is always a pleasure to have
+you before the House Oversight Committee. It is clear from the
+inspector general's review of the Department of Justice's
+implementation of the 2018 zero tolerance policy that there
+were communication breakdowns, failures to fully coordinate
+with the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human
+Services and an overall failure to account for and ensure
+communication between parents being prosecuted for illegal
+entry and their minor children.
+ And I believe these implementation failures are part of the
+reason that President Trump ended this zero--this policy more
+than two years ago in June 2018 through an executive order
+reiterating that it was the administration's policy to keep
+families together whenever possible.
+ The zero tolerance policy suffered from serious
+implementation flaws that should never be repeated.
+Unfortunately, the humanitarian and national security crisis on
+the southern border has raged on for nearly a decade, starting
+under former President Obama and then Vice President Biden's
+watch.
+ Democrats in Congress have refused to close serious
+loopholes in our law that are fueling this crisis. One loophole
+all but guarantees that most parents who bring a minor child
+with them when illegally crossing the border will be released
+into the United States.
+ This loophole encourages illegal immigrants to bring a
+child with them to the southern border so they are quickly
+released into the United States. The border crisis reached its
+peak in May 2019 when over 132,000 individuals were apprehended
+by Border Patrol agents just that month.
+ The majority of those, 84,000, were part of family units
+including children in tow, and that was only one month. In
+Fiscal Year 2019, the Border Patrol apprehended over 850,000
+individuals illegally crossing the southern border with more
+than half being family units.
+ Absent the congressional action needed to end the crisis,
+the Trump administration employed many tools to deter illegal
+entry into the United States and prevent human smugglers from
+exploiting victims for financial gain.
+ President Trump implemented the migrant protection
+protocols where inadmissible aliens from Central America were
+returned to Mexico to await immigration court proceedings
+instead of being released into the interior of the United
+States for years.
+ President Trump also implemented reforms to the asylum
+system to prevent illegal immigrants from gaming the system and
+filing frivolous applications. All of these reforms produced
+results and contributed to a large decrease in illegal
+migration during the latter month of 2019 into Fiscal Year
+2020.
+ In Fiscal Year 2020, those reforms contributed to having
+the illegal immigration on the southern border to 400,000
+apprehensions while family unit apprehensions decreased
+substantially to 52,000, numbers which are still far too high,
+in my opinion.
+ But illegal immigration is on the rise again, even as the
+Biden administration cancels these much-needed reforms by
+executive order and guts interior immigration enforcement by
+agency memorandum.
+ On his very first day in office, President Biden's
+administration suspended enrollments in the migrant protection
+protocols program, publicly announcing the change.
+ The Biden administration also sent a memorandum to
+immigration officials across the department of Homeland
+Security, completely gutting interior enforcement priorities.
+Even many convicted criminal aliens are no longer considered
+priorities for enforcement so long as they were released from
+criminal custody prior to January 20 of 2021.
+ That memorandum also ordered a 100-day moratorium on almost
+all deportations of aliens with final orders of removal.
+Fortunately, a Federal judge has already temporarily enjoined
+the administration from carrying out that misguided policy.
+ President Biden's first legislative proposal sent to
+Congress would give amnesty to over 11 million illegal aliens
+already living in the United States, some of whom only arrived
+weeks before.
+ These illegal immigrants would receive immediate work
+authorization, competing with Americans for jobs at a time when
+we already have 11 million Americans unemployed and searching
+for work.
+ Through these actions President Biden has sent the messages
+loud and clear to the world that our immigration laws can be
+violated without consequence. It is no wonder that we now see
+more caravans comprised of thousands of foreign nationals
+organizing to leave their homelands to come illegally to the
+United States.
+ These radical far left immigration policies will continue
+to enable the humanitarian crisis at the border, place more
+children in peril as they are brought dangerously to the
+southern border, encourage more illegal immigration, and
+undermine the rule of law.
+ I urge the Biden administration to reverse these reckless
+policies and do its job mandated by the Constitution to take
+care that the immigration laws of this country are enforced.
+ I yield back.
+ Ms. Tlaib.
+ [Presiding.] Our witness today is Michael Horowitz, who is
+the inspector general for the Department of Justice. The
+witness will be unmuted so we can swear him in.
+ Please raise your right hand, Mr. Horowitz.
+ Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to
+give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,
+so help you God?
+ [Witness is sworn.]
+ Ms. Tlaib. Let the record show that the witness answered in
+the affirmative. Without objection, your written statement will
+be made part of the record.
+ With that, Mr. Horowitz, you are now recognized for your
+testimony.
+
+ STATEMENT OF MICHAEL E. HOROWITZ, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S.
+ DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
+
+ Mr. Horowitz. Thank you, Congresswoman.
+ Chairwoman Maloney, Ranking Member Comer, members of the
+committee, thank you for inviting me to testify at today's
+hearing. The findings in our zero tolerance report results from
+our view of approximately 10,000 pages of emails, records, and
+handwritten notes, 45 interviews, and, prior to the pandemic,
+Southwest border site visits.
+ As noted in the report, we were unable to interview former
+Attorney General Sessions because he had left the department
+shortly after the initiation of our review and the OIG doesn't
+have the ability to compel the testimony of former department
+employees.
+ This inability to compel testimony has been a problem in
+many other unrelated OIG reviews and investigations, as this
+committee well knows, and is an issue that this committee has
+previously sought to address on a bipartisan basis.
+ I hope the committee will reinitiate those efforts in order
+to promote accountability and transparency in all of our work.
+ On April 6, 2018, Attorney General Sessions announced the
+zero tolerance policy for immigration offenses involving
+illegal entry into the United States. The policy required
+Southwest border prosecutors to accept all Department of
+Homeland Security criminal referrals for alleged illegal
+reentry violations, including misdemeanors.
+ As we detailed in our report, this announcement was the
+culmination of a year-long effort by DOJ to increase criminal
+immigration enforcement on the Southwest border.
+ The following month on May 4 at the urging of Attorney
+General Sessions, the Department of Homeland Security changed
+its policy of not referring family unit adults to DOJ for
+criminal prosecution.
+ As described in our report, historically, when DHS
+apprehended adults with children, DHS, with the consent and the
+concurrence of Southwest border U.S. Attorneys, would not refer
+those adults to DOJ for criminal prosecution, largely to avoid
+separating parents from children.
+ Instead, DHS would place the family unit in administrative
+deportation proceedings. However, as a result of the zero
+tolerance policy and the change in DHS policy, in May 2018 DHS
+began referring family unit adults to DOJ for criminal
+prosecution, resulting in thousands of child separations.
+ Our review found that DOJ leadership failed to effectively
+prepare for or manage the implementation of the zero tolerance
+policy. We concluded that the department's single-minded focus
+on increasing immigration prosecutions through the zero
+tolerance policy came at the expense of careful and appropriate
+consideration of the impact of child separations.
+ As we describe in our report, Attorney General Sessions
+understood that prosecution of family unit adults would result
+in children being separated from families, at least
+temporarily, and we determined that DOJ leadership was a
+driving force in DHS's decision to begin referring family unit
+adults for prosecution.
+ We, additionally, concluded that DOJ leadership's
+expectations for how the family separation process would work
+significantly underestimated its complexities and demonstrated
+a deficient understanding of the legal requirements related to
+the care and custody of separated children.
+ For example, Attorney General Sessions told the Southwest
+border U.S. Attorneys that prosecution of family unit adults
+would be swift and would be followed by immediate unification
+of the separated families.
+ However, Federal law requires DHS to place separated
+children in the custody of the Department of Health and Human
+Services within 72 hours. Completing a prosecution within such
+a timeline was, in most cases, a practical and legal
+impossibility as the Southwest border U.S. Attorneys had,
+effectively, reported to DOJ headquarters.
+ Yet, we determined that DOJ leadership did not take steps
+after receiving this information and learning about DHS's and
+HHS's difficulties in identifying the location of separated
+children to reconsider their prior assumptions about the
+ability to immediately reunify separated families.
+ Additionally, we found that DOJ leadership did not
+effectively plan for or coordinate with the U.S. Attorneys, the
+U.S. Marshals, Health and Human Services, or the Federal courts
+prior to announcing the new policy.
+ Indeed, we determined that those key stakeholders were
+provided with little to no advance notice of either the zero
+tolerance policy or the decision to prosecute adult family unit
+members.
+ Our report makes three recommendations to the Department of
+the U.S. Marshals Service and they concurred at all three of
+those recommendations.
+ Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today and I
+would be pleased to answer any questions that the committee may
+have.
+ Ms. Tlaib. Thank you. The chair now recognizes Chairwoman
+Maloney for five minutes for questions.
+ [Technical issue.]
+ Chairwoman Maloney.--Testimony today.
+ Inspector General Horowitz, I would like to start with a
+very simple question. Did AG Jeff Sessions and other top DOJ
+officials know that the zero tolerance policy would separate
+children from their families?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Our report found that they did know in
+advance at announcing the child--in advance of announcing the
+zero tolerance policy in April.
+ Chairwoman Maloney. Wow. Your report found that AG Sessions
+and his advisors at DOJ were a, quote, ``driving force'' in
+pushing DHS to start separating children at the border by
+referring family members for prosecution.
+ What did you mean by the term ``driving force?''
+ Mr. Horowitz. So, what we found was, as you indicated, that
+in advance of announcing the zero tolerance policy in April, in
+early April, Attorney General Sessions' expectation was that it
+would lead to the referral of adult members traveling with
+children.
+ After the announcement, that didn't immediately occur and
+there were continued meetings, as we detail, in that April to
+May 4 time period when DHS finally announced that he intended
+to make such referrals and that during that time period it was
+Attorney General Sessions' and the department's leadership that
+was pushing the Department of Homeland Security to make that
+change.
+ Chairwoman Maloney. Also based on your report it appears
+that Attorney General Sessions and other DOJ officials knew
+exactly what would happen because they had already done it
+before. A 2017 zero tolerance pilot program called El Paso
+Initiative led to the separation of hundreds of children in
+that area.
+ Your report says DOJ officials knew in 2018 that the
+government had been unable to reunify children who were
+separated during pilot program. Is that right?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Congresswoman, yes. The department had a
+pilot program where two U.S. Attorneys' office with the Border
+Patrol had a pilot program called the El Paso Initiative out of
+Western District of Texas and the district in New Mexico that
+had identified many of the issues that later came to light in
+2018 following the advent of the zero tolerance policy.
+ What we found is there was a briefing for the department in
+December 2017. But the takeaway from the department was only
+the positives and no one was asking about the challenges that
+resulted in the U.S. Attorneys' office and DHS stopping that
+policy in 2017.
+ Chairwoman Maloney. And yet, Attorney General Sessions
+touted this program as a success in pushing for broader
+separations at a White House meeting in May 2018, correct?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That was part of the talking points, that is
+correct, explaining that it was a positive effort without being
+aware of or understanding all of the issues that led to its
+secession.
+ Chairwoman Maloney. And that was the whole point of the
+zero tolerance policy, to use children as weapons against their
+families. Your report revealed the disturbing May 28 phone call
+between Attorney General Sessions and five U.S. Attorneys.
+ The U.S. Attorneys on the call took notes of his comments
+and they wrote, and I quote, ``We need to take away children.
+If you care about kids, don't bring them in. Don't give them
+amnesty. Don't give amnesty to kids, to people with kids,'' end
+quote. Let me repeat, ``We need to take away children.''
+ Mr. Horowitz, these notes indicate that Attorney General
+Sessions told these U.S. Attorneys that taking away children
+was necessary to deter their parents from coming to the U.S. Do
+you agree?
+ Mr. Horowitz. We found several instances, Chairwoman, where
+references were made to this being an important deterrent
+effort, that being one of them, during the call that Attorney
+General Sessions had with the U.S. Attorneys.
+ Chairwoman Maloney. So, your report affirms that these
+child separations were an expected, even desired, outcome of
+the zero tolerance policy. Your testimony today is absolutely
+critical and it is appalling.
+ I am truly sorry to the thousands of children and their
+families who continue to suffer because of these purposeful
+acts directed by officials at the highest levels of government.
+ So, essentially, children who had done nothing wrong
+themselves were punished, separated from their families, jailed
+and traumatized, as a way to warn other innocent people who had
+not done anything wrong themselves.
+ Punishing the innocent to scare the innocent is so un-
+American. The cruelty of this program was not an unintended
+mistake. It was the whole purpose.
+ IG Horowitz, I want to thank you for your very important
+testimony and for the critical work that you and your office
+did on this important report.
+ I may have gone over so please give Mr. Comer additional
+time. Thank you. I yield back.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Gosar, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Mr. Gosar. Thank you, Chairwoman. I certainly appreciate
+it.
+ I am glad the majority chose the topic of illegal
+immigration for our first substantial hearing. The American
+people deserve to know what is going on at our border. The
+focus is child separation policy during the Trump
+administration and how we need to learn our lesson.
+ Great. Let us find out where this policy comes from because
+we haven't gone far enough back in history, and I always like a
+good history lesson.
+ The policy of separating children can be traced back to the
+Clinton Administration's settlement of Reno v. Flores. This
+court case dealt with INS's detention and release of
+unaccompanied minors. The court ruled in favor of INS
+separation policies, yet the Clinton Administration decided to
+settle the litigation.
+ According to Homeland Security, this settlement allowed the
+agency to detain unaccompanied minors for only 20 days before
+releasing them to the Department of Health and Human Services,
+which places the minors in foster or shelter situations until
+they locate a sponsor.
+ The problem was worsened in 2016 under Loretta Lynch as AG
+when the liberal Ninth Circuit interpreted the settlement to
+include minors unaccompanied and accompanied by their parents.
+ Here we have the separation. Folks, now the floodgates are
+open to separate these children from their parents and Trump
+hadn't even taken office.
+ Not to mention the loophole that is already in place of
+catch and release where we give these folks a court date and
+there is nothing forcing them to show up, a loophole that was
+codified in the Refugee Act in 1980, put together by a
+government entirely controlled by Democrats.
+ Because of this, Trump instituted a zero tolerance policy
+to ensure we didn't just catch and release these people just to
+be lost in the interior of our country.
+ Attorney General Sessions said that the zero tolerance
+policy would be used as a deterrent for potential smugglers and
+illegal immigrants. Wouldn't you agree?
+ I have actually visited with parents in Guatemala and El
+Salvador where cartel members have actually confiscated their
+children and the parents were forced to follow.
+ Following this policy change, family separation became a
+targeted attack. So, if you want to ask me what I have learned
+from Trump's policy of separation--of separating children, I
+have learned that it didn't start with him and that major
+immigration reform is needed to fix these underlying problems.
+ When you don't fix something like catch and release, you
+hurt everyday Americans. I don't know--I don't need to go over
+the same platitudes of why illegal immigration hurts American
+workers because we all know them.
+ Not only are American workers affected, but the people
+brought over are experiencing incredible hardships. There are
+countless examples, reports and testimoneys of people that have
+been trafficked over the border for illicit drug or sexual
+purposes, making the policy horrifying and, frankly,
+dehumanizing.
+ In addition, we are seeing folks being recycled through the
+process, thanks to our mainstream media. If you have a kid by
+your side of the border, you can't be separated with your adult
+companion and you must be free to seek refuge with that same
+individual.
+ DNA testing at the border has raised the scrutiny for being
+inaccurate or, at best, inconclusive. But why is it wrong for
+us to know if these people are even related? Don't we owe it to
+the children to make sure that that is the process?
+ If the tests are supposedly inaccurate, we, obviously,
+agree on the premise of finding familial ties. So, let us make
+it a priority to improve that testing.
+ The Biden administration has announced that children will
+no longer be separated from their parents at the border. At the
+end of the day, this is window dressing that will be lapped up
+by the adoring media.
+ What are these plans to deal with families crossing the
+border now? Will they be detained together? If released, what
+will compel them to show up to their court hearings?
+ Will we increase testing for DNA at the border? What about
+COVID? Will these individuals even be tested at the border?
+ No offense, Mr. Horowitz. I love seeing you. But you are
+not the individual who needs to be answering these questions if
+we truly have this emergency. That is why I urge the--why I
+bring it to the chairwoman.
+ Madam Chairwoman, I challenge you to bring folks from the
+Biden administration before this committee to answer questions
+we would all like to know, because simply halting the
+separation of children at the border is the equivalent of
+putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.
+ And with that, I yield back.
+ Ms. Tlaib. I now recognize myself for five minutes for
+questions.
+ Inspector General Horowitz, thank you again for being with
+our committee. I would like to focus, as the chairwoman did, on
+the 2017 El Paso Initiative that you discuss in your report.
+ From March to November 2017, the U.S. Attorney in the
+Western District of Texas and the Border Patrol office in that
+region conducted an initiative that, contrary to DHS policy at
+the time, directed the prosecution of parents who arrived with
+children.
+ So, Inspector General, how was this initiative similar to
+the zero tolerance policy later implemented by DOJ and DHS?
+ Mr. Horowitz. So, it was begun, as you indicated, in 2017
+because of discussions that occurred between DHS, Border
+Patrol, and the U.S. Attorneys' offices in western Texas and
+New Mexico about concerns and questions as to whether
+individuals coming with children should be given a complete
+pass for potential criminal prosecutions, the concern being
+that perhaps some individuals were using children to come here
+without--as a means by which to avoid criminal prosecution.
+ So, the idea was to set up a discretionary program where
+Border Patrol would consider certain factors, certain
+aggravating factors, and then refer those cases to the U.S.
+Attorneys for consideration.
+ Ultimately, that was the program by which the U.S.
+Attorneys didn't accept all of the cases but exercised
+discretion over which ones to take, and subsequent reports
+indicated that somewhere between 15 percent and about a third
+of those cases were accepted for prosecution.
+ Ms. Tlaib. And you already testified that the DOJ
+leadership was aware of the existence of the initiative.
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct.
+ Ms. Tlaib. Yes. Throughout your review, did you uncover any
+evidence that AG Sessions or other DOJ leadership were actually
+concerned about child separation?
+ I know you called it, like, agitation or whatever they
+called dehumanizing immoral un-American policies that they
+implemented in this. Did you see any concern in your report by
+the Attorney General's Office and the leadership there about
+the separation?
+ Mr. Horowitz. What we found was that they were aware that
+that would be a result of this and our concern, as we detail in
+the report, is that they didn't take the time or undertake the
+opportunity to consult with stakeholders like the U.S.
+Attorneys who handled the El Paso Initiative, like HHS, like
+the courts, or the U.S. Attorneys or the Marshals Service
+themselves, which are department components so that they could
+familiarize themselves with what the issues were likely to be
+despite those being presented in April and May.
+ Ms. Tlaib. Inspector General, actually, I know in your
+report that you, in an interview with your office, a senior
+advisor to the attorney general Gene Hamilton actually was
+quoted saying, ``It is going well,'' that the El Paso
+Initiative was going well.
+ Now, I don't know about you all here today. Personally, I
+can't imagine describing the taxpayer-funded campaign designed
+to terrorize migrant families as going well.
+ As your report notes, the DOJ tore apart about 280 families
+by pursuing this initiative. These cases involved 146 children
+five or younger. Is that correct?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct.
+ Ms. Tlaib. Including 11 babies who were taken away from the
+only family they have ever known. In Detroit, we call that
+inexcusable cruelty.
+ As one official wrote to the acting U.S. Attorney in the
+region at the time, they said, quote, ``We have now heard of
+taking breastfeeding defendant moms away from their infants. I
+did not believe this until I looked at the duty log and saw
+that the fact that we had accepted persecution on moms with
+one-and two-year-olds.''
+ I just want my colleagues to just let that sink in for a
+second. The acting U.S. Attorney himself commented that history
+would not judge prosecuting family units kindly. And yet, here
+he went ahead and did it anyway, tearing hundreds of families
+apart in the process.
+ Inspector, based on this evidence examined during your
+investigation could you briefly describe Attorney General
+Sessions' and DOJ leadership presented and characterized the El
+Paso Initiative to the other administrative officials?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Well, in terms of how they characterized it,
+as you indicated in the talking points we saw, it was
+referenced as being a positive outcome, the positive outcome
+being that there were increased prosecutions, resulting in
+metrics that showed decreased border crossings and that that
+was the positive.
+ What was--what they failed to be aware of discussed was, as
+you indicated, the problems that were readily apparent once
+that program got underway the DHS and HHS were having trouble
+reunifying parents with their children and that that was
+resulting in court issues, court challenges, and problems that
+ultimately led to actually DHS unilaterally stopping the
+program.
+ That information wasn't discussed or, as far as we could
+tell, even briefed at any significant level to department
+leadership.
+ Ms. Tlaib. Thank you, Mr. Horowitz.
+ I now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Hice, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Mr. Hice. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate that. And
+Mr. Horowitz, always great to see you. Thanks for joining us
+again.
+ You know, apart from the comments that have been made by
+the chairwoman earlier to be absolutely outrageous, the reality
+is that if my Democratic colleagues genuinely wanted to improve
+the conditions of these children then they would partner with
+us, quite frankly, to try to fix a broken immigration system,
+to speak out against some of the recent moves by President
+Biden that will only add further chaos at the border and
+further incentivize more illegal immigration from taking place.
+There is a tremendous amount of misinformation and, quite
+frankly, hypocrisy that is surrounding this entire issue.
+ For example, the first controversial so-called kids in
+cages policy started under the Obama Administration, not under
+President Trump, and yet, some of my Democratic colleagues
+pulled out pictures of 2014 under the Obama/Biden
+administration of kids in cages and tried to attach that to
+President Trump.
+ That is an outrage. It is an absolute hypocrisy underway.
+It was President Obama's DACA program that sparked the surge of
+illegal immigration at our southern border. The pictures of
+children in these cages, literally, they were being warehoused
+and that was taking place under the Obama Administration.
+ And in the surges the chairwoman acknowledges was taking
+place a number of family units--of course, we are talking about
+adult aliens who were traveling with children, they were
+apprehended at the border.
+ In fact, those numbers skyrocketed under the Obama
+Administration. People saw these family units were being
+released into the interior of our country with catch and
+release.
+ How do you stop illegal immigration when you release them
+into our borders? That was taking place under the Obama
+Administration and that led to child recycling rings which,
+personally, I have seen on some of my visits to the southern
+border where these children are used multiple times to escort
+adults illegally into our country and then, of course, they
+were released.
+ In fact, in 2019, DHS identified some 4,800 fraudulent
+families. Under President Trump in June 2018, through executive
+order Trump tried to keep these families together while the
+immigration litigation process was unfolding.
+ But, unfortunately, now, under the Biden administration, we
+are only watching the problem exacerbated as broken illegal
+immigration system that we have is being exposed.
+ We are now watching under Biden his policies are going to
+weaken our border security. It will weaken our interior
+enforcement while at the same time incentivizing more people to
+come here illegally.
+ And, as already been mentioned, he is proposing 11 million
+people who are here illegally to receive amnesty without
+closing any loopholes, by the way. This is just an outrage.
+ Just this week--just this week, the Biden administration is
+opening an HHS overflow facility for unaccompanied children on
+the U.S.-Mexico border.
+ In 2019, this very same facility that is reopening, in 2019
+one of my colleagues on this committee referred to that same
+facility as a concentration camp.
+ I mean, that is just an absolute outrage. So, are we, now
+that Biden is going to use this same facility for the same type
+of children, is this now the proper terminology, first, to
+refer to this as the Biden concentration camps?
+ I have not heard a word of Democrats referring to it as
+concentration camps anymore. In fact, we have another caravan,
+as we all know, headed to our border right now from Honduras
+with thousands of people, and this whole thing is just an
+outrage to me.
+ Mr. Horowitz, I don't have much time left. Let me just ask
+you, with those who are coming to the country legally, went
+through the legal process, were any children separated from
+their parents in that legal process?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Not that I know of, although I would have to
+check to see how much we looked into that.
+ Mr. Hice. There was just argument about children being
+separated was a deterrent not to legal immigration but to
+illegal immigration, and separating the children was part of
+people--of stopping them from coming here illegally. Is that
+correct?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct. It was intended to be a
+deterrent on illegal immigration.
+ Mr. Hice. Thank you. I see my time has expired. I yield
+back.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentlewoman from District of Columbia, Ms.
+Norton, is recognized for five minutes.
+ Ms. Norton. I thank you.
+ Inspector General Horowitz, first, let me understand what
+this shorthand means, this zero tolerance policy from the
+administration--from the Trump administration. That was to
+prosecute all cases of illegal entry including those seeking
+asylum and including separation of parents from children. Is
+that what we mean by zero tolerance policy?
+ Mr. Horowitz. As envisioned and implemented by Attorney
+General Sessions and his policy, that was the intention.
+ Ms. Norton. So, let us understand what we were talking
+about, and let me be the first to admit that every
+administration has had problems with people coming illegally
+into this country and we still have that problem, and it is
+incumbent upon us to make sure that people don't just flow into
+the country.
+ So, this has been and continues to be a problem for
+Democratic and Republican administrations. The question becomes
+how do you handle it.
+ So, the fallout from this zero tolerance policy, certainly,
+didn't come as any surprise. As I understand it, officials from
+DHS and DOJ, Department of Justice, had been discussing this
+policy at least in 2017. That is about a year before it was
+announced.
+ Now, Inspector General Horowitz, your report found that the
+Department of Justice leadership failed to coordinate, and I am
+trying to understand what that means, with other agencies
+before they launched the policy.
+ So, could you explain your finding of the issues caused by
+the lack of coordination, coordination with what agencies? What
+should have been done?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Certainly, Congresswoman.
+ So, we found issues with--internally within the department
+with two primary components, the Southwest border U.S.
+Attorneys and the Marshals Service, both of which bore the
+brunt of handling the additional prosecutions that came with
+the zero tolerance policy as well as the child separation.
+ The U.S. Attorneys had to figure out how to handle the
+substantial increase in caseload while handling all of their
+other cases. The Marshals Service had to figure out how to
+house these new defendants and how to manage them safely.
+ Externally, the Justice Department should have and needed
+to coordinate better with, for example, HHS. It was dealing
+with Homeland--with Department of Homeland Security, as we
+detail, but it was going to fall on the Department of HHS,
+Health and Human Services, to deal with the separated children.
+ And what we found is that even as the DOJ was interacting
+with HHS on a variety of issues, it didn't interact with them
+or discuss with them the plans for the child separation.
+ DHS learned about this when I was announced.
+ Ms. Norton. Yes, that is important. I just want to,
+finally, talk about the--what you say about the children
+because both sides are concerned about that.
+ According to your report, the officials at the Department
+of Justice demonstrated what you call a deficient understanding
+of the legal requirements related to the care and custody of
+separated children.
+ So, I would like to know what were the legal requirements
+that you are referring to and what could a better understanding
+of those requirements have done to change what happened to
+these children?
+ Mr. Horowitz. So, the legal issue here is the requirement,
+first, under the Flores settlement and then under statutory
+provisions that implemented some of those settlement provisions
+that require DHS to transfer unaccompanied children to HHS, to
+Health and Human Services, within 72 hours.
+ As we detail in the report, Attorney General Sessions
+indicated in his comments that he believed prosecutions could
+happen almost instantaneously, certainly, within the 72 hours,
+and we have comments from other senior officials indicating a
+similar belief.
+ That belief, as we detail here, was not only legal--a legal
+impossibility in most cases but also a practical one. Indeed,
+when the U.S. Attorneys found out that child separations would
+occur, they informed the department that they could not
+undertake most of these cases within the 72 hours. So, the
+assumption, belief, that this could be done in a day or within
+72 hours was mistaken and reflected an absence of understanding
+of the law.
+ Had that been known or had they asked in advance, Attorney
+General Sessions or others, they would have learned about those
+problems prior to implementation.
+ Ms. Norton. Thank you, Inspector Horowitz. Thank you very
+much for your report. It is very helpful.
+ And I know my time has expired.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Mr. Grothman. Can you hear me?
+ Ms. Tlaib. Yes.
+ Mr. Grothman. OK. Good.
+ Thank you for being here. I will emphasize, again, what my
+ranking members says. I wish we could all see you in person
+and, hopefully, we can do that soon.
+ The border concerns me a great deal. I know it is a very
+hazardous border right now. I was down there last week, and I
+think they told us in the Tucson sector alone there were a
+hundred people who dehydrated to death. So, a very dangerous
+situation last year.
+ Do we know how many children have crossed the border, say,
+in the last year compared to three or four years ago?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Congressman, I don't have the data on, you
+know, recent crossings. We could enquire at DHS, which would be
+the keeper of that data.
+ Mr. Grothman. Yes, I thought that--I thought you might just
+have it. As I understand it, the total number of people
+crossing the border has dropped from, like, 100,000 to 10,000
+per month in that time.
+ Do you know what percentage or how many, say, in an average
+month how many children wind up being processed at the border?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Unfortunately, Congressman, I don't have any
+of those current numbers or even the month to month
+fluctuations. I know we saw in this review how the numbers
+fluctuated and how the department was tracking them. But I
+would have to ask DHS for those--for that data.
+ Mr. Grothman. OK. I will give you another question. Do you
+know how common it is--maybe this is another thing for those
+guys--how common it is for girls to be molested on the trip
+crossing the border?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Yes. Again, Congressman, that would be
+something that we could inquire and, certainly, be able to
+verify that.
+ Mr. Grothman. Yes. Well, OK, once we have them here, do we
+know how often the children are here with both parents and/or
+one parent?
+ Mr. Horowitz. I don't know the answer to that question on
+the numbers for one versus two.
+ Mr. Grothman. OK. I will tell you why I think it is so
+relevant. As I understand the problem we have at the border is
+that sometimes a child may come with one parent and the other
+parent may, say, still be back in Central America, and at least
+we are allowed to believe that some Central American countries
+don't like that.
+ Has there been any effort ever made if a child shows up
+with one parent and not another parent what the judicial system
+in the Central American countries think of that?
+ Mr. Horowitz. I am not aware of our--of people being
+aware--understanding of what the foreign government might think
+of that. Again, we could certainly followup to see if DHS or
+the department has that kind of information.
+ Mr. Grothman. At least I have been told and, of course, I
+just get this talking to the Border Patrol folks, that, well,
+we would not like it if, say, one parent took a child and went
+from the United States to Nicaragua, right, because
+frequently--I mean, right?
+ Mr. Horowitz. In fact, there are laws on that but----
+ Mr. Grothman. There are laws on that, and at least I have
+been told that going the other way the Central American
+countries don't like us getting in--I mean, they don't like it
+if one parent in Central America comes across here.
+ Do you know how many unaccompanied--well, how many minors
+does the--does our judicial system deal with every year? Do we
+have that?
+ Mr. Horowitz. You know, that we could, certainly, find from
+the department's immigration office, the judicial office here.
+I don't know. It does fluctuate. Obviously, here there were
+thousands in the various--in the short time period at issue.
+So----
+ Mr. Grothman. The judicial system, I guess--do you get
+involved at least a little bit in every minor who comes here,
+or no?
+ Mr. Horowitz. We did not get involved in every single case
+but primarily because, as you know, DHS has first tier
+responsibility here and it would only come to the department if
+there is a referral and it ends up in the criminal courts or
+executive office for immigration.
+ Mr. Grothman. Total, how many minors did you deal with,
+say, in the last year, that you wind up getting involved with
+because a referral is made?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Well, we found here in that just six-week
+period or so there were at least 3,000 children separated
+through referrals. So, we were looking at, you know, just that
+six-week period or so, and that number we got from the DHS
+reports.
+ Mr. Grothman. OK.
+ Mr. Horowitz. So, I can't vouch for those myself. I can
+only tell you we relied derivatively on that.
+ Mr. Grothman. Yes. Can you tell me one more time when those
+six weeks were?
+ Mr. Horowitz. So, it would have been, roughly, from the May
+4 announcement----
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman's time has expired.
+ Mr. Horowitz. So, it would have been, roughly, from the May
+4 time period to June 20 when President Trump issued the
+executive order that, largely, ceased the referrals.
+ Mr. Grothman. OK. Thank you.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Mr. Lynch. Good morning, Madam Chair. I appreciate your
+courtesy.
+ Mr. Connolly. Could I--could I interrupt? Could I interrupt
+the--is the chair not--oh, excuse me. I am sorry. Go ahead,
+Steve. Forgive me for interrupting.
+ Mr. Lynch. That is OK. That is OK.
+ Thank you, Madam Chair. So, I am in three hearings right
+now so I am going to have to jump off after I get my answer.
+But so members of this committee had an opportunity to
+participate in CODEL Escobar. We were actually--we went to the
+El Paso/Juarez border crossing.
+ We had an opportunity to meet with a lot of families. This
+was just when the MPP program, which is the return to Mexico
+policy, was implemented.
+ Mr. Horowitz, I want to thank you for your wonderful work.
+You are a frequent flyer to our committee and I consider you a
+partner in oversight, and I had an opportunity to read your
+report.
+ According to your report, one of the factors, and Ms.
+Holmes Norton actually hit on this a little bit, one of the
+factors that you described that exacerbated this separation
+problem and continues to be a problem because of the failure of
+reunification efforts was the disconnect between the U.S.
+Marshals Service, you know, and prosecution on that side
+versus, you know, under Flores, as you noted, HHS has the
+responsibility for the care and custody of these kids after 72
+hours.
+ So, they are on--first of all, they weren't communicating
+but they are also on different timelines. Is that--isn't that
+correct?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct, and, in fact, as we noted,
+you couldn't expect HHS--I am sorry, the Marshals Service, to
+prepare in advance with HHS when you didn't tell the Marshals
+Service any of this was going to happen.
+ Mr. Lynch. Yes, this sort of landed in their lap, you know,
+unexpectedly and unannounced, and so they were scrambling to
+try to deal with this.
+ You know, I am just curious. It is disappointing that you
+don't have access to Attorney General--former Attorney General
+Sessions, and maybe we got to look at that whole process as
+well so that you can do these, you know, deeper investigations
+and have cooperation from all of the witnesses.
+ But that assumption that they were going to be able to do a
+parallel track, OK, so they could--they could, you know,
+prosecute, apparently, the parents under criminal statute
+within 72 hours so that their kids, who were going to be put in
+HHS custody within 72 hours so that that separation would not
+occur.
+ You know, as absurd as that sounds to me, it would be
+helpful if you gave your opinion. Was that willful ignorance? I
+mean, knowing the mechanics of both processes, it seems to me
+that there is no way someone could realistically assume that
+that was going to happen. I mean, that is just fantasy, in my
+opinion.
+ But you had a chance to look at it more closely and I would
+like to hear your thoughts on that.
+ Mr. Horowitz. Congressman, we found it was a practical and
+legal impossibility in almost all circumstances, and had there
+been, frankly, minimal due diligence by talking to the U.S.
+Attorneys themselves, the Marshals Service, DHS, HHS, the
+judges, the courts who were not consulted in advance, that
+would have been readily understood.
+ But I would like to say also as a former AUSA prosecutor
+myself, I am a little out of date. I was a prosecutor in the
+1990's. But the notion that you could expect to put someone in
+the Marshals Service custody, get them in front of--identify
+who they really are, right.
+ You have got a person coming across the border. The whole
+purpose of this is to make sure that before you prosecute
+someone for a misdemeanor violation that they aren't, for
+example, a drug dealer or a--some other serious violator of the
+law that would result in a felony and a much more serious
+felony, right.
+ So, the Marshals Service needs time, some time, to figure
+out who this person is, if they really are who they say they
+are. Then you have got to get them to a prosecutor. The
+prosecutor has to write a complaint, get them to the court.
+ You got to get a judge. The judge has to take not only a
+guilty plea but then has to sentence the defendant, and that
+assumes the defendant is willing to plead guilty. That
+assumption would be faulty. Not everybody shows up and says, I
+am pleading guilty right away. They get a defense lawyer.
+ As we noted, the courts are where it had a problem. They
+needed to find defense lawyers for all these new defendants,
+right. So, you need to get a defense lawyer lined up.
+ There is all sorts of things that had to happen, and the
+notion that all of that could happen in the majority of these
+cases, let alone many, in 72 hours, as we found we thought was
+a practical and legal impossibility.
+ Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Madam Chair, for your indulgence.
+Thank you so much.
+ Thank you, Mr. Horowitz. Keep up the good work.
+ Mr. Horowitz. Thank you, Congressman.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Cloud, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Mr. Cloud. Thank you, Chairwoman. I appreciate the topic on
+what is an extremely important topic: our national security at
+the border, the humanitarian crisis that has been ongoing for
+many years.
+ We, in Texas, experience this maybe in a way that much of
+the Nation doesn't. While it does affect the entire nation, we
+feel the impact in our communities very--early on and in a way
+that is sometimes dramatic.
+ I get texts and messages all the time from people
+throughout the district. Our sheriffs meet on a weekly basis to
+discuss how the communities even hours away from the border,
+are affected each week in their communities by the cartel
+activity that goes on along the border.
+ And I do think it is important to put this whole discussion
+in a context because there is a notion that what we see at the
+border, in a sense, is an organic movement which includes
+families coming to the border to seek a better life and,
+certainly, no doubt, when you are talking about thousands there
+is an element of it.
+ But the real broader picture and more correct picture is
+that this is a cartel-driven mechanism, that the caravans we
+are seeing coming to the border are, indeed, recruited by the
+cartels.
+ The cartels charge for anyone who comes through the border.
+They profit from it, and our assets at the border, both in
+dealing and helping with children but also in protecting and
+securing our border, find themselves outmatched when it comes
+to assets, oftentimes when it comes to manpower, when it comes
+to financing, to deal with the cartel activities who have more
+assets, more funding, oftentimes to deal with this.
+ And what is heartbreaking is that, of course, the cartels
+have no regard for human life at all, and so they not only
+charge the migrants who are coming from a financial
+perspective, but I have seen the videos where migrants have
+been, after going through the process, after paying, coming
+here are put in stash houses. I have seen where they have been
+stripped and beaten, and those videos sent to their families
+demanding more money be sent to them.
+ And it is heartbreaking what happens. There is a report
+from Doctors Without Borders, and according to the report it
+said more than two-thirds of those making the journey north
+become victims of violence along the way and nearly one-third
+of the women are sexually assaulted along the journey.
+ Ronald Vitiello, the former chief of the U.S. Border Patrol
+and former acting director of the Immigration and Customs
+Enforcement, told this committee in July 2019--he said there is
+a significant percentage of families who are pretending to be
+related when they are, in fact, not.
+ So, this is a big problem. The word is out. People know
+that if they send or bring a child that their end result is to
+be released into the United States.
+ Indeed, there was an investigation by the Homeland Security
+along with the Border Patrol that began a family fraud
+initiative in El Paso and they put out a report that outlined
+fraudulent families, false documents being presented, and the
+bottom line was that the investigations indicate that
+transnational cartels and individuals have entered into schemes
+with biological parents to dangerously transfer their children
+ranging in age from four months to 16 years to unrelated adults
+so they can pose as family units to further their human
+smuggling criminal enterprises and to fraudulently obtain U.S.
+immigration benefits.
+ And so what happens is someone shows up at the border with
+a child claiming to be theirs and we have no idea if they
+really are. It is semi-humorous except for the context of what
+we are talking about. One family, when I was on a border visit,
+had showed up and they had presented themselves as someone who
+crossed the border for the first time and the child being their
+child.
+ And the child needed to go to the restroom and so the agent
+said, well, would you like me to show you where the restroom
+is. First time in the facility, supposedly. The child is, like,
+oh, I know where the restroom is already. The child had been
+there multiple times and had been part of their rent-a-kid
+program that the cartels had incorporated to send that child
+through with an unaffiliated unfamilied adult.
+ I have been to a facility just outside my district that has
+200 young ladies who have been through the border and have been
+a part of this scheme, and it was heartbreaking to talk to the
+agents who said that a substantial part, if not the majority of
+them, had been abused along the journey.
+ And so the question remains for us what kind of policies--
+--
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman's time has expired.
+ Mr. Cloud. My apologies.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank you,
+General Horowitz, for always speaking truth to power and doing
+it without equivocation or manipulation. You are a model of
+what an independent IG is supposed to be and do. Thank you.
+ Mr. Horowitz. Thank you, Congressman.
+ Mr. Connolly. And let me also say we have heard the word
+outrage and hypocrisy from colleagues on the other side of the
+aisle. I guess I want to demur.
+ I want to reserve my outrage for the fact that the United
+States of America found itself putting children in cages and
+deliberately using children as pawns to separate them from
+their families for an ideological commitment to a rigid
+immigration policy that was inhumane. That is where my outrage
+is, and I think that is where yours ought to be, too.
+ Mr. Horowitz, I want to focus on a December 2017 memo
+discussed in your report titled ``Policy Options to Respond to
+Border Surge of Illegal Immigrants'' or ``Immigration,'' excuse
+me.
+ It was prepared by DHS and provided to Gene Hamilton, a top
+aide to then Jeff Sessions, attorney general of the United
+States. It discussed multiple immigration policy options using
+unclear language including, quote, ``increase prosecution of
+family unit parents and separate family units.''
+ Were these both, essentially, child separation policies,
+Mr. Horowitz?
+ Mr. Horowitz. In practice, they would have been, yes.
+ Mr. Connolly. And is that--was that just no different than
+previous administration policies with respect to children?
+ Mr. Horowitz. What we found was that, historically, DHS,
+with the concurrence of the department's U.S. Attorneys on the
+Southwest border did not transfer adults for criminal
+prosecution--instead, using administrative deportation
+proceedings.
+ There were some exceptions. There is a GAO report that
+identified a .3 percent figure in I think it was 2016. But,
+generally speaking, that was--the policy was to not send
+adult----
+ Mr. Connolly. So, in other words, this was quite a change
+from previous standing policy and practice?
+ Mr. Horowitz. At least since 1992 we saw that that was the
+case.
+ Mr. Connolly. I think that is really important because some
+would have us believe that this is no different than previous
+policy, and your own report finds quite the opposite. It was a
+drastic change in previous policy and deliberate.
+ According to your findings, did DHS thoroughly vet the
+policy?
+ Mr. Horowitz. DHS, apparently, did not. We--both through
+our work at DOJ and looking at the DHS OIG report, they
+identified serious problems with how DHS coordinated with the
+Health and Human Services agency.
+ Mr. Connolly. And, nonetheless, they went forward with the
+policy?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct.
+ Mr. Connolly. Hmm. According to your report, the memo was
+sent by the then DHS chief of staff to Gene Hamilton. We have
+already mentioned the key aide to Attorney General Jeff
+Sessions at that time. But you didn't name the individual in
+your report. Is that correct?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct.
+ Mr. Connolly. All right. But I was curious and I looked
+into who was that DHS chief of staff at the time. Well, and lo
+and behold, it was none other than Chad Wolf, the same Chad
+Wolf who held himself out as the acting secretary of DHS, even
+though GAO and multiple courts found that he was actually
+acting illegally because he had not been confirmed for that
+position.
+ He also has quite a checkered history in terms of ending
+the DACA program protecting Dreamers, suspending New Yorkers'
+ability to enroll in Trusted Travelers programs, and diverting
+dollars, millions of dollars, of taxpayer dollars on President
+Trump's famous border wall.
+ And, of course, he was a key architect in the policy we are
+describing, putting children at risk and using them as pawns in
+trying to enforce his views about immigration and who should or
+should not come across the border.
+ It is a shameful episode in American history. It,
+certainly, is not something that made Americans proud and it is
+certainly not something that won us admiration overseas with
+friend and foe alike.
+ I yield back.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentlewoman from North Carolina, Ms. Foxx,
+is recognized for five minutes.
+ Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
+ Thank you, Mr. Horowitz, for being with us. In your
+testimony, you mentioned that the Department of Justice failed
+to effectively prepare for or manage the implementation of the
+zero tolerance policy. Is that correct?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct.
+ Ms. Foxx. You also noted that the department's single-
+minded focus on increasing immigration prosecutions during the
+zero tolerance policy came at the expense of careful and
+appropriate consideration of the impact of child separations.
+How could the department have been better prepared for the
+implementation of this policy?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Well, I think, first and foremost, they
+should have consulted with their own components at, namely,
+their U.S. Attorneys on the Southwest border, their marshals on
+the Southwest border, as well as their counterparts at Health
+and Human Services and DHS to make sure there was an ability to
+reunite children after they were separated and the impact on
+the Marshals Service, the prosecutors, and the courts on the
+substantial influx of cases that would be coming as a result of
+these prosecutions?
+ Ms. Foxx. OK. I was going to followup with what would
+prevent the same challenges. I am assuming you are saying
+coordination is the way to go with the local people?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct. It seems obvious, I think,
+to everybody. But it just didn't happen here. In fact, as we
+know here, HHS said they learned about the policy from media
+reports.
+ Ms. Foxx. OK. So, your report made three recommendations to
+the Department of Justice. Can you please outline those
+recommendations?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Yes. So, we--the initial recommendation to
+the department was before undertaking a significant policy
+change such as this that it should consult with its components
+and make sure it has--and other executive branches of agencies
+and make sure it has those policies in place.
+ Again, that seems obvious. But as you know from some of the
+prior hearings here on other matters sometimes we make those
+obvious recommendations because, in fact, we find that problems
+arose. So, that is one recommendation.
+ The second is to the Marshals Service to create internal
+policies that would better prepare the Marshals Service for
+interacting with HHS with regard to children and adults that
+are separated because we found here, when the Marshals Service
+learned of this new policy it actually didn't have any of its
+own policies in place for how to deal with HHS.
+ And then the third recommendation is for the marshals to
+interact with HHS to come up with an MOU or other understanding
+so that, again, if there are separations that occur that adult
+defendants in Marshals Service custody can communicate with
+children that are in HHS custody.
+ Ms. Foxx. Well, would you--I think, again, you have
+described some of the ways in which you expect the Department
+of Justice to work in the future to coordinate with the
+affected stakeholders.
+ I don't know what reaction you have gotten from the
+department, but do you expect that those things to happen that
+you have recommended?
+ Mr. Horowitz. We did, and we got full cooperation from the
+administration--the outgoing administration Acting Attorney
+General Rosen, who was deputy attorney general at the time.
+They concurred in all three recommendations and agreed with our
+findings.
+ Ms. Foxx. Thank you. Are there any particular policies
+affecting multiple components or executive agencies that you
+are aware of in which this recommendation will be a key to a
+policy success or failure?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Well, I think, most importantly, it is the
+interactions with the U.S. Attorneys and the executive office
+of the U.S. Attorneys, as we found here.
+ There were multiple occasions where they actually did
+highlight concerns in advance of implementation, briefly in
+advance of implementation, within days, and those weren't
+considered.
+ And I think a more robust process--in fact, as we say in
+here, that is what we were told after the fact, the recognition
+by former Deputy AG Rosenstein and others that that in fact
+should have occurred, seeing now on paper what had happened.
+ Ms. Foxx. Right. Thank you very much, Mr. Horowitz.
+ And Madam Chair, I yield back.
+ Mr. Horowitz. Thank you, Congresswoman.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from California, Mr. Khanna, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ [No response.]
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Johnson, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Mr. Johnson. I am sorry. Did the gentlelady say Congressman
+Johnson?
+ Ms. Tlaib. Yes, Mr. Johnson. You are now recognized for
+five minutes.
+ Mr. Johnson. All right. Let me pull up my screen. Bear with
+me. All right.
+ All right. Thank you. I want to thank the chairwoman for
+holding this hearing today and I want to thank Inspector
+Horowitz for testifying.
+ Mr. Horowitz. Thank you.
+ Mr. Johnson. And I would like to begin by saying that I
+visited detained immigrants at more than one of the private
+for-profit detention centers set up by the Trump administration
+to profit from the prolonged misery inflicted by Jeff Sessions,
+Rod Rosenstein, John Kelly, and others who sought to discourage
+asylum seekers and others from seeking entry into our country
+at the southern border by implementing a cruel and barbaric
+policy requiring that children, even infants, be ripped from
+the arms of their parents and placed in private for-profit
+detention facilities, sometimes literally in cages.
+ The first step toward creating a system that prioritizes
+human dignity is figuring out what went wrong, and I am looking
+forward to doing that that today.
+ Inspector Horowitz, your review found that Attorney General
+Sessions, Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, and others
+intended that their zero tolerance policy would cause children,
+including babies, to be separated from their families. Isn't
+that correct?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That was, certainly, the understanding when
+they announced--when Attorney General Sessions announced the
+zero tolerance policy that was his understanding.
+ Mr. Johnson. And your report documented that the purpose of
+this abusive child separation policy was to deter asylum
+seekers and others from seeking entry into the United States at
+the southern border. Isn't that correct?
+ Mr. Horowitz. We found, in talking points and other
+records, that that was part of the reason for doing it was as a
+deterrent effect.
+ Mr. Johnson. And your report found that the Trump
+administration moved forward on its child separation policy
+without the sort of planning and coordination required to
+humanely and properly care for the thousands of children,
+including infants, who were snatched away from their parents.
+Isn't that correct?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct.
+ Mr. Johnson. And, Inspector Horowitz, your report also
+concluded that the Trump administration moved forward on its
+child separation policy without the sort of planning and
+coordination required that would have enabled the Trump
+administration to reunite the thousands of infants and children
+who had been taken away from their parents with their parents.
+Isn't that correct?
+ Mr. Horowitz. They, certainly, didn't take the steps that
+could have helped them try and do that. What they could have,
+ultimately, done remained to be seen. But you are correct,
+Congressman.
+ Mr. Johnson. Thank you. And, Inspector Horowitz, isn't it a
+fact that as of today literally hundreds of children taken away
+from their parents under the Trump administration child
+separation policy remains separated from their parents today?
+Is that true?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is my understanding from court filings
+and ongoing litigation, Congressman.
+ Mr. Johnson. Unfortunately, the stain of this inhumane
+Trump administration child separation policy will remain etched
+on the forehead of America for posterity, and I am gratified
+that the Biden administration is taking steps to put an end to
+this sordid chapter in the Nation's history and Congress should
+work to do the same.
+ Madam Chair, I also ask unanimous consent to enter into the
+record a statement from the organization First Focus on
+Children containing recommendations on how to ensure we never
+repeat what happened with the zero tolerance policy, including
+adopting a best interest of the child standard for all
+immigration decisions.
+ Ms. Tlaib. Without objection.
+ Mr. Johnson. Thank you, and with my remaining time, I would
+like to turn, briefly, to the section of your report that
+details how the zero tolerance policy burdened an already
+strained Federal court system, resulting in less judicial
+oversight and more chaos at the border.
+ One striking detail from your report is that Federal judges
+in the Southern District of Texas, quote, ``begged,'' end
+quote, the U.S. Attorney and the then deputy assistant attorney
+general to bring their concerns about family separations to
+Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein.
+ That is how bad it got, Federal judges begging the DOJ for
+help. Your report also noted that Deputy Attorney General
+Rosenstein participated in a few meetings organized by the
+Administrative Office of the Courts to address the impact of
+the child separation policy on the administration of justice.
+ To your knowledge, did those meetings lead to any changes
+in how DOJ handled family separations?
+ Mr. Horowitz. It did not result, as far as we found, in any
+changes. The change occurred on June 20 when the executive
+order was issued that, essentially, largely, ended the
+separations and a week later a court ruling that, effectively,
+did the same.
+ Mr. Johnson. Thank you. And aside from what you mentioned
+in the report----
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman's time has expired.
+ Mr. Johnson. Thank you. I yield back.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Gibbs, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Mr. Gibbs. Thank you, Madame Chair.
+ First of all, I would like to say as a parent and a
+grandparent, anytime children are separated from their parents
+it is just heart wrenching, and this has, you know, been an
+issue past--previous administrations on the kids in cages and
+all that, and I want to associate myself with the remarks from
+Representative Cloud and Hice, both their remarks.
+ But I was just down at the border last week and, you know,
+I think we have seen the border crossings drop. The illegal
+entries have dropped. We have got a better relationship with
+Mexico now.
+ They have got, I guess, about 25,000 of their own troops on
+our southern border on their side that help, and one of the
+Customs agents there down on the border told us that in the
+last year or so that has really turned around, the
+relationship--the working relationship with Mexico.
+ So, that is all good things that came out of the Trump
+administration and--seeing it drop.
+ Now, my fear is what we ought to be doing, Madam Chair, is
+we ought to be calling in Biden administration officials to
+find out what they are going to do here on the border because
+when I was down there they stopped construction of the 30-foot
+wall and when you talk to border agents, you talk to ranchers,
+you talk to everybody, a stakeholder down there, they all say
+they need the fence.
+ I like to call it a fence because it is really a fence
+because it has holes in it. It is not a wall. The 30-foot fence
+and with the technologies to go along with that, and that is
+what we ought to really be addressing because if we don't, we
+know there is a caravan coming up from Honduras right now and
+that we will see more issues with children being exploited by
+the cartels and all the other illegal criminal activity that
+goes on there, a humanitarian crisis that is going on at the
+border.
+ We witnessed that. People, sex trade, the human trafficking
+trade, the drug trade, and that is the issue we ought to be
+addressing with the Biden administration to find out what their
+thoughts are and when are they going to start reconstruction,
+reimplementing the construction of the fence.
+ And I also want to note that the new 30-foot fence, it
+saves taxpayers money because on border agent can patrol two
+linear miles of fence, and compared where there is no fence it
+takes three to five border agents to control one mile of border
+with no--with 50 percent less apprehension of drugs and illegal
+activity.
+ So, this is common sense. I encourage all our members,
+especially on the other side of the aisle, go down there. Talk
+to the border agents. Find out what they are saying and what is
+happening down there. Talk to landowners and see what is going
+on.
+ Because if we don't complete what we started here a few
+years ago--and we have seen results, the fence is working--we
+are going to see more and more incentives for the migrants to
+come up here looking for a better life and more and more of
+these issues that we are discussing today, and that is what we
+really need to address.
+ And so I encourage, Madam Chair, to encourage members to go
+down to the border, talk to the border agents, talk to the
+stakeholders, and also we should bring in Biden administration
+officials and find out why they paused the construction of the
+fence that we know that works.
+ And also when I was down there I saw a fence right next
+to--a new fence, and it was the same structure but it was 18
+feet, 12 feet shorter, and they--the border agents told me that
+was the Obama fence.
+ And so, apparently, President Obama and then Vice President
+Biden at the time were for a fence before. Now they are against
+the fence. So -- but the fence works. The technology works.
+ Let us help our border agents patrol it and let us stop the
+human trafficking crisis at the border, the drug trafficking,
+and so, you know, that would, obviously, stop at least with the
+topic of the day with child separation at the border and let us
+help these countries down there to improve their economies and
+disincentivize these people that want to come to the United
+States.
+ On that fact, I will yield back, Madam Chair. But let us--
+we ought to have hearings on what we are going to do at the
+border to stop the problem overall.
+ Thank you.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from California, Mr. Khanna, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Madam Chair.
+ Thank you, Inspector General, for your work. I would like
+to ask you about the DOJ's failure to form a zero tolerance
+policy with any of the U.S. Marshals Service.
+ If you could just explain, very briefly, what the zero
+tolerance policy was and how broad--what it was.
+ Mr. Horowitz. So, the zero tolerance policies announced in
+April 2018 required U.S. Attorneys along the Southwest border
+to prosecute all illegal entry cases or attempted illegal entry
+cases referred to them by the Department of Homeland Security,
+even if they were misdemeanor violations.
+ So, the intent was to prosecute every single case,
+misdemeanor or felony.
+ Mr. Khanna. Give us an example of things, misdemeanors that
+were prosecuted? I mean, things that we had never done this
+before, right, in our country's history but what are examples
+of misdemeanors that started to get prosecuted?
+ Mr. Horowitz. So, the difference between the misdemeanor
+and the felony, it is a misdemeanor to seek to cross the border
+illegally or to actually cross the border illegally in the
+absence of any abrogating factors such as if you don't have a
+prior felony or prior conviction, if you are not carrying drugs
+or guns or other paraphernalia.
+ If you are simply crossing the border illegally, without
+any of those other overlays, that is a misdemeanor.
+Traditionally, those cases were handled through the
+administrative deportation process, not the criminal process.
+There were exceptions.
+ There were occasions through certain efforts to seek to do
+those over the years. But those were the exceptions rather than
+the norm.
+ Mr. Khanna. So, basically, then what you are saying is
+under the Reagan Administration and the Bush Administration,
+this other Bush Administration, these cases--it wasn't a
+blanket prosecution of everyone who came across the borders and
+what the Trump administration basically did was blanket
+prosecution. If you come across the border you are going to be
+prosecuted. Is that a fair----
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is my general understanding. There could
+have been exceptions for particular U.S. Attorneys and
+particular unique circumstances. But our general understanding
+is that that was generally the case.
+ Mr. Khanna. And when you are going to take such a move as
+overturning precedent that Reagan and Clinton and Bushes had
+set up that called for blanket prosecution, did they consult
+the U.S. Marshals Service when they took this position?
+ Mr. Horowitz. They did not in advance of announcing the
+policy in April 2018.
+ Mr. Khanna. And that is odd, right, because the U.S.
+Marshals Service is going to be, as part of the Department of
+Justice and they would be responsible for implementing this?
+Wouldn't you want to know what kind of burden this is going to
+put on your Marshals Service?
+ Mr. Horowitz. It is critical. The marshals take custody of
+the defendant and they have to find a place for that defendant
+to have a jail cell. They are taken into the custody of the
+Justice Department through the Marshals Service.
+ The Justice Department has a limited number of jail cells
+and if you are going to add hundreds of new defendants at each
+district, they have got to find places for those individuals.
+ And as we detail here, it resulted in requiring them to
+triple bunk inmates in some instances and it ended up resulting
+in a $200 million plus shortfall for the Marshals Service.
+ Mr. Khanna. What I found most shocking about your report
+is, though, they didn't have--they had no conversations, no
+discussions, correct, with----
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct, in advance of that April
+announcement.
+ Mr. Khanna. And the Marshals Service found in an assessment
+that we would--they would continue to provide the best level
+effort to comply but there would inevitably be, quote, ``a
+degradation of service and security.''
+ Inspector General Horowitz, what is meant by a degradation
+of service and security?
+ Mr. Horowitz. So, the impact on the Marshals Service, in
+addition to having to find bed space for the additional
+defendants, they also need marshals to help manage those
+defendants, right, and take them into custody and do all the
+processing.
+ That meant pulling people off of other job
+responsibilities, which has a cascading effect on, as we noted
+here through various documents we saw, the Marshals Service
+ability to continue to go out and execute arrest warrants,
+which is a core Marshals Service function.
+ Mr. Khanna. Hasn't it made us less secure as a country
+because of it diverting marshals' resources away from things
+that were critical?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Well, as we note in here, that is certainly
+what the marshals expressed concern about, precisely that
+issue.
+ Mr. Khanna. And that is because of the zero tolerance
+policy, correct?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That that was one of the impacts on them of
+the zero tolerance policy regarding your concern.
+ Mr. Khanna. The U.S. Marshals Service is about protecting
+just more than politicians. You are saying the zero tolerance
+policy wasn't just inhumane with the bed issue but actually
+made our country less secure, from their perspective, according
+to----
+ Mr. Horowitz. Again, that is, you know, what we found in
+the records of the Marshals Service and what we were told by
+the Marshals Service.
+ Mr. Khanna. And last question, they have a $210 million
+deficit today. Is that also because of this zero tolerance
+policy?
+ Mr. Horowitz. So, they had a $227 million or so hole in
+their budget back in the 2018-2019 time period. Congress had to
+do an emergency appropriation for them and the department had
+to reprogram other moneys to make up for that hole in their
+budget so that they could pay their costs.
+ Mr. Khanna. Thank you.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Higgins, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Chairwoman and Ranking Member
+Comer. Thank you for holding today's hearing regarding the DOJ
+IG report on the Trump administration's immigrant child
+separation policy.
+ Our Founding Fathers delivered us a representative republic
+that welcomes any person to become a part of this great country
+and to participate in the American dream while balancing the
+rule of law.
+ For decades our country has struggled with this balance.
+How do we as a country enforce our laws and principles and
+protect our citizens while at the same time maintaining decency
+and compassion for those that are truly seeking refuge in our
+country?
+ This should be a bipartisan effort to determine that
+balance. In addition to being a member of this committee, I
+serve as a member on the Homeland Security Committee and as the
+ranking member of the Border Security Facilitation and
+Operations Subcommittee.
+ I have seen in person the challenges we face at our
+Nation's southern border, and I have to say we have serious
+challenges that are only further complicated by the Biden
+administration's recent actions.
+ In a video I am about to show you, you will see how, more
+than ever, we need a strong secure border. Letting thousands of
+immigrants come here illegally that serves no good purpose,
+especially our citizens and those that have come here legally.
+We are a nation of opportunity and that should be embraced and
+continued. But we are, first, a nation of law.
+ I ask that committee staff please start the video.
+ [Video shown.]
+ Mr. Johnson. Madam Speaker, I have a point of order.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman is not recognized.
+ Mr. Johnson. Parliamentary inquiry, Madam Chair.
+ Mr. Higgins. Madam Chair, reclaiming my----
+ Ms. Tlaib. Will the gentleman please state the
+parliamentarian inquiry?
+ Mr. Higgins. Madam Chair, please note the time.
+ Ms. Tlaib. Yes, we will.
+ Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Madam Chair.
+ Is it permissible for a member to show a video that has not
+been shared with the--with the other party prior to airing it
+in the--in a full committee meeting? Is that permissible under
+our----
+ Ms. Tlaib. Yes. Member Johnson, I believe that the video
+was reviewed, according to our rules, with our committee staff.
+ Mr. Johnson. Thank you. I yield back.
+ Ms. Tlaib. Mr. Higgins, you are now recognized.
+ Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate my
+colleague's concern. I would also appreciate in the future that
+the inquiry be restrained until a video that--obviously, we try
+and follow the rules around here--has been completed.
+ Mr. Johnson. Well, it just seemed to be a hatchet job put
+together by the--put together by a partisan----
+ Mr. Higgins. Reclaiming my time. Madam Chair, please note
+the--the chair lady get order in the committee, please?
+ Ms. Tlaib. Mr. Higgins--time. Mr. Higgins, you are
+recognized.
+ Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Madam Chair.
+ Inspector General Horowitz, you are familiar with DOJ
+numbers, are you not? Do you know how many American citizens
+that are parents of minor children are incarcerated in American
+incarceration system today?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Congressman----
+ Mr. Higgins. In the interest of time, I will give you the
+answer. It is about 750,000 American parents of minor children
+are incarcerated in our jails today, in our country. About 10
+million arrests take place each year. These are DOJ numbers.
+About 600,000 of those are juveniles.
+ When we make an arrest, do we ask that arrested person,
+where is your kid? I have to take you to jail. Let us stop and
+pick up your kid. Do we bring those children to a jail? The
+answer is no.
+ When we arrest a juvenile, we contact that juvenile's
+parents. But if that juvenile is placed in a juvenile detention
+center, do we put that parent in that juvenile detention
+center? No.
+ So, it is very clear that if you don't want to be separated
+from your family, I suggest you don't commit a crime that is
+going to cause you to get arrested, and I encourage the scores,
+hundreds of thousands, that intend to cross our southern border
+over the course of this next year----
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman's time has expired.
+ Mr. Higgins [continuing]. That if you bring a kid with you,
+expect to get separated from your child because we don't put
+children in jail----
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman's time has expired.
+ Mr. Higgins [continuing]. In America unless they have
+committed a crime.
+ Thank you, Madam Chair.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentlewoman from Missouri, Ms. Bush, is now
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Ms. Bush [continuing]. And I thank you, Madam Chair, for
+convening this important hearing.
+ As I sit here today, I am reminded of a time as a young
+mother when I lost sight of my daughter in a clothing store. It
+was only a matter of seconds, but I felt a feeling of doom, of
+absolute dread, thinking, where is my child. Is she hurt? Is
+she calling out for me? I felt like the world was crashing down
+on me.
+ Now, imagine feeling that feeling for 1,034 days. That is
+how long it has been since this policy was first announced,
+since mothers, fathers, and families first feared never seeing
+their child again.
+ I am also thinking about St. Louis and the many years I
+spent in the streets as an organizer in our hospitals, as a
+nurse, and in our safe houses of pastors, counseling families
+who have experienced trauma and violence.
+ Family separation is rooted in our Nation's history, let us
+be clear, harking back to black children being torn from their
+mothers' arms at slave auction blocks, including the very
+courthouse that now forms part of the iconic St. Louis skyline.
+ But these historic crimes against humanity didn't only
+happen in St. Louis. Our country has forcibly removed Native
+children from their families. We separated Japanese children
+from their parents in internment camps. The scars of white
+supremacy are a trauma in our Nation's DNA. It is a lasting
+trauma that will stay with these children and their families
+forever.
+ Mr. Horowitz, your investigation revealed that former
+Attorney General Jeff Sessions was a driving force of the zero
+tolerance policy, and though Stephen Miller is not named in
+your report, let us not forget that he played a central role in
+designing and carrying out this policy.
+ White supremacy is a disease that turns cruel and hateful
+ideas into cruel and hateful policies that affect people.
+ Inspector General Horowitz, according to your report, at
+least two parents were told by officers that their children
+were being taken for a bath. That was the last time they saw
+their children.
+ In your experience, is it ever appropriate for law
+enforcement to deceive parents about their minor children in
+this way?
+ Mr. Horowitz. I can't think of a circumstance,
+Congresswoman, where that would be appropriate.
+ Ms. Bush. Thank you.
+ Did you find any evidence that AG Sessions or Deputy AG
+Rosenstein took any action to determine the trauma, the
+anxiety, and the isolation imposed on small children and all
+children as a result of this practice?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Our concern was that there wasn't a
+sufficient effort to try and understand how this would happen
+and how it would impact the ability to reunify later and the
+mistaken understanding that could have been learned. But that
+simply couldn't happen promptly in order to ensure
+reunification in a timely manner.
+ Ms. Bush. OK. Well, it has become strikingly clear that
+though the zero tolerance policy is over, the impact endures.
+This is especially the case given the lasting impacts of the
+criminal charges lodged against these parents.
+ In your report, Mr. Horowitz, you described the DOJ's focus
+on increasing prosecutions as, quote, ``single-minded,'' end
+quote.
+ Can you restate for this record, please, the Department of
+Justice--the Department of Justice knowingly enacted the zero
+tolerance policy with the understanding that it would impose
+stronger criminal charges on family unit adults and force
+children away from their parents. Is that correct?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct. That was, certainly, the
+understanding of Attorney General Sessions in our--as we found
+in our report when he announced the zero tolerance policy in
+April 2018 and his effort to encourage DHS to change its
+policy, which it did on May 4, to authorize or to start sending
+adult family members for criminal prosecution.
+ Ms. Bush. So, in your estimation, would you say that this
+policy led to an increase in the number of felony and/or
+misdemeanor charges filed?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Well, it certainly resulted in a substantial
+increase in the number of misdemeanors. I believe it also
+resulted in a significant increase in the number of felonies
+but I would have to followup on that.
+ Ms. Bush. Mr. Horowitz, who would have the answers to these
+questions?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Well, we can, certainly, get you the figures,
+Congresswoman, from here at the department on the increase in
+prosecutions. I just don't have them right in front of me.
+ Ms. Bush. Thank you.
+ I can never know the heartache of spending months and years
+without knowing if my child was in danger, hurt, or sick. But I
+do know any parent would do anything that they can to see their
+child again. It is essential that we reunite these families
+together.
+ I strongly believe that we must remove the threat of
+criminalization and provide families with full amnesty and
+clear their records. This is the absolute least we can do.
+ Thank you, and I yield back.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Sessions, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much. I assume I can be seen
+and heard at this time. Madam Chairman, I assume I can be.
+ Ms. Tlaib. Yes, we see you.
+ Mr. Sessions. Yes. Thank you very much.
+ What a delight it is for me to be with you today. Mr.
+Horowitz, thank you very much.
+ Mr. Horowitz, is this a practice that takes place at our
+airports all across the United States of America where there is
+a less than adult person that might be a minor child that is
+with an adult? Are they questioned about the status of what
+they are doing with that child?
+ Mr. Horowitz. You are talking about with domestic flights
+in the U.S.?
+ Mr. Sessions. Absolutely, at every single airport in the
+United States and port of entry in the United States of
+America.
+ Mr. Horowitz. Mm-hmm. Yes, they are asked if the two of
+them are together and the relationship.
+ Mr. Sessions. What would happen if I were to enter an
+airport with someone that was not my child? What process would
+take place here in the United States with American United
+States citizens?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Well, I think if you are traveling
+domestically--I am not sure whether there would be much
+differently done. If you are with an adult and a child you
+don't necessarily have to be----
+ Mr. Sessions. But you would be asked. You would be asked
+and expected to provide information, and when someone said,
+that is not my child, what would happen?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Well, I am not sure what would happen on a
+domestic flight. Internationally, there are issues that result
+because of Federal laws about international parental kidnapping
+and other issues where you want to make sure before someone is
+allowed to leave the country with a child that they, in fact,
+have authority to go with that child inside the country.
+ Mr. Sessions. Do you believe that that process or what
+should be that process for people who are entering the United
+States of America--there is some suggestion that we should not
+even ask who these people are and determine who they are.
+ But if a person was not that direct parent, what should
+happen to that child and what should be the question that is
+asked and action by the United States Border Patrol?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Well, let me say, this is--you know,
+obviously, this is a Department of Homeland Security Border
+Patrol, as you said, issue and policy. I am presuming that
+with--in any instance, they are looking to figure out who the
+two people are in actuality and, indeed, as we noted here and
+as I mentioned earlier, that is part of the issue with the
+assumption that all of this could have happened so quickly,
+right.
+ That is precisely the issue with expecting a prosecution to
+happen in the same day, right. You want people to have that
+ability to know who people really are.
+ Mr. Sessions. Right. But before you go to prosecution, I am
+talking about process.
+ Mr. Horowitz. No, right.
+ Mr. Sessions. I was down on the border in 1914, 1915, and
+1916. I saw these cages that are referred to as cages. It was a
+detention facility. It was placing people in areas until they
+could be properly vetted and looked at that they placed them in
+them, all along the border, especially in the Southern District
+of Texas, in the Western District of Texas, and these people
+were given food and clothing. But they were makeshift
+operations because of the overwhelming number of people who
+were there.
+ Second, I saw firsthand how these agents would attempt to
+determine who was traveling with who, and many times it became
+a whisper about, say that is your child.
+ But when people were then--under the Obama years, then
+agents took to really try and make sure that there was not a
+mismatch of child--moving children across illegally or an
+exploitation perspective.
+ They would separate those people, especially with younger
+boys and younger girls, and they would have a very, very
+difficult time. These were some of the things we struggled with
+during President Obama's presidency and it was an overwhelming
+number.
+ I want you to know that I applaud the work that you are
+doing. I applaud the work of being as a watchdog. But when tens
+of thousands of people come across and they are at the
+detention----
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman's time has expired.
+ Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much, Chairwoman.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from Vermont, Mr. Welch, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Mr. Welch. Thank you very much. Thanks very much for your
+work, Inspector.
+ The zero tolerance policy, obviously, was about
+intimidating families, and the zero tolerance policy, where it
+implemented as a tactic taking a child from the parent, was the
+most effective way of intimidating.
+ Do you have any information about how it is that despite
+the fact they were going to implement this policy there was no
+systematic way to maintain knowledge as to where a child was
+sent, and we still have many children who are separated from
+their families?
+ Mr. Horowitz. So, based on--according to court filings,
+there are--there is still an ongoing problem with reuniting
+children who were separated back during this 2018 time period
+with their adult family unit members, and it is precisely the
+problem with failing to consider these issues before you
+implement the policy, then waiting until afterwards to see what
+they are and, as we noted earlier, the 2017 El Paso Initiative
+highlighted some of the problems that DHS and HHS were having
+with keeping track of the children and their parents.
+ Mr. Welch. So, do you--in your report, just describe what
+steps were not taken or even what steps were taken to have a
+coordinated approach so that leaving aside the immorality of
+taking children from parents, the absolute obligation that we
+had--this government had in using its authority to maintain
+information so that when there was going to be a reunification
+we would know who to call and where the child was. Was there
+anything in there that they did to be prepared for that?
+ Mr. Horowitz. There was, frankly, little to nothing that we
+found that showed preparation for interagency coordination,
+U.S. Attorney coordination with other executive branch
+agencies, particularly HHS, or the courts on how to do this.
+There weren't the most rudimentary steps taken before the April
+announcement.
+ Mr. Welch. All right. So, aside from the obvious cruelty of
+taking a child from parents, there was the incompetence in the
+administration of this cruel policy. Is that a fair statement?
+ Mr. Horowitz. There was incompetence in failing to consider
+what the issues were and, frankly, the mistaken belief that you
+could do all this in a day, the prosecution, right.
+ This was--it was, potentially, founded on the belief that
+you could get an adult from DHS custody to the Marshals Service
+custody, get them in front of the judge, have them plead--get
+them a lawyer, have them plead guilty, have them sentenced, and
+get them back to DHS within 72 hours so that the child wasn't
+separated and sent to HHS, and that, as we lay out here, was a
+practical impossibility in almost all cases.
+ Mr. Welch. Well, I really appreciate the detail in your
+report because what it reveals, aside from the obvious cruelty
+of the policy, is that we had a government that was not paying
+attention to the function that an executive has to make things
+work as opposed to simply make pronouncements that had a
+political orientation.
+ So, I thank you for your work, and I yield back.
+ Mr. Horowitz. Thank you.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Keller, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Mr. Keller. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate being part
+of the hearing today.
+ However, I can't help but point out that while there were
+some problems with the zero tolerance policy, the Trump
+administration abandoned this initiative over two years ago and
+made thousands of pages of documents available to this
+committee for investigation.
+ I would also note that a flawed policy rollout does not
+make border security any less important or make the
+consequences of open border policy any less dangerous and
+irresponsible.
+ DHS concluded that border barriers are a critical component
+getting operational control of the border and allow Border
+Patrol agents to decide where border crossings take place and
+apprehend individuals on our own terms.
+ Yet, the Biden administration has taken executive action to
+stop barrier construction, working firmly against congressional
+intent of appropriating funds specifically to construct a
+barrier along the southern border in the interest of national
+security.
+ Mr. Horowitz, your report indicates that the rollout of the
+zero tolerance policy failed to consult various agencies about
+its details. In an effort to improve DOJ policy rollouts in the
+future, what specifically should be done to ensure better
+agency cooperation?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Well, we made a recommendation as to that,
+that the department put in place a policy that makes it
+explicitly clear that--to the stakeholder to--the components of
+the department that when you undertake a significant policy
+change that cuts across DOJ components and executive branch
+agencies that you make sure to consult with them in advance.
+ You know, as I noted earlier, that may seem obvious. But,
+as we note here, it didn't happen and----
+ Mr. Keller. So, when did they make the change? When did
+that change in policy made?
+ Mr. Horowitz. So, we are waiting for a report back from the
+department on what they have done to implement it. The outgoing
+acting attorney general, Mr. Rosen, indicated they would be
+taking that--undertaking that effort and we are expecting a
+report within the next month or two.
+ Mr. Keller. So, the Trump administration had already made
+the decision to make that correction and have the coordination?
+ Mr. Horowitz. They supported and agreed with the
+recommendation.
+ Mr. Keller. OK. Several DHS personnel testified before this
+committee in 2019 recommending policy changes such as modifying
+the Flores settlement to allow us to keep immigrant families
+together past the 20-day threshold, improving the Trafficking
+Victims Protection Reauthorization Act by allowing the
+repatriation of children to noncontiguous countries, and
+challenging the credible fear standard to allow families to
+more easily prove an asylum issue.
+ Can you speak to these recommendations and what overlap
+there might be with your report?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Certainly, and, of course, the policy
+decision is Congress' and the executive branch. But what we
+found was that the provisions in the Flores settlement and that
+had been statutorily enacted, as you indicated, put time limits
+on how long children could be kept in custody with DHS
+detention facilities and a misunderstanding at the Justice
+Department at what that meant with the ability to undertake a
+criminal prosecution and reunify the parent with the child
+before the child was sent by DHS to Homeland--to Health and
+Human Services as required by the law.
+ Mr. Keller. OK. Thank you.
+ I yield back.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentlewoman from Florida, Ms. Wasserman
+Schultz, is recognized for five minutes.
+ Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. Sorry, my arrow was not
+going to my mute button.
+ [Laughter.]
+ Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and
+congratulations. You are doing a bang-up job.
+ Inspector General Horowitz, I appreciate you appearing
+before the committee today. I would like you to help us
+understand who knew what and when as the zero tolerance policy
+was developed by the Department of Justice.
+ I think the timeline could inform the motivation behind
+this policy. Attorney General Sessions announced the zero
+tolerance policy on April 6, 2018. According to your report,
+only two days earlier on April 4 Attorney General Sessions
+directed the creation of a memorandum that would accomplish
+this goal of a zero tolerance prosecution policy at the border.
+ On that same day, a top DOJ official reached out to the
+five Southwest border U.S. Attorneys to ask if there was
+anything, quote, ``operationally objectionable.''
+ So, my first question is when the staff policy directive
+was provided to those U.S. Attorneys on April 4, were they
+aware a zero tolerance policy would result in children being
+separated from their families?
+ Mr. Horowitz. We were told by them and by the record we saw
+that they were not. They assumed that the policy at DHS, the
+long-standing policy would continue of not referring adult
+members, and no one said to them that there was any thought
+being given to changing that policy.
+ Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. And were they made aware that
+such a policy would result in child separations before the
+formal announcement of the policy two days later?
+ Mr. Horowitz. They were not made aware until at the
+earliest, roughly, May 1.
+ Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Wow. OK. So, at the time the
+Department of Justice announced the zero tolerance policy,
+which is a change that would lead to the forced separation of
+thousands of children from their families, the very attorneys
+who were expected to carry it out were not informed of these
+dire and calamitous implications. Is that a fair assessment?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct, and I will add,
+Congresswoman, the policy they were shown on April 4 and that
+was announced on April 6, had a key phrase in there, which was
+``to the extent practicable.''
+ So, it provided that they would--all cases would be
+prosecuted to the extent practicable, which the U.S. Attorneys
+told us they believed and others told us they believed gave
+them some discretion in deciding which cases to prosecute,
+recognizing they didn't still appreciate that that would also
+be including family referrals of adult family unit members.
+ Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. And but--now this is extremely
+appalling. Your review found that Attorney General Sessions
+himself was aware that the implementation of zero tolerance
+would lead to the separation of families. He knew just what it
+would do. Isn't that right?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That was, certainly, his intention when he
+announced the policy on April 6.
+ Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And so because Sessions knew the
+chaos and suffering this policy would cause, he needed to hide
+and rush it out the door without any vetting. The cruelty of
+this policy was the point, and Jeff Sessions would not be
+deterred.
+ The deception that former Attorney General Sessions used to
+cover up the vicious goals at the heart of this policy is
+deeply disturbing and for anyone who took part in or defends
+such a cold-blooded policy to this day, good luck settling up
+that merciless behavior with your maker.
+ Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Biggs, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Madam Chair, and Inspector General
+Horowitz, good to see you again----
+ Mr. Horowitz. Good to see you.
+ Mr. Biggs [continuing]. Across the table again, but this
+will have to do, I guess.
+ Just a basic fundamental question. Should DHS and DOJ
+enforce the law?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Certainly.
+ Mr. Biggs. Yes. So, in 8 U.S.C. Section 1325, it makes it a
+crime to enter this country illegally, right?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct.
+ Mr. Biggs. And you said earlier--you were talking about the
+misdemeanor. If you look under 8 U.S.C. 1325 you are going to
+find that any alien who crosses the first time that is a
+misdemeanor; every other time is a felony. Is that right?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct, and there are other
+aggregating factors that could make it into a felony.
+ Mr. Biggs. Exactly. Right. So, your report states that
+prior practice was not to prosecute family units or even the
+adult members of family units, and that is what people like
+would say that is the catch and release program, right?
+ Some of us would say that was an incentive or magnet for
+people to come to this country illegally. Does 8 U.S.C. Section
+1325 have an exception for adults if they are part of a family
+unit, an exemption from prosecution, if you will?
+ Mr. Horowitz. No, it does not contain such an exception.
+ Mr. Biggs. So, we are focusing on old policies and the
+rollout was not good. There is anybody that would say it was.
+It didn't--and it was a very short-lived policy that affected a
+good number of children and families, and also those who were
+exploiting as well.
+ And I would suggest that the policy that we are talking
+about today also puts children in danger and exploitation and
+being trafficked, and then some of the things that are being
+proposed by this administration--I am going to review them real
+quickly--also become magnets or incentives: stopping
+construction of the wall, ending new enrollments in the MPP, an
+executive order that suggests that the asylum cooperative
+agreements with Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras are going
+to end, potentially ending the CDC's Title 42 order, preventing
+ICE from using terms such as ``alien'' and stopping
+deportations for 100 days, which has, luckily, been blocked,
+and last but not least, the biggest magnet of them all is talk
+of amnesty.
+ And so if the past is any indicator, open border policies
+and these types of policies actually incentivize people to come
+to this country and bring children with them, even those that
+aren't their own, and that allows cartels and human smugglers
+to exploit children in a way that I have seen firsthand.
+ I have watched the cracking of cases nationwide originating
+in Yuma, tracking down all the way to Charleston, South
+Carolina, where two young boys were repeatedly used as,
+basically, rent-a-childs, unfortunately, for those poor
+exploited children, to bring adults, unscrupulous adults,
+trying to use the family policy--family release policy.
+ In Fiscal Year 2013, there were 14,855 apprehensions of
+family units on the Southwest border. But by 2018, there were
+107,000 and in 2019 there were 473,000 family units apprehended
+on the Southwest border.
+ I also want to highlight that the Biden administration
+anticipates this surge. They have opened up, as my friend from
+Georgia mentioned earlier, Mr. Hice, a new facility--not a new
+facility but they are reopening the Carizzo Springs facility,
+which received such disapprobation from my colleagues across
+the aisle not too long ago.
+ So, I would suggest that we need to focus on the
+implications of the current administration's policies.
+ Now, I want to turn for a second to the Ms. L case. Mr.
+Horowitz, are you familiar with the Ms. L case?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Generally, I am. But not in the weeds, or
+specifically, Congressman.
+ Mr. Biggs. OK. So, you would not--you would not know that
+of the original 3,000 children reportedly subject to the Ms. L
+case--and they have found many placements, reunified many--but
+right now the number looks to be somewhere between 400 and 500
+children that are not unified under the Ms. L case. Are you
+familiar with that?
+ Mr. Horowitz. I am. The number I had seen was just over 500
+but it could be more recently reduced. I haven't been following
+it as closely.
+ Mr. Biggs. All right. Do you--any idea why we haven't been
+able to reunify some of those?
+ Mr. Horowitz. I can't say I know the--you know, the 500-
+plus cases and how those came about and what those particular
+circumstances are.
+ Mr. Biggs. Thanks for being here today, Inspector General.
+ And Madam Chair, I have some documents I would like to
+enter into the record. Three of them are newspaper articles.
+One is a letter that I led with a number of my colleagues.
+``Biden Surge: 3,500 Migrants Caught at Border Daily, 'I'm
+Scared at What's Coming' '' from The Washington Examiner.
+``Biden Administration Prepares to Open an Overflow Facility
+for Migrant Children'' on CNN. ``Eleven Iranians Arrested in
+Arizona After Jumping U.S.-Mexico Border,'' The Washington
+Times. And then my letter dated February 4 today to the
+Honorable Alejandro Mayorkas, the U.S. Department of Homeland
+Security.
+ Ms. Tlaib. Without objection.
+ Mr. Biggs. Thank you.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentlewoman from New York, Ms. Ocasio-
+Cortez, is recognized for five minutes.
+ Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you so much, Chairwoman.
+ Inspector General Horowitz, thank you so much, along with
+the rest of our witnesses, for being here today. While reading
+through your report, I couldn't help but notice how time and
+again concerns about the child separation policy were raised by
+government officials during the time, only to be dismissed by
+Attorney General Sessions and his top DOJ advisors.
+ Officials reported up to Sessions and his top advisors that
+they could not track children and, again, this was during that
+time. They reported that resources were being stretched to the
+breaking point and U.S. Attorneys reported that they could not
+even answer basic questions in court about the children that
+were being separated.
+ So, I wanted to know, Inspector General Horowitz, was it
+your finding that Attorney General Sessions and his top
+advisors pushed to continue all prosecutions under the zero
+tolerance policy and, effectively, kind of disregarded these
+concerns?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Yes. So, what we found was that this
+understanding that somehow this could happen in a day,
+prosecutions, or within 72 hours became readily apparent, as
+you indicated, Congresswoman. Once it was implemented on May 4,
+going forward, reports kept coming in through U.S. Attorneys,
+meetings that were occurring, that this was a problem, that
+prosecutions weren't happening in that time period. And so that
+misunderstanding became clear, and that HHS and DHS were having
+trouble reuniting the adults, once they were prosecuted and
+sent back, with the child.
+ That information became apparent, and it was even
+highlighted, frankly, beforehand, again, as we talked about
+earlier, with the El Paso Initiative, which the department got
+a briefing on in late December and had they asked these same
+problems, you know, were readily apparent from that initiative.
+ Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. I was also struck that when your office
+interviewed these former DOJ officials, they all tried to
+deflect blame and when asked about the rampant difficulties
+that other agencies had in tracking and reunifying families,
+the former Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein said, quote,
+``That is an issue that they should have flagged. I just don't
+see that as a DOJ equity.''
+ Now, when top DOJ officials learned that children were
+being held by Border Patrol for longer than 72 hours, which was
+violating Federal law, did DOJ stop the zero tolerance policy?
+ Mr. Horowitz. So, as all of this was occurring in May and
+these reports were coming out, there was no change in the zero
+tolerance policy. It only ended on June 20 with the executive
+order being issued that ceased it to be allowed to go forward.
+ Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. So, they--so they didn't. They knew that
+children were being held longer than 72 hours. They knew that
+Federal law was being violated in the detention of these
+children and they--and they continued the policy anyway.
+ In fact, it seems Sessions dismissed this issue by pushing
+for even faster prosecution, saying, quote, ``We are in post-9/
+11 mode.''
+ You know, Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein claimed that
+it--that he would have supported the U.S. Attorneys if they
+said they would no longer prosecute all these parents. But Mr.
+Rosenstein also noted that AG Sessions was, quote, adamant that
+this program needs to continue, right?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct. That is what we were told
+and that even if information started coming in from the U.S.
+Attorneys that there was this problem with unifying children
+who had gone to HHS.
+ That was the response they heard from the department
+leadership, that this was a problem that was not going to be
+addressed through changing the policy and, after all, you know,
+if the department had not taken the cases, obviously, the
+separations wouldn't have occurred. It was the department that
+had to accept the cases for prosecution.
+ Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. So, I think that really gets to the
+heart of this matter, which is that this was a deliberate
+choice. You know, whether or not, like, were these DOJ
+officials really powerless to stop these separations. It seems
+that they weren't.
+ Inspector General Horowitz, what would have happened if
+the--if AG Sessions and the Justice Department simply said that
+they were going to return to prior longstanding policy and no
+longer prosecute all arriving parents?
+ Mr. Horowitz. If the department stopped agreeing to accept
+these adults for prosecution, it wouldn't, obviously, have been
+transferred to the Marshals Service.
+ They would have remained in DHS custody with the child that
+they were traveling. The child then wouldn't have been
+separated by being sent to HHS because they wouldn't have been
+unaccompanied. And so the separations would have stopped.
+ Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you. Thank you very much.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentlewoman from New Mexico, Ms. Herrell, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Ms. Herrell. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr.
+Horowitz. I believe your report is very important.
+ I do want to kind of piggyback on what Congressman Higgins
+said--played earlier, that President Trump eliminated loopholes
+in the asylum laws, increased funding for the border security,
+and brought calm to the chaos that we witnessed in 2018 and
+2019 along the border. Abruptly ending the successful
+initiatives will only bring back those days of chaos.
+ In regard to child separation, it is clear the court
+reinterpretation of the Flores agreement is driving illegal
+immigration. Those with children used this agreement to skirt
+the consequences of our immigration system, and without
+consequences, illegal immigration will only skyrocket.
+ Families should be kept together during their immigration
+procedures. The reinterpretation of the Flores settlement
+agreement forbids that. It is important to ensure that there is
+humane care for those in custody.
+ Perversely, reverting to catch and release encourages the
+dangerous journey and puts more lives at risk to smugglers and
+cartels that prey on migrants. Many are beaten, raped, and
+killed on the journey to the United States.
+ The answer is that cases need to be processed faster.
+However, immigration law cannot simply be ignored. I will work
+with any of my colleagues who want to streamline the
+immigration process by adding more judges, immigration lawyers,
+and courtrooms.
+ No one wants prolonged detention. Adding resourcing to
+Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of
+Justice, not just defunding them as some of my colleagues have
+proposed, will help rapidly adjudicate immigration cases and
+minimize time in custody.
+ We must also face the reality that most of these cases
+likely are not valid asylum cases. Historically, only about 21
+percent of applicants receive asylum. Without detention, many
+illegal immigrants will show up to court and will not obey
+court orders of removal.
+ According to ICE, only 7 percent of family units with
+orders of removal are deported when not held in custody. Such
+statistics only exacerbate the immigration crisis and lead to
+more migrants taking this dangerous journey.
+ Inspector Horowitz, would you agree that the Flores
+settlement agreement as interpreted by the Ninth Circuit Court
+of Appeals has made it impossible to hold families together
+during the course of their immigration proceedings?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Congresswoman, I am not really in a position
+to comment on the impact of the Flores settlement. That
+wasn't--I can as to what it had here and the impact it had in
+this situation. But, more broadly speaking, we didn't look at
+that and that would, largely, be a Department of Homeland
+Security impact as well.
+ Ms. Herrell. Right.
+ And, Madam Chair and Inspector, thank you. This is
+something maybe we need to look at further as we move through
+this process.
+ I want to thank the chairwoman and members for holding this
+meeting and I yield back my time.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Can you hear me OK?
+ Ms. Tlaib. Yes, sir, we can.
+ Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you. Inspector General Horowitz, thank
+you for your presentation today, your work not just on this
+matter but on so many, which has been a critical resource for
+this committee and for Congress over a period of many, many
+years. I want to thank you for that.
+ I wondered--I know that this is, largely, a look back
+hearing. That is the focus of it. But I wondered if you might
+speak to what you think the opportunities for reunification of
+these children with their parents and their families might be
+through the lens of the breakdowns you saw from the review that
+you did.
+ So, in other words, presumably, there is evidence that you
+discovered that when separations occurred the records that
+should have been kept were not kept.
+ The sort of custodial sequence of events wasn't properly
+captured, et cetera, and that must give you some insight and
+perspective as to how difficult it is going to be to try to
+reunify these children with their parents.
+ So, if you could maybe speak broadly to that but also maybe
+identify two or three or four breakdowns in the process that
+you were able to review that you think are going to be
+contributing factors to the challenge that we will now have in
+trying to reunify these families.
+ Mr. Horowitz. Right. Well, let me say, Congressman, that,
+you know, in the first instance, you would expect if anyone was
+going to be undertaking such a policy in the future, going
+forward, that you would, at a minimum, want to get together
+with the key stakeholders at the Justice Department, Department
+of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and figure out
+how to create a effective recordkeeping system that would
+enable you to know who entered the country with which traveling
+companion, including a child, so that if one of those
+individuals gets separated from the others, you know who is
+with whom.
+ That sounds obvious, but it didn't happen here. And so you
+ended up in a situation where adults went to the Justice
+Department, children went to HHS, and DHS could connect the two
+and, as we noted, the Marshals Service didn't have a
+relationship with HHS where they could connect the two.
+ So, that is, obviously, with electronic records, computer
+records today. You would think that would be something that
+would be easily done. But it wasn't done here.
+ Mr. Sarbanes. What is the implication of that for the
+efforts to reunify? Where do you expect that there is going to
+be the most difficulty in tracking or making these connections
+from one agency to the next? I mean, you have spoken broadly
+but can you be a little more specific?
+ Mr. Horowitz. So, I think one of the bigger challenges and,
+of course, this is part of the litigation that is ongoing now,
+and so the civil division lawyers at the Justice Department who
+are handling it, along with those at DHS and HHS, have probably
+the best insight into that.
+ But my sense is, from looking at this and, you know, this
+is my informed information based on what we have looked at, is
+that some, if not many, of these adults or most of these adults
+had been deported already and so they are in another country
+while the children are still here.
+ And if you haven't taken the steps or didn't take the steps
+back in 2018 to make sure you knew which adults were connected
+to which children, you now have to go through that process to
+make sure that the parent or adult coming forward is in fact
+the individual connected to that child. You don't want to
+create further problems.
+ So, my sense is----
+ Mr. Sarbanes. Let me ask you one more question.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman's time has expired.
+ Mr. Sarbanes. Oh, OK. I yield back. Thank you.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Norman,
+is recognized for five minutes.
+ Mr. Norman. Thank you, Chairman Tlaib.
+ Inspector Horowitz, it looks like under the Biden
+administration we are going to be admitting millions of people
+coming across the border, 3,000 migrants from Honduras, vans
+everywhere.
+ How is that going to affect--how is that going to affect
+the crisis we have with COVID? Will all of them be tested at
+the border? Will they go to the hospitals? How will that work?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Well, Congressman, I am not really in a
+position to answer that. You would really have to, and I can
+certainly help facilitate that, ask those at the Department of
+Homeland Security Border Patrol what their plans are with
+regard to how to handle that at this point in time. We didn't
+look at that, and, again, it is a Department of Homeland
+Security Border Patrol question.
+ Mr. Norman. Yes, but it affects Homeland Security. I mean,
+it falls under--if it doesn't fall with you, who does it fall
+under?
+ Mr. Horowitz. So, within Department of Homeland Security
+and their inspector general's office and their oversight of
+Border Patrol, but also the Border Patrol directly.
+ Mr. Norman. And so they--from your understanding, they will
+hire the doctors or will they go to the hospitals, or do you
+just now know?
+ Mr. Horowitz. To be honest, I do not know how they plan to
+handle that.
+ Mr. Norman. OK. You admit we have got a pandemic, don't
+you?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Oh, I, certainly, don't deny we have a
+pandemic.
+ Mr. Norman. And this probably won't help it, I would think.
+But this goes to my next question.
+ How can we improve the coordination between the DOJ, DHS,
+and HHS without adding more Federal debt and, I guess, being
+fair to the--to the immigrants that are going to be admitted
+into this country carte blanche?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Congressman, having been in the Justice
+Department on the prosecuting side and now as the inspector
+general, I don't think it requires spending any money.
+ I think it just requires getting the appropriate working
+group at a high level at those entities that sit down with the
+line level people who know what is really going on day to day,
+and say OK, how do we make this work through our three agencies
+coordinating.
+ It is, frankly, not, I don't think, that complicated. It
+doesn't require a lot of expense and, frankly, in today's video
+age, you don't even have to travel to get in a room together.
+You can do it by video.
+ Mr. Norman. So, is it your testimony that if we admit
+millions into this country it is not going to cost this country
+anything, particularly with the testing of--I guess, assume
+testing for the COVID and to make sure the pandemic doesn't
+extend to 355 million Americans?
+ Mr. Horowitz. No, Congressman. What I was talking about was
+making sure there is a coordination between the three. I wasn't
+talking about what they end up--how they end up implementing
+it.
+ But the coordination, which was a basic flaw here, doesn't
+require much other than meeting and understanding what the
+issues were as happened after the policy was implemented. But
+that should have been done beforehand.
+ Mr. Norman. OK. But the coordination is going to result in
+actions. The actions are going to follow. So, when you admit
+that many people or if you took out that many people from the
+country that will have a financial impact, correct?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Well, yes, I would expect that putting in
+place certain steps would require some funding.
+ Mr. Norman. Yes, a good many--a good deal of funding, I
+would guess.
+ How long after the implementation of the zero tolerance
+policy was that executive order issued? Do you--are you--do you
+know?
+ Mr. Horowitz. It was about six weeks. Well, I am sorry, it
+was about two and a half months after the zero tolerance policy
+was announced on April 8--I am sorry, April 6--as the president
+issued the executive order on June 20.
+ Mr. Norman. OK. OK, Ms. Chairman. I yield back.
+ Mr. Horowitz. Thank you, Congressman.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Speier, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Ms. Speier. Thank you, Madam Chair.
+ Inspector General, once again, you show we lucky we are
+that you are in the position that you are. Thank you for the
+service that you have given to us and the Department of Justice
+since 2012.
+ I have had two trips to the border, one to McAllen, one to
+Brownsville, and I have seared in my memory two images in
+particular: a young girl, maybe four years old, in a cell at
+Border Patrol sobbing because she had been separated from her
+mother and then hundreds of kids in cells throughout that
+region, and then a separate one where I was meeting with others
+who had been separated from their children. Some of them were
+still breastfeeding their children and they didn't know where
+they were.
+ So, you have underscored for us how this was implemented
+without any forethought and I have a few questions in
+particular. The record shows that child separations were
+harmful, traumatic, and chaotic, much more so than previously
+known. In fact, there were infants and toddlers that were
+separated from their families.
+ Can you speak to whether or not DOJ officials knew that
+they were separating extremely young children from their
+parents?
+ Mr. Horowitz. They, certainly, knew after implementation in
+May and June when complaints and questions started coming from
+the Southwest border U.S. Attorneys, both their own concerns
+and the concerns they were hearing from judges about those
+separations and the fact that children, infants, toddlers, and
+young children were being separated.
+ Ms. Speier. And no special procedures were put in place to
+mitigate the trauma for these young children?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct.
+ Ms. Speier. So, it was a truly callous act within the
+Department of Justice in not stepping in and providing some
+kind of mitigation.
+ Mr. Horowitz. There was no effort to step in and change
+that. There were meetings and discussions, but until the
+executive order was issued on June 20 there was no changes to
+the approach.
+ Ms. Speier. So, in your review, did you discover any
+physical and psychological harm that was done to these
+children?
+ Mr. Horowitz. We didn't, Congresswoman, undertake that
+effort to look at the impact on the children, particularly
+since, you know, as has been talked about, there was an ongoing
+court case about that very--those very issues.
+ Ms. Speier. You mentioned that there was over $200 million
+in budget deficit in the Marshals Service due to child
+separation. Have you been able to ascertain how much money has
+been spent as a result of this child separation disaster?
+ Mr. Horowitz. We didn't get to an overall number. It would
+not only be, as you indicated, for the Justice Department, the
+Marshals Service. Obviously, also the additional costs for the
+U.S. Attorneys to the extent they added people to handle this.
+The courts would have had, potentially, some additional costs,
+DHS, HHS. We didn't go in and look at what those other costs
+would be as well.
+ Ms. Speier. Is that something you could undertake in short
+order without making it a massive effort to find out just
+within the Department of Justice what the costs of child
+separation were?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Yes, we can, certainly, make the inquiries of
+the appropriate components here at the Department to see if
+they gathered that data and what it would be, and we can also
+make contact with our counterparts in the OIGs at DHS and HHS
+and see if they have that data, based on the reviews they did.
+ Ms. Speier. Madam Chair, I certainly would appreciate that
+if that would be appropriate.
+ I would also like to ask you about the numbers. When it
+first became apparent that children were being separated, the
+numbers were indicated to be, like, 400, 500.
+ And yet, within that short timeframe of May to June, you
+estimate that there were 3,000 children that were separated and
+probably much more over the course of the period in which this
+was in effect.
+ Do you have any numbers that you could share with us or any
+evidence that there was an effort to tamp down the numbers?
+ Mr. Horowitz. So, I have seen reports and numbers, largely,
+again, from the Department of Homeland Security Office of
+Inspector General and their work on this because DHS would be
+the keeper of what those numbers look like.
+ The numbers that we have seen were in excess of 3,000 that
+they have reported. I have seen numbers reported as high as in
+the 5,000 range. But, again, we will followup, Congresswoman,
+and let you know what we have on that and what we can get from
+our counterparts at the OIGs.
+ Ms. Speier. Thank you. My time has expired. I really
+appreciate your work.
+ Mr. Horowitz. Thank you, Congresswoman.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Donalds, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Mr. Donalds. Thank you, Madam Chair.
+ To the IG, thanks so much for, you know, coming here and
+joining us, bringing your report.
+ You know, I think it was said by, you know, one of my
+colleagues a little bit ago that this is, you know, really more
+of a look back meeting, and I think it is always interesting to
+learn things from the past.
+ Obviously, you know, some of the issues for the zero
+tolerance policies have already been discussed so no need to
+really belabor that point.
+ I do think it is important that, you know, that this
+committee also take a look at what is currently happening and
+also what has happened, you know, as a result since the end of
+zero tolerance policy back in 2018.
+ You know, Mr. Horowitz, I wonder if you can comment for the
+committee on what actually has occurred with respect to
+enforcement after zero tolerance policy was ended by the
+previous administration in 2018.
+ Mr. Horowitz. Congressman, I can't really speak to in any
+detail what occurred after that other than understanding that
+the DHS went back to its prior historical practice of not
+referring adults for prosecution except in limited--very
+limited circumstances.
+ Mr. Donalds. OK. So, basically, in your words, what we have
+done since then is, you know, unfortunately, the spigot has
+just reopened and we are back to square one on the problem we
+do have, which is when people come to our border illegally
+they, essentially, are released into the United states, which
+does create other consequences and other unintended
+consequences for the citizens of the United States and,
+actually, with respect to legal immigrants who do come through
+proper channels.
+ The only other question I really have for you, Inspector,
+is, you know, right now the Biden administration is going
+through the halting of several immigration policies from the
+previous administration.
+ Can you speak to the halting of the MPP program--for
+everybody else who may not know, the Migrant Protection
+Protocols--and what the impact of that might actually be on the
+United States?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Congressman, I am, obviously, aware of the
+policy. We haven't done any work on that so I am not really in
+a position to speak to what was going on beforehand and what
+may be occurring going forward in light of any changes that
+are--that have been happening.
+ Mr. Donalds. Well, what I think what I will do is I will
+just expound briefly. So, the MPP program, what it actually
+allowed for was the halting of people who are not legally
+admissible to the United States to actually have them held in
+Mexico as opposed to them coming to us on the border.
+ With President Biden halting that program, what we are
+seeing the results are caravans of people, whether they might
+be minors or adults, coming to our southern border illegally,
+which does create issues not only for border enforcement, not
+only for--not only for the people who actually live on the
+southern border, our ranchers and the like, but also creating
+some undue burdens on citizens here in the United States.
+ So, I think it is important that if we are going to
+continue to do these look back oversight meetings, we actually
+also hold oversight meetings on what the current administration
+is doing and the results it will have not only on immigration
+policy but on the citizens at large.
+ With that, I yield back the rest of my time.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentlewoman from Illinois, Ms. Kelly, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Ms. Kelly. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for calling this
+meeting and thanks to the witness.
+ This new report from the DOJ IG is the latest in several
+nonpartisan reports from the last few years detailing the
+horrors of the Trump administration's child separation policy.
+ I wanted to use my time to highlight two previous reports
+from the DHS inspector general on this topic.
+ First, in September 2018, the DHS inspector general
+released an initial report on the zero tolerance policy. This
+report found that the Trump administration officials had
+falsely claimed in June 2018 that there was a, quote, ``central
+data base tracking separated families.'' The DHS inspector
+general found, quote, ``no evidence that such a data base
+exists.''
+ Inspector General, can you draw a comparison to your
+report's finding that DOJ prosecutors were unable to determine
+location of separated children when asked by courts?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Congresswoman, it is precisely that problem
+that no one had set up an appropriate tracking mechanism which
+the DHS OIG report, as you indicated, highlighted was one of
+the problems.
+ Ms. Kelly. OK. The inspector general also concluded that
+the child separation policy took away critical resources from
+other DHS missions including, quote/unquote, ``patrolling and
+securing the border.''
+ Your report found that these policies took away critical
+resources from DOJ missions as well. Can you elaborate on the
+impact of child separations on other missions that DOJ
+components are supposed to carry out?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Certainly, Congresswoman.
+ So, for the Marshals Service, for example, what we heard
+was its impact on its budget, creating a $200 million plus
+impact on its budget which, obviously, impacts all work, but
+also the need for the Marshals Service to bring in additional
+resources--other deputy marshals, other personnel, to help
+manage the influx of defendants that were coming in to the
+Southwest border, which meant pulling people off of, for
+example, task forces that involve and execute arrest warrants
+for wanted fugitives, other priority items for the Marshals
+Service.
+ In addition, we heard from the U.S. Attorneys that it
+impacted their ability to prosecute certain other cases and,
+obviously, there are only so many prosecutors out there. There
+are only so many courtrooms. There are only so many judges to
+handle those cases. And so if you shift priorities, you create
+an issue.
+ Ms. Kelly. Thank you.
+ A second report from the DHS inspector general issued in
+November 2019 found that the DHS lacked the technology needed
+in order to successfully track separated families.
+ Your report cites to this one several times. From your
+review, did the Trump administration resolve these
+technological issues as separations increased, and what other
+coordination issues did you observe in your review?
+ Mr. Horowitz. So, one of our concerns was as it became
+apparent in May that there was a challenge and a problem with
+reunifying children with the adults, in fact, nothing changed.
+ And so there were no efforts to respond to it as we found
+at the department. There were discussions, but there weren't
+steps taken. The policy remained in place. The separations
+continued to occur.
+ The department continued to accept adults for prosecution
+even as it became apparent that DHS and HHS were having this
+problem with reunifying because of the lack of tracking.
+ Ms. Kelly. Well, I just want to thank you again for your
+patience. I want to encourage my colleagues and officials in
+the Biden administration to really digest the findings from all
+of the reports.
+ Thank you so much, and I yield back.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Comer, is
+recognized for five minutes, our ranking member.
+ Mr. Comer. Thank you, Madam Chair.
+ Inspector General Horowitz, isn't it the case that before
+the zero tolerance policy was initiated and then after it was
+ended the general practice was not to refer adult members of
+family units for criminal prosecution for misdemeanor illegal
+entry?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct, Congressman.
+ Mr. Comer. I believe it was more often the case that border
+officials would simply process those family units together for
+administrative violations of immigration law.
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is our finding.
+ Mr. Comer. Issued them paperwork, including a notice to
+appear in immigration court and then released them to the
+interior of the United States. Is that correct?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is my general understanding.
+ Mr. Comer. Well, this is an important point. One of the
+reasons why we saw so many family units arriving in recent
+years, in my opinion, that adults who bring children into the
+U.S. illegally could all but guarantee their release into the
+interior of the U.S. while they wait for immigration
+proceedings to play out, which can take years, given the
+current immigration backlog.
+ Inspector General Horowitz, isn't it true that this 1997
+settlement in Flores v. Reno, known as the Flores settlement
+agreement, sets the standard for the Federal Government's
+treatment of detained children and that because of this
+settlement agreement, children cannot be held in administrative
+immigration detention facilities together with their parents
+for longer than 20 days?
+ Mr. Horowitz. I believe it is both the Flores settlement
+and then there is also the Trafficking Victims Protection
+Reauthorization Act, which codified some of that--those
+settlement provisions.
+ Mr. Comer. So, that means that a person who illegally
+crosses the border with a child is, in most cases, simply
+released from Customs and Border Protection custody to await
+further immigration court proceedings. Is that right?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is, certainly, you know, one of the
+options that has to be undertaken in light of the law.
+ Mr. Comer. OK. Well, those high numbers we saw family units
+crossing illegally, they reached a peak in the spring of 2019.
+But the numbers were starting to come down due to reforms the
+Trump administration put in place, which is what a majority of
+Americans want and expect.
+ The Trump administration also put in reforms to the asylum
+system to ensure that people fleeing due to persecution would
+seek protection in the first safe country they arrived in, and
+that is a point that has not been made by the majority.
+ Yet, President Biden, as one of his first acts in office,
+suspended enrollments in Migrant Protection Protocols. He has
+also vowed to rescind the safe third country agreements and
+roll back asylum for law reforms put in place by the Trump
+administration to ensure asylum integrity.
+ But the open border lobby isn't satisfied with that. They
+want an end to the order issued by the CDC that allows
+immigration officials to immediately expel illegal border
+crossovers to prevent COVID-19 from spreading in border
+facilities.
+ That would fit in with the Biden plan which, apparently,
+wants to vaccinate illegal aliens before they vaccinate
+Americans. The open border lobby also want to put an end to
+civil immigration detention capabilities altogether. They want
+to implement the failed policy of catch and release all over
+again.
+ Combined with the reckless policies of gutting interior
+enforcement priorities, halting all construction of physical
+border barriers, and announcing an amnesty plan for 11 million
+people living in the United States illegally.
+ I am concerned that, once again, our border will be overrun
+and we will start seeing another security and humanitarian
+crisis.
+ In closing, I urge the Biden administration to turn back
+now. Listen to the experts, not the open border lobby. Build on
+the reforms put into place over the last years and don't tear
+them down.
+ And with that, Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my
+time.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentlewoman from Michigan, Mrs. Lawrence, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Mrs. Lawrence. Thank you, Madam Chair.
+ I firmly believe a politician without compassion is a
+criminal, and what we saw happen to these children being
+separated from their parents is criminal.
+ At our hearing in July 2019, Elora Mukherjee, a professor
+and volunteer attorney working with children detained along the
+border, testified about her visit to the Customs and Border
+Patrol facility in Clint.
+ She quoted, ``Children are hungry. Children are
+traumatized. They constantly cry and some wept in their
+interviews with me. One six-year-old girl detained all alone
+could only say, 'I am scared. I am scared. I am scared,' over
+and over again. She couldn't even say her name.''
+ Inspector Horowitz, to your knowledge, did Attorney General
+Sessions or department leadership ever inquire about the
+condition of the children in the detention center that housed
+them once they had been removed from their parents?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Congresswoman, I don't know, as I sit here,
+if they ever did that. What I can say is there was no effort to
+change the policy while it was underway as reports came in
+about the problems that were occurring with reunification.
+ Mrs. Lawrence. I want to play a video of an interview of a
+teenage girl recently reunited with her mother.
+ Will the committee please play the video?
+ [Video shown.]
+ Mrs. Lawrence. Committee, I am really troubled about the
+protection of previous policies without having the compassion
+to recognize what these children, based on directions of an
+administration and this House, have gone through.
+ I want to ask you again, Inspector, to your knowledge did
+Attorney General Sessions or department leadership make any
+effort to mitigate the trauma to children caused by family
+separation under the zero tolerance policy?
+ Mr. Horowitz. We didn't see evidence of any effort to
+mitigate the impact of it when--between the May 4 start date
+through the June 20 executive order other than the only thing
+we saw were additional meetings and discussions, for example,
+with the courts. But the policy remained the same.
+ Mrs. Lawrence. These stories are hard to hear, but we
+cannot forget that the suffering caused by the Trump
+administration's inhumane immigration policies continue to this
+day. We cannot ignore the pain our country has caused these
+children.
+ We must right this wrong and we must ensure that these
+atrocities never happen again. We have a responsibility for the
+harm that we have caused, based on a direction of an
+administration and their leadership.
+ Thank you, and I yield back.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Davis, is
+recognized for five minutes.
+ Mr. Davis. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and I want to thank
+you, Inspector, for not only your work but being here with us
+today.
+ Let me begin by just simply stating that I think the zero
+tolerance policy is really one of the most horrific ideas that
+anyone could come up with in relationship to trying to get a
+handle of or control the flow of immigrants coming into our
+country, which professes to say, give me your tired, your
+huddled masses.
+ And so I just want to make it known that I think the policy
+was corrupt from the beginning. Not to be redundant, but under
+questioning from representatives before you indicated that you
+saw no effort on the part of our government authorities to
+change the policy.
+ But did you see any corrective action as you looked and as
+you searched and as you did your work? Did you see any
+corrective action in relationship to those individuals who had
+already been separated?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Congressman, I mean, we--you know, what we
+saw was this mistaken belief before the policy was announced,
+the failure to coordinate before the policy was announced, and
+when the policy was implemented in May, on May 4, with the
+separations occurring and the problems arising and the notice
+coming up, that was additionally concerning to us because there
+weren't efforts undertaken to mitigate it that way. The policy
+continued until it was--the executive order was issued by the
+president on June 20.
+ Mr. Davis. Do we understand or do we know what, to the best
+of your knowledge, how many children and families are still out
+there, disconnected?
+ Mr. Horowitz. So, based on our review and what we have seen
+in the ongoing civil litigation, the lawsuit that is going on,
+the last number I saw was just north of 500 and, again, I am
+not, obviously, following it day to day but that is
+approximately what the number was that I saw of the estimates.
+ Mr. Davis. As you researched and looked and unraveled and
+dissected, did you glean any indication of how long it might
+take to correct this action or to reconnect?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Well, from the court filing it looks like it
+is a very significant challenge and it is unclear, frankly, how
+long it might take because some of the parents, obviously, are
+no longer in the country and reuniting in that circumstance and
+even identifying connectivity--you know, connections between a
+parent and a child or an adult and a child at that point is a
+challenge.
+ Mr. Davis. Well, as others have done, let me commend you
+for your work, for your service to our country, and thank you
+very much, Madam Chair.
+ And I yield back.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman from California, Vice Chair Gomez,
+is recognized for five minutes.
+ Mr. Gomez. Thank you, Madam Chair.
+ What can I say about this hearing? I look at this hearing
+as, like, accountability and lessons learned from the Trump
+administration's child separation policy. I only learned one
+lesson--you know, one main lesson, which is this never should
+have happened. Never should have happened, and it infuriates me
+because they--this administration didn't care about the
+repercussions and the trauma that would be caused to these
+children. They didn't care. It was--it was so tunnel-visioned
+when it came to trying to enforce immigration laws to prevent
+people from coming, and they did it in a way in order to
+dissuade and try to create a situation where parents wouldn't
+want to come. They wanted to make it so bad that parents would
+decide not to come to the United States.
+ Coming from parents that did immigrate from Mexico, you
+know, a lot of these folks are desperate. They are oftentimes
+facing hard economic situations, hard--you know, they are
+facing violence.
+ My parents faced just tough, tough times. Lived in a one-
+room adobe house in Mexico. And people are asked, are you going
+to take that risk?
+ Yes, they are going to take that risk because it is, like,
+they can risk coming here and making it or they can stay back
+home and having their kids die of either violence or starvation
+and, for them, it is a risk worth taking.
+ But this administration didn't care about the consequences
+and the impact it would have on kids. So, the main lesson I
+learned is that this never should have happened at all, and now
+we can pick it apart and find out what they didn't do right and
+hold them accountable, which we are going to do. But it just
+shouldn't have happened from the beginning.
+ One of the things is that we know that it has tremendous
+impact on the kids that were separated, psychologically. The
+trauma associated with it is so severe. I want to read a quote
+from the former president of the American Psychological
+Association, Dr. Jessica Henderson Daniel.
+ It says, ``The longer that children and parents are
+separated, the greater the reported symptoms and anxiety and
+depression for the children. Negative outcomes for children
+include psychological distress, academic difficulties and
+disruptions in their development.''
+ In fact, because there is so much risk of harm, the
+American Psychological Association has made reunification of
+children with their families one of its top priorities. Other
+medical professionals agree.
+ Dr. Colleen Kraft, a former president of the American
+Academy of Pediatrics, said studies overwhelmingly demonstrate
+the irreparable harm caused by breaking up families.
+ So, Inspector Horowitz, are you familiar with these
+opinions of long-lasting impact on trauma of the children?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Congressman, I, certainly, read the articles
+about them and seen various experts speak to that.
+ Mr. Gomez. And, you know, you know and I know we don't
+really need the experts to tell us that that was going to
+happen. But it just reinforces just how devastating this policy
+was for these families.
+ Your review found also that Attorney General Sessions and
+the Justice Department leadership knew that children would be
+separated from their parents as a result of the zero tolerance
+policy. Is that correct?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct.
+ Mr. Gomez. So, they knew--I can assume that they knew that
+the trauma that would be caused by separating the kids--let us
+say they knew that--but they did it anyways, and that is the
+shame of this zero tolerance policy, that this administration
+engaged in it but didn't care about the consequences and the
+impact--the negative impact it would have on the kids.
+ Maybe it is because they didn't believe that kids of
+undocumented immigrants deserved any more care and
+understanding and didn't care if they were harmed because they
+weren't, quote/unquote, ``U.S. citizens.''
+ So, it is something that is still troubling me. I went down
+to the border--I actually slept on the border--to watch some of
+the asylum seekers get in and everything from this
+administration, when it came to immigration, was just terrible
+because they didn't care about the repercussions it would have
+on anybody.
+ So, it is something that we have to fix. I am still really
+troubled by the fact that these kids have been--there are still
+some kids that have been separated. How many have--are still
+separated and how many are we trying to still reunite, and is
+it even possible?
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentleman's time has expired.
+ Mr. Horowitz. So just, you know, in terms of the numbers,
+the last numbers I have seen from the court litigation is
+around 500 still being separated--still separated from the
+adult that they traveled here with, and, obviously, the
+challenges in reunifying in that circumstance when the child is
+here and the adult is overseas are pretty substantial.
+ Mr. Gomez. Thank you. I yield back.
+ Ms. Tlaib. The gentlewoman from Massachusetts, Ms.
+Pressley, is recognized for five minutes.
+ Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Madam Chair.
+ Many of our colleagues on either side would have us believe
+we must simply move on from the horrid policy violence enacted
+on so many marginalized communities over the last four years of
+the Trump administration.
+ Well, I, certainly, refuse to just move on. To be clear, we
+will not move on until there is accountability, until there is
+restitution, until there is justice for these families, and
+until every single one of these 628 children are reunited with
+their parents. The trauma inflicted on these children by the
+U.S. Government will always be a dark stain on our Nation's
+history.
+ I will never forget what I witnessed during our trip to the
+southern border, mothers who I held in my arms as they cried
+out for their babies and begged for help. It is something I
+will never forget, something our Nation must never forget, and
+something we as policymakers must ensure never happens again.
+ And while today's hearing is on the Trump administration's
+cruel and callous family separation policy, it is important to
+recognize that for decades our immigration system has been
+built on separating families. From those seeking asylum at the
+border to the families preyed upon by ICE in the Massachusetts
+7th congressional District, and communities across the country
+every single day.
+ So, we must look at this issue holistically and work to
+build an immigration system that finally centers the dignity
+and humanity of all our immigrant neighbors.
+ So, Inspector General Horowitz, thank you for your work on
+this report. It is clear that the Trump administration
+officials knew full well the pain and harm they were inflicting
+with this policy.
+ On Tuesday, President Biden signed an executive order to
+create a task force to reunify the hundreds of families that
+were separated as a result of this policy. It is an important
+step toward healing.
+ But healing also requires that we hold these individuals
+accountable who were the cruel masterminds behind these
+policies. Your report notes that former Attorney General Jeff
+Sessions declined to be interviewed by your office as a part of
+the review.
+ This was despite him being a driving force in leading DHS
+to separate families by referring parents for prosecution. Is
+that correct?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct.
+ Ms. Pressley. Do you believe Mr. Sessions should have been
+interviewed?
+ Mr. Horowitz. Absolutely.
+ Ms. Pressley. He was, largely, responsible for implementing
+the zero tolerance policy and continuing to prosecute parents
+even after his own officials told him they could not provide
+basic information to courts about the separated families. Is
+that correct?
+ Mr. Horowitz. That is correct.
+ Ms. Pressley. Your report also found that Deputy AG Rod
+Rosenstein was also heavily involved in the decision to
+separate families. In fact, Mr. Rosenstein was recorded on a
+call instructing U.S. Attorneys not to decline any cases due to
+the age of children in family units.
+ Like former AG Sessions, Mr. Rosenstein was also made aware
+of rampant problems from the U.S. Attorneys as separations
+increased.
+ Does your investigation suggest that Mr. Rosenstein took
+any action to try to stop the policy, even as department
+resources were overwhelmed and thousands of families were being
+separated?
+ Mr. Horowitz. So, what we found is the policy was
+implemented in May and in June. No steps were taken by the
+department, including by the deputy attorney general or others
+in the department to change the policy while it was underway,
+and that only ceased on June 20 when the executive order was
+issued. Mr. Rosenstein did go to meetings with the courts, did
+have meetings with the prosecutors, but the policy itself was
+unchanged.
+ Ms. Pressley. Child abuse, plain and simple. I don't know
+how they sleep at night knowing they employed someone
+responsible for this type of injustice. It is really beyond me.
+ Inspector General Horowitz, your report brings us closer to
+the truth. I look forward to working with my colleagues to
+ensure that it will bring us even closer to justice.
+ Thank you, and I yield.
+ Mr. Horowitz. Thank you, Congresswoman.
+ Ms. Tlaib. Before we close, I want to recognize Ranking
+Member Comer for any closing remarks.
+ Mr. Comer. Thank you, Madam Chair, and again, I want to
+thank Mr. Horowitz for testifying today and thank him for his
+work on this issue and many others.
+ Clearly, the zero tolerance policy suffered serious
+implementation defects. I hope that with the inspector
+general's report these will never be repeated.
+ But I remain concerned, as are most Americans, with our
+current border security situation and the policies of the Biden
+administration with respect to border security.
+ I urge my colleagues to conduct oversight in this area. You
+know, we have spent the last two years with countless
+investigations of the Trump administration, and I know that
+this--the Democrats on this committee were addicted to
+investigating Donald Trump.
+ But I have some news for you. Donald Trump is no longer
+president. Joe Biden is president. So, we have got a situation
+with respect to border security and with respect to our 11
+million Americans who are unemployed, with the hundreds of
+millions of Americans who currently haven't had access to COVID
+vaccine.
+ But, yet, we spend more time today investigating the Trump
+administration. I am glad the Trump administration took the
+zero tolerance policy that was started by the Biden
+administration and corrected that.
+ Now it is time to move on. It is time to focus on our
+border security, and I, again, urge President Biden and his
+administration to take the crisis at the border seriously and
+let us not repeat history.
+ With that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
+ Ms. Tlaib. Thank you.
+ Inspector General Horowitz, I want to thank you and your
+staff for your critically important work we have been
+discussing today.
+ Nearly two years ago, I went to the Southwest border and
+visited just a few of the thousands of children separated from
+their families as a result of the Trump administration's cruel
+and inhumane immigration policy.
+ It was very difficult for me as a mother. I mean, what do
+you say to a child who is suddenly taken from their parents and
+doesn't know when they will see them again?
+ What do you say to a child who sits all day in a fenced-in
+space they call, quote, ``icebox?'' What do you say to our
+children, our grandchildren, when they ask us how did this
+happen and what did we do about it?
+ As you have heard today, Attorney General Sessions and
+other top officials in the administration knew this would
+happen. They intended it to happen. And even though Trump
+administration's cruel zero tolerance policy has been
+rescinded, the harm still exists and there is much work to do.
+ We must demand accountability for the officials who
+instituted this policy with no regard for the trauma and
+lifelong consequences for the children it impacted.
+ We must try to right the wrongs committed against these
+children, reunite those who remain separated to this day, and
+support the families as they deal with the deep trauma they
+have experienced. And we must ensure that our country, that we
+never, never needlessly separate children and weaponize them
+with trying to address the immigration crisis.
+ Finally, before I adjourn today's hearing, I want to take a
+moment to express my deep condolences, all of our condolences,
+to our colleague, Jim Cooper, whose wife, Martha, passed away
+this morning. Our thoughts are with you and your family during
+this very difficult time.
+ And because I want to also take care of two procedural
+matters, first, I want to recognize the ranking member to
+announce the subcommittee ranking members.
+ Ranking Member Comer?
+ Mr. Comer. Thank you again, Madam Chair, and we are very,
+very excited to have three returning ranking members to the
+House Oversight Committee.
+ We have returning ranking member of the National Security
+Subcommittee, Mr. Glenn Grothman from Wisconsin, returning
+ranking subcommittee member of the Government Operations
+Subcommittee, Mr. Jody Hice from Georgia.
+ We have returning as the ranking subcommittee member of
+Economic and Consumer Policy, Michael Cloud from Texas, and I
+am very pleased to announce two new ranking members for the
+Environment Subcommittee. Pleased to announce Ralph Norman of
+South Carolina will be our ranking member. And, finally, the
+new ranking member of the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
+Subcommittee will be Mr. Pete Sessions from the great state of
+Texas.
+ Yield back.
+ Ms. Tlaib. Thank you.
+ Next, the clerk has distributed two lists in advance naming
+both majority and minority members to subcommittees. I move
+that the list naming members to subcommittees be approved.
+ Without objection, so ordered.
+ Ms. Tlaib. Now, in closing, I want to thank our panelist
+for his remarks and I want to commend my colleagues for
+participating in this important conversation.
+ With that, without objection, all members have five
+legislative days within which to submit additional written
+questions for the witnesses to the chair, which will be
+forwarded to the witnesses for his response. I ask the witness
+to please respond as promptly as you are able.
+ This hearing is adjourned.
+ [Whereupon, at 1:18 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
+
+
+