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▶ 0:17:36the committee on homeland security regarding oversight investigations accountability will come to order the purpose of today's hearing is to examine areas of rampant waste fraud abuse of taxpayer dollars by the Biden Harris administration's Department of Homeland Security with that objection the chair is authorized to declare the committee in recess at any point I now recognize myself for an opening statement again welcome to the subcommittee on oversight investigations and accountabilities
▶ 0:18:07our very first hearing of the 119th Congress titled eliminating waste Fraud and Abuse at the Department of Homeland Security addressing the Biden Harris Administration failures I'm honored to to be the chairman of the subcommittee to be joined by my colleagues distinguished guests and experts I also congratulate ranking member thodar for his new role there's a lot of work that we'll be doing in this Congress and this subcommittee is excited to be on the Forefront of assisting in the Reformation of the Department of Homeland Security we
▶ 0:18:37would also like to thank full committee ranking member Benny Thompson for joining us today who I know is not here I don't see him but he'll be here shortly for too long the federal government has spent money on programs contracts and grants that do not promote the interest of the American people for four years under the Biden Harris Administration we've all watched taxpayer dollars entrusted with with the Department of Homeland Security become subject to waste and abuse there is no doubt that inefficient and effective use of taxpayer resources undermine
▶ 0:19:07our national interest under new leadership in the last uh two years in the house under Republicans taking the majority this oversight subcommittee did press hard for transparency offered the Harris and the Biden Harris Administration solutions that fell on De years the GAO the government accountability office the offers of office of Inspector General have also um remained providing many recommendations recommendations that could have saved taxpayer money and assist the department and Mission
▶ 0:19:37success for the last several years nonprofit organizations like the Heritage Foundation America First legal the council to modernized governance who will join us today on the second panel of witnesses have demanded transparency and accountability but were consistently stonewalled by the government today we will examine some of the rampant waste Fraud and Abuse at the Department of Homeland Security that occurred under the the Biden Harris Administration and evaluate Solutions we must defend against such waste
▶ 0:20:07uh hard-earned taxpayer resources failures of the Biden Harris Administration are staggering because the previous administration refused to enforce immigration law uh our American Sovereign borders have been in chaos from 21 to January of 2025 4year period US Customs and Border Protection countered more than 11 million illegal aliens Nationwide most of these 11 million illegal aliens were released and provided shelter food plane and bus tickets cellphones and cash
▶ 0:20:38by non-governmental organizations known as NOS who receive billions of American taxpayer money one Office of the Inspector General report found that DHS department of homeand security wasted under the Biden Harris administration at least $17 million paying one NGO for unused bed space for illegal aliens in a hotel that $17 million could have been spent on agent salaries better equipment for federal law enforcement or improved training to help protect officers and keep communities
▶ 0:21:09safe in an attempt to Shield the immigration crisis from the public the Biden heresy Administration created a mass parole scheme to fly illegal aliens into the interior of the United States these schemes were a clear abuse of power that left American citizens vulnerable communities exposed to criminals cartels and potential terrorists a notable component of this rooll scheme was Operation allies welcome used to bring Afghan Nationals in the United States after President Biden's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021
▶ 0:21:39multiple Inspector General reports found that DHS released Afghan Nationals into the United States without adequate screening without adequate vetting or monitoring leaving our country vulnerable to a national security risk from those that were coming in in addition to their failure to protect America's borders the Biden heresy Administration favored the use of the Federal Emergency Management agencies FEMA's agencies resourced to support Sanctuary cities and NGO non-governmental organizations for Sheltering and caring for illegal
▶ 0:22:10aliens monies that otherwise could be used elsewhere securing our Southern border FEMA crisis of focus has been worsened by its fragmented approach to Disaster Assistance resulting in government the government accountability office GAO adding Federal disaster delivery to its 20 25 high-risk list for Waste Fraud and Abuse I want to re reiterate that it resulted in the GAO adding Federal disaster
▶ 0:22:41disaster delivery FEMA's disaster Aid to its 2025 high-risk list for Waste Fraud and Abuse which we'll talk more about another DHS component that experienced a crisis of focus under the Biden Harris Administration is the cyber security and INF infrastructure Security Agency sisa and the 18 Congress this committee investigated and covered efforts by sisa to pressure social media companies to remove post by Americans containing quote Miss dis and Mal information end of quote related to
▶ 0:23:11the co covid-19 pandemic Republican lawmakers thankfully forced DHS to Scuttle their attempts to stand up to this disinformation governance board as it's called to further police the lawful speech of online cisa focus on censorship instead of its statutory mission to protect our critical infrastructure from cyber threats was misguided at best nefarious at worst either way the Divergence from cis's intended Mission increased the risk to our cyber security over the last several years the
▶ 0:23:41office of Inspector General found severe cyber vulnerabilities in Homeland Securities uh networks including TSA ice and CBP president Trump has now augmented our efforts to return America to Common Sense on these policies he's introduced executive orders to secure our borders uphold the rule of law defend against the waste of hard-earned taxpayer resources and create transparency through the executive branch on his first day in office president Trump stated he would Marshall all resources available to prevent unlawful
▶ 0:24:11entries across the borders of the United States to pursue criminal charges against illegal alien criminals and regain operational control of the border from cartels and Smugglers president Trump also organized the FEMA review Council to advise and report on potential reorganization of FEMA uh leading to potentially as the president's discussed more State Authority refocusing the federal government's Disaster Response efforts on helping Americans including by investing greater power in state governments to perform Disaster Response is long overdue
▶ 0:24:41finally we must recognize that the executive branch has acted swiftly in recent weeks to undo much of the Biden Harris administration's waste of taxpayer dollars the department of government efficiency or Doge has been inst instrumental exposing and suspending even within Department of Homeland Security outlays on Dei programs duplicative Awards and services for illegal immigrants today we'll examine how under the Biden Harris Administration DHS Feld and its basic Mission will also explore opportunities for greater efficiency and cost Savings in the Department of Homeland Security all across the federal
▶ 0:25:12government I welcome our members appreciate the important work ahead of us and welcome our guests today thank you for joining us I now recognize the ranking member of the gentleman from Michigan Mr thodar for his opening statement good afternoon and uh I want to uh first of all congratulate chairman Breen for his new role and I'm delighted to be on this committee and work
▶ 0:25:42with you uh throughout the year and this uh Congress also welcome uh full committee ranking member Mr Thompson to our committee here and good afternoon to all look West Fraud and Abuse are not new that's why Congress established legitimate entities decades ago to help identify and root it out those experienced
▶ 0:26:13government Watchdogs are now being viciously attacked by President Trump and co-president musk during his first week in office Trump unlawfully fired 17 inspector generals who defend against corruption and mismanagement in government Trump falsely claimed it is a very common thing to do
▶ 0:26:43and pretended not to know the IGS he purged despite appointing many of them himself those ig's saved taxpayers $93 in fiscal year 2023 alone now that is a $26 return on every dollar spent such savings are not are only possible
▶ 0:27:14when IGS are truly independent from the administration they investigate such independence is also crucial for the office of special councel which provides a safe place for government employees to disclose wrongdoing so it was no surprise when Trump unlawfully fired the head of osc last month without cause Trump is purposefully
▶ 0:27:45gutting the Watchdogs who can help check Presidential Power and replacing them with a dangerous knockoff must so-called Department of government efficiency Doge has taken a chainsaw to the federal government creating CH chaos and Wrecking Havoc Doge has assessed highly sensitive systems and information
▶ 0:28:15in a manner that makes it easier for our adversaries China and Russia to exploit Doge has purged the government of dedicated civil servant s including thousands of National Security employees who help collect intelligence and protect our country from terrorist attacks Doge has cancelled contracts without regard to their purpose including
▶ 0:28:45office leases that enable the government Accounting Office congress's own washdog to conduct reviews of National Security Programs mus do doge is National is a national security nightmare that is eroding the federal government's ability to function effectively and efficiently while the price of eggs Skyrocket let's not forget Do's disappearing
▶ 0:29:16receipts must Financial savings claims are riddled with math errors accidentally cancelled contracts and cont contracts cancelled by the Biden Administration if this Administration was serious about fighting waste Fraud and Abuse it would be supporting the legitimate independent agencies that exist for that sole purpose it's time to end
▶ 0:29:47the failed Doge experiment and restore power to the entities Congress entrusted to root out waste Fraud and Abuse with that I yield back Mr chair uh thank you repr thodar I now recognize the full committee ranking member the gentleman from Mississippi uh Mr Benny Thompson for his opening statement thank you very much uh Mr chairman Mr chair and my Republican colleagues are clearly obsessed
▶ 0:30:17with President Biden they investigated him last Congress and turned up nothing they tried to impeach him and turned up nothing and now that he's out of office they just can't get him out of their heads perhaps it's because the musk Trump co-residency and Doge are unpopular musk and Doge are so unpopular that my Republican colleagues are here today pretending that Joe Biden
▶ 0:30:47is still president so that they can have someone to beat up on for their failures but just in case my colleagues across the aisle don't get it let me make it clear to you Republicans are in charge here in the House Republicans are in charge over in the Senate Republicans appointed justices uh who control the Supreme Court and your orange Jesus is in charge of the White House
▶ 0:31:18Republicans on this committee want to have a hearing to air their grievances about the Biden Harris administration because under the Trump m mus Administration planes have been crashing out of the sky the price of eggs has skyrocketed tens of thousands of Americans have lost their jobs and Russia and China are celebrating if Republicans really want to combat waste Fraud and Abuse they should be laser
▶ 0:31:48focused on overseeing Elon Musk Department of government efficiency which is a chief knockoff of congressionally mandated Watchdogs Elon Musk Doge not only is redundant but also is a direct threat to the homeland security it must be stopped because Elon mus Doge legally dismantle usid food is rotting in the warehouses
▶ 0:32:18instead of feeding Starving Children overseas that is waste it also a national security risk why because hungry Nations won't go hungry for long our Global adversary China will be right there to feed them and China won't be there out of the goodness of their heart Elon Musk laughed during a cabinet meeting as he described how Doge accidentally
▶ 0:32:49cut Ebola funding which is necessary to prevent the ravaging disease from becoming a pandemic and killing people here in the United States Elon Musk froze Homeland Security grants that Congress authorized to help nonprofits prepare for a terrorist attack Elon Musk unveiled those delinquents have accessed sensitive federal information and fed sensitive data into unsecure
▶ 0:33:19artificial intelligence software that China and Russia are sure to exploit pursuant to a demand from president president Trump the CIA shared the name of every single person hired at the intelligence agency over the last two years the message went to an unsecured email address at OPM the same agency that was previously hacked by China at the same time the Trump
▶ 0:33:49musk Administration has fired thousands of federal employees including veterans people working in National security and hundreds of DHS employees who does that benefit it surely doesn't make the United State safer Russian and Chinese spies are targeting recently fired federal workers with security clearances and I can guarantee you that those foreign spies are targeting the young
▶ 0:34:19inexperienced dose employees who have unfettered access to the federal systems and classification information the Trump musk Administration has created a national security Nightmare and my Republican colleagues are sleepwalking right into it make no mistake Elon Musk doge is a homegrown threat and it's time for The Other Side to wake up Mr chair I yield back
▶ 0:34:50uh thank you ranking member Thompson other members of the committee are reminded opening statements may be submitted for the record we are as a committee pleased to have the panel of government Witnesses before us today on this important topic I ask that our Witnesses please rise and raise their right hand do you solemnly swear that the testimony you will give before the committee on homeland security of the United States of the House of Representatives will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you
▶ 0:35:22God let the record reflect the witness have answered in the affirmative thank you and please be seated I would now like to formally introduce our Witnesses um Mr Chris Curry is the director of the homeland security and and Justice at the US government accountability office GAO Miss christien Bernard is Department of Homeland Security's Deputy inspector audits Miss
▶ 0:35:52Erica Lang is the Department of Homeland Securities assistant Inspector General for inspection and evaluations thank you all as Witnesses for being here today I want to now recognize Mr Chris Curry for five minutes for his opening statement thank you very much Mr chairman ranking member thanedar ranking member Thompson it's an honor to be here today to talk about goo's work on the Department of Homeland Security since 2003 when uh DHS
▶ 0:36:22opened its doors we've issued thousands of reports and just as many recommendations to improve the department there's been a lot of progress made over that 20 some odd years but there's a huge number of challenges that still remain I can't cover them all in five minutes um but I just want to give you a snapshot of what I see as the biggest priorities right now there's 49 open recommendations that we have to the department but each year we send a letter to each cabinet secretary outlining those of the highest
▶ 0:36:52priority last year we sent a letter outlining 37 open recommend ation to the DHS secretary and these run across the gamut of the mission of the department for example we've recommended they improve their it procurement and acquisition processes better training and hiring for Secret Service agents uh simplifying Disaster Assistance sharing cyber threat information across the department and across agencies and collecting better data on Ice detainees just
▶ 0:37:23just to give an example a few of them each year we also identify areas of duplication overlap and fragmentation and cost savings across the entire federal government and DHS has been a major part of that too since we've been doing that work we've identified over $1 199 billion doar in financial savings that the department could save by making its programs more efficient and currently there are many other areas over 30 of them that have still not been fully addressed by DHS just to give
▶ 0:37:53a few examples of these we have recommended that uh better procuring and streamlining its it systems could save potentially hundreds of millions of dollars closing unnecessary Coast Guard boat stations that overlap with one another could save millions of dollars and DHS and the FBI could work to uh together to better uh streamline the sharing and collection of terrorism information just just to name a few I also want to discuss uh the DHS high-risk areas
▶ 0:38:23that are currently on our list every two years at the new Congress GAO issues a high-risk report uh to Congress there are currently over 30 issues across the federal government on there uh and many that affect DHS but the two I want to highlight are one DHS management at large this has been on our high-risk list since 2003 it has been narrowed over the years as the department has worked to create itself into one functioning department but we still face a number of
▶ 0:38:53very difficult financial management and it security for example um every year dhs's independent auditor identifies access controls and it security problems with its systems which clearly as one of the nation's foremost national security agencies is a is a concern in financial management DHS has a number of systems including FEMA and Ice which manage most of the Department's billions of dollars in resources that some of these are over 25
▶ 0:39:23years old um FEMA itself has six different procurement systems uh that can't talk to one another and so there are still some Legacy challenges that um have not been addressed in over 30 years since FEMA was uh first created lastly and you mentioned Mr chairman we just added a new area to the highrisk list this year strengthening the delivery of federal Disaster Assistance there are um over 30 different federal agencies that are involved in Disaster Assistance of some
▶ 0:39:54kind and since 2015 we as a federal government have spent uh close to half a trillion dollars on Disaster Assistance there are a number of ways this program and and these programs need to be streamlined um they are too complicated we hear over and over again from survivors and state and local governments that they are too difficult and often times the uh assistance they get does not meet the expectation of what they think they're going to get and then lastly you mentioned some of the issues about FEMA uh the mission workload
▶ 0:40:24FEMA is stretched too thin they are managing over 600 major disaster declarations some going back 20 years they have too much of a workload and they can't keep up with it they have uh challenges retaining and hiring uh the right number of workers with the right skills and as more and more is being added to their their workload they just get further and further behind this completes my prepared remarks and I look forward to the discussion
▶ 0:40:55thank you very much Mr Curry I now recognize Miss Christen Bernard for five minutes for opening statement thank you so much uh chairman Breen ranking member tanar and members of the subcommittee thank you for inviting me here today to discuss our oversight work that improves dhs's execution of its Mission operations while preventing Fraud and Abuse in its programs my testimony today will highlight longstanding and
▶ 0:41:25systemic weaknesses that pertain to border security and immigration enforcement cyber security and Emergency Management first DHS faces challenges executing its day-to-day border security and immigration operations we've issued numerous reports highlighting recurring problems and tracking and accounting for migrants entering and being released into the country for example we recently reported ice was unable to monitor the location and status
▶ 0:41:55of all unaccompanied children once released or transferred from DHS custody we also reported DHS could not locate migrants once released due to missing or invalid addresses as well as the Reliance on manual ad hot methods for Border apprehension and processing each of these deficiencies point to the absence of fundamental practices necessary for maintaining operational control of the border the root cause of
▶ 0:42:26these issues stems from dhs's lack of strategic Focus for cross collaboration Automation and consistency would better enable CBP and Ice to keep Pace with the fluctuating volume of apprehended until these issues are addressed DHS will be unable to maintain awareness of all migrants locations once released from DHS custody which may hinder immigration enforcement operations
▶ 0:42:56second uh dhs's inability to consistently secure systems networks and data across its 22 components May weaken its overall defense against potential cyber attacks our recent audits of access controls which is an essential cyber security practice revealed hundreds of personnel who had either left DHS or transferred to a new position but they continued to have access we also identified hundreds
▶ 0:43:26of users with elevated Privileges and access and similarly our audits of mobile devices identified thousands of prohibited and high-risk applications and thousands of devices that were not secured and lastly our recurring testing of critical systems across DHS has revealed hundreds of workstations that were not receiving security patches or operating with the right settings collectively our oversight
▶ 0:43:57has identified more than 4,000 security vulnerabilities over the past 3 years uh but I will note our recommendations have prompted Swift action by DHS in the area of their cyber security um posture they've made continuous improvements and quickly remediated vulnerabilities and I credit this to our in-house automated testing capabilities and methodologies that enable us to provide results before the audit concludes as well as to strong
▶ 0:44:27partnership with DHS officials who are responsible for implementing and overseeing cyber security practices third and finally I will highlight our continued work to help improve FEMA's administration of programs while FEMA has certainly faced an unprecedented number of natural disasters and a global pandemic it continues to operate in a manner that is not conducive to the scale or complexity of its current environment we continue to identify if y astronomical
▶ 0:44:58amounts of question costs totaling billion in the last three years and earlier this year in fact we notified FEMA and Congress of our findings totaling uh $7 billion in funds that could have been pet put to better use due to the delays in closing out disaster programs the results of our work demonstrate our dedication to promoting the Integrity efficiency and effectiveness of DHS program and operations
▶ 0:45:29but we do remain concerned that until the department fully addresses recommendations for improvement its components may be hindered to achieve this these essential Mission functions that our national security and prosperity rely upon DHS oig remains committed to working with this subcommittee and DHS leadership and other stakeholders to promote transparency efficiency and accountability and thank you for the opportunity to discuss our critical work and thank
▶ 0:45:59you for congress's support in enhancing our ability to promote accountability and deterred uh deter fraud against DHS programs and operations and this concludes my testimony I'm happy to answer any questions you have uh thank you Miss Bernard I now recognize Miss Erica Lang for her five minutes of uh opening statement good afternoon chairman Bine rank in member tanar and esteemed members of the
▶ 0:46:29subcommittee thank you for the opportunity to discuss the office of Inspector General's independent oversight of Homeland Security Programs and operations as you've heard from my colleague our Vital work ensures DHS is effective and efficient while safeguarding American Security and taxpayer dollars my testimony today will focus on my office's oversight of dhs's efforts regarding border security and immigration enforcement first I want to highlight oig's body of work
▶ 0:46:59related to the resettlement of approximately 97,000 Afghan evacuees into American communities in 2021 we determined that approximately 11,700 Afghan evacuees independently departed US military bases without assistance from resettlement agencies our review found DHS struggled to track who independently departed and when these independent departures occurred DHS also did not attempt to locate all evacuees
▶ 0:47:29who independently Departed the bases to verify their compliance with parole conditions we also examined dhs's processes for identifying and resolving potentially derogatory records of Afghan paroles and found this process was fragmented ultimately the department did not have a process for monitoring parole expiration for individual Afghan Parolees and not had not designated a single component to monitor this parole expiration finally we reviewed
▶ 0:47:59dhs's overall management of the evacuation efforts we found the department met processing timelines for The Limited number of Asylum applicants from the Afghan population however it did not have a structure to support D DHS volunteers for the effort and the lack of direct funding and absence of clear Authority affected the coordination of the resettlement process I also want to discuss two key reports that point to specific weaknesses in the Department's ability to maintain effective border
▶ 0:48:30security first in 2022 CBP apprehended and released an alien without providing information requested by the FBI's terrorist screening Center that would have confirmed the individual was a positive match for the terrorist watch list this occurred because of cbp's ineffective processes for resolving inconclusive matches with the watch list we determined that ice also faced multiple challenges planning and conducting the AL I arrest second We examined cbps
▶ 0:49:00and Isis processes for detaining and removing inadmissible travelers from a particular International Airport between fiscal years 21 and 23 CBP released at least 383 inadmissible travelers from custody at that airport 44% of them did not return for their removal flight we found CBP did not have an effective process to track who failed to return for their flights and did not consist instantly transfer their cases to ice for removal
▶ 0:49:30proceedings our findings that I've just shared point to weaknesses in processes information sharing resources and technologies that affect the Department's ability to effectively secure its borders and enforce laws lastly we continue to conduct congressionally mandated unannounced inspections of both CBP holding facilities and Ice detention facilities to ensure the facilities comply with Federal attention standards we have issued 16 reports regarding cbp's
▶ 0:50:00short-term holding facilities from fiscal year 22 through 24 our most significant recommendations address meeting national standards for time and custody as well as overcrowding during the same time we issued 14 reports related to ice detention facilities and made multiple recommendations to improve the conditions of those in detention these unannounced inspections help ensure the department complies with applicable detention standards to maintain the required conditions of detainees in custody
▶ 0:50:31and mitigates risks to the health and safety of DHS personnel as my colleague and I have described DHS oig's comprehensive body of work demonstrates our commitment to improving the Department's Effectiveness in its many Mission areas the independence of inspector's General ensures necessary oversight accountability and transparency in the federal government allows us to make objective action aable recommendations we appreciate congress's ongoing support of our independent
▶ 0:51:01oversight this concludes my testimony and I'm happy to answer any questions thank you yeah thank you Miss Lang members will be recognized by order of senority for their five minutes of questioning our Witnesses and additional rounds of questioning may be called after all members have been recognized I now recognize myself for five minutes of questioning um Mr Curry starting in 2011 GAO made 83 recommendations you pointed this out in your opening
▶ 0:51:32statement implicating $19 billion in in savings so from 2011 to date recommendations from your organization proved 19 billion in savings for the taxpayer in March of 2025 there remains 459 open recommendations that the GAO has made specific um and you mentioned 37 of those are high priority recommendations with only five of those recommendations
▶ 0:52:02for efficiency being implemented you mentioned the two high priority areas one of which included FEMA which our president has been talking about we have members of Congress talking about to what extent does the high number of recommendations from GAO relative to the Department of Homeland Security 37 two of them specifically that remain unaddressed implicate major duplications um cost saving potential yeah well definitely
▶ 0:52:32all of them relate to streamlining or improving the efficiency if not directly finding overlapping programs so certainly you can translate those recommendations that if implemented you would save Millions if not billions of dollars and so I want you to again please highlight the two areas specific to this highrisk category Federal government-wide correct the two areas specific to this committee's jurisdiction what are those two areas again just its Simplicity sure uh one is uh DHS it security and financial management
▶ 0:53:03also uh improving the delivery of federal Disaster Assistance and actually there's one more I didn't mention today which is the cyber security of the nation is a high-risk area as well and DHS oh is also indicated so one area that showcases the significant growth waste as you just said is the FEMA's Disaster Recovery efforts it is more than Justified what our president has been discussing when he's talking about what we can do to change the status quo so I've asked staff to provide this
▶ 0:53:33chart this visuals are always good um I don't know we may have to raise that up can you all see the red lines from your seated position the red lines at the bottom you able to see that that's the rate of inflation that is the rate of inflation starting in 2000 at the sidebar here very very far left the dark blue at the bottom bottom is the base for Disaster Recovery then the light blue is the supplementals that Congress comes in and brings about so the bottom Red
▶ 0:54:03Line represents just the base growth every year appropriated by Congress the upper Red Line represents what would would be if we had grown at the rate of inflation supplementals added so go back to 2000 at the rate of inflation what we will see is base disaster Aid annually appropriated if it had just grown at the rate of inflation would be two times almost two times greater bottom left number 2.5 billion today at the rate of inflation That Base number
▶ 0:54:33would be 4.2 billion that's the bottom Red Line you can see very slow growth the upper red line again IND indicative of the supplementals if we go back middle number on the on the left side 4.2 billion in 2000 was the total added in the supplemental cost if you rise at the rate of inflation that would put us at 8.2 billion but you notice where those red lines track on the right side of this graph way short of where we actually are and you have to instead of a multiplier
▶ 0:55:03of 200 you have to put a multiplier of 800% that is the rate of growth whether it's the base 800% growth relative what would be the rate of inflation or supplemental 800% growth and then you see a few years before I want to dismantle quickly I don't have the time to go through the stats I've done this in committee before anyone who says this is climate related um more climate you've got a United Nations climate panel the United Nations is not known to be right
▶ 0:55:34of Center saying that there is no coordination correlation between frequency of hurricanes and drought and wildfires relative to climate change so that argument even the United Nations dispels we've got a waste problem we've got an inefficiency problem all right GAO added improving FEMA's Disaster Recovery assistance to its high risk annual Appropriations to that fund have greatly outpaced inflation as I just showed Mr Curry what does it mean to be on the highrisk list and how
▶ 0:56:04that given the increased Appropriations the drf has continued to receive what should policy makers be concerned about it when it comes to them remaining on that list especially given these numbers uh to be on the high risk list means that the program is vulnerable to waste Fraud and Abuse and mismanagement or inefficiency and one of the main reasons we added this to our list this year is your chart shows FEMA dollars if you were to add the rest of the federal government it would go through the ceiling pretty much so um
▶ 0:56:34what's happened over time is that this process and these this assistance has just gotten too fragmented and too large and it's it's just not well coordinated and we hear this over and over again when we go around the country and talk to survivors and state and local governments so I think there's just a tremendous amount of efficiency that can be gained by better streamlining these programs s thank you I want to now for his five minutes question recognize Mr thanedar
▶ 0:57:04you are recognized thank you chair and thank you to Our Guest here uh the inspector Generals play a crucial role in combating waste Fraud and Abuse and promoting efficiency and Effectiveness in government programs and however they must adhere to Integrity objectivity and independent standards
▶ 0:57:35previously GAO found that a lack of transparency in DHS oig's selection of work topics called into questions the independence of the organization what changes um this is a question for Miss Bernard and Miss Lang what changes has the oig made to ensure transparency When selecting work proposals and how does the agency ensure it is
▶ 0:58:05targeting the highest risk areas DHS thank you so much for the question and thank you for recognizing the importance of inspectors General um DHS oig um that is very important for us we always want to make sure we're allocating our resources very wisely um especially uh recognizing we are overseeing an apart a department with 22 components over 260,000
▶ 0:58:36employees worldwide it's very important that we allocate our resources to address the highest risk so I am really proud of our risk-based approach to make sure we are um helping DHS accomplish its most critical Mission areas and its most um critical challenges so um we do have a recurring and repeatable framework for that it encourages staff consider um project ideas from multiple
▶ 0:59:06sources internally and externally okay my question here also is will you commit to commit that the oig's audits evaluations and investigations of the Trump Administration will meet Integrity objectivity and Independence standards and help ensure DHS operates within the law yes I can assure you we will continue um conducting our oversight work uh in accordance
▶ 0:59:36with our statutory author statutory Authority we will remain independent and objective and will'll continue to follow our auditing standards and our work continues unabated as we um currently are still working under our Inspector General Dr kafari thank you and my question to Mr Curry is for over 100 years GAO has played a crucial role in enhancing the effectiveness of government programs and ensuring taxpayer money is well
▶ 1:00:07spent over the past 20 years GAO work has resulted in about 1.45 trillion in financial benefits and over 30,000 programs and operational benefits through its highrisk list GAO focused attention on the most significant challenges facing the government one such challenge is human capital including skill shortage a challenge Doge does
▶ 1:00:37not seem appreciate as it purges civil servants what are the consequences of reducing the federal Workforce using a sledgehammer rather than a scalp well you're correct um many of the high-risk areas and there's over 30 of them across all of the federal government that we've identified are on the list because of some sort of Staffing or capacity challenge that means that either they don't have the right number of people
▶ 1:01:07to perform the mission or they don't have the right skills so typically um what you do is you you figure out what you want the government or the agencies to do and how you want them to do it and then you figure out what sort of Staff you need to do it so obviously it's it's going to have some implications but you know we we don't know yet what exactly those will be thank you and Miss Lang I didn't give you any time to respond so if you want to take a couple 30 seconds if you like no thank you I think my colleague covered everything thank you all right
▶ 1:01:37thank you chair and I yield back the gentleman yields back I now would like to recognize the gentleman from Tennessee for his five minutes of question Mr ogles thank you Mr chairman Mr Lang after the Biden administration's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan Biden offered tens of thousands of Afghans passage into the United States we all understand the desire to get known trusted Partners to the United States perhaps safety safely after withdrawal but there are
▶ 1:02:07also many hostile violent people in Afghanistan did the Biden Administration adequately vet Afghans before granting them parole m l thank you for that question the screening and vetting of um Afghan evacuees at the time was a subject of one of our reports Kristen I would like to P it was part of sure yeah I can take that um we did do an audit in
▶ 1:02:382022 to look at um the screening and vetting of the um Afghan withdrawals we did um in our population we did find um that I believe it was uh 35 who were allowed to board a fight flight that hadn't been fully screened and generally we found that um CBP did not always have accurate and complete data for conducting the screening of
▶ 1:03:08those evacuees in some cases they were just missing their identification um so you know we didn't even have biographic information to screen um since that time the department has provided documentation that all of the evacuees have been screened and that's something that we're still looking at now to validate so to be clear at the time that they were granted parole we did not have the entire picture of who these individuals were
▶ 1:03:38in some cases we did not have their identifications I think it's safe to say that some of the very people that have torn that country apart some of the very folks from Afghanistan that might we might otherwise allow to be here they allowed the folks that're running from to come with them this is a disaster this is a recipe for disaster and also keep in mind that little event called 911 was planned in Afghanistan so we have folks in this
▶ 1:04:09country that country that don't like the United States of America we've seen it on full display for decades now and the the botched withdrawal the failed policies of the Biden Administration and allowing folks from a hostile Nation to come here unvetted make Mak America less safe and to be clear we know that we've let individuals on the terror watch list into this nation some through the PE program some have walked through our Southern border this is a failure of the Biden Administration
▶ 1:04:39enough is enough so as you see President Trump going through the process of closing the Border as you see the mechanism where we're deporting individuals this is our country these are our borders if you're not from here you are a guest and we could just get to decide who comes in and who has to leave and the way forward as we Face the barreling debt this country as in our future is we get to decide the average immigrant
▶ 1:05:09family that comes here illegally will cost the American taxpayer a million dollars a million dollars where's that money coming from it's coming from you it's coming from me it's coming from hardworking Americans and it's time that we do the hard thing that we admit that the Biden Administration or for that matter any Administration who allowed folks to be here that shouldn't be here that we send them home that we give them the
▶ 1:05:40opportunity to go back home and look I don't blame anyone for wanting to come here I have three children my wife and I we have three children walk through fire and over glass to give them a better life but if you want to come to this this country our country you're going to do it the right way and you're going to follow our rules and our law laws and if you don't like it you can leave and I'm not going to be
▶ 1:06:10apologetic for a president or for myself or for my colleagues who understand and respect the rule of law and expect everyone citizen non-citizen gay yes illegal you're going to follow our laws and if you're here legally you need to get out Mr chairman i y back gentleman yields I now recognize ranking member Thompson for his five minutes thank you very much Mr
▶ 1:06:40chairman uh Mr cerry how long have you been with GAO uh be 23 years in June that's I compliment you on that uh how long have you been looking at DHS and its programs about 22 of those years okay thank you so if uh you looked at DHS at point and and there had to be a reduction
▶ 1:07:11in force uh what would you expect uh how would that process play out well it's a challenge because there's not a mission in DHS that's not critical which is um very unique um I think it would be hard to balance between is cyber security more important than Disaster Assistance and it's not each their missions is critical so I think that what you'd have to look at is what what are they what are the agencies expected to do and what are they expected
▶ 1:07:41to deliver so for example with FEMA um 100 or more disasters a year 600 total disasters they're managing what do our communities and our survivors expect from them and then what sort of numbers of people do we need to deliver that assistance and right now for example with FEMA um they can't keep their head above water with delivering what we expect them to deliver well thank you you mentioned FEMA and what's the other agency you mentioned to
▶ 1:08:11oh uh I think cyber security sisa okay so if I told you that there have been hundreds of female employees and sisa employees uh sarily told to leave uh without evaluation without a plan or anything of that nature have you
▶ 1:08:42that um well we know that there have been dismissals of of employees um yes so are you aware of any kind of a reduction en Force plan or dismissal plan for the employees that are currently being uh discharged at FEMA or cisa I I haven't seen any plan like that I do know that some of these reductions have been based on are for newer or
▶ 1:09:12probationary employees that's about the extent of the grouping that I am aware of well when you say probationary employees Define that for the committee well that could be that could be people that are new to FEMA or it could be people that are new to their particular position if I told you that there were employees who've been with the agency for 10 years got promoted to another position and all of a sudden they are probationary
▶ 1:09:43is that consistent with normal Personnel policies and procedures not not normally um I'd want to know you know where they work and what their what their actual performance was that's an important part their performance every year and then also what specific area they work in to know whether that is something that would have an impact on the mission or not so if I told you there are hundreds of employees uh at FEMA uh and
▶ 1:10:13and sisa who've been discharged who evaluations say they've been excellent employees yeah I mean I would I would have concerns over that and and not just from the immediate Mission but um you know hiring new employees as well CU you know whatever reductions are made there's going to have to be some people federal employees that deliver the services so I'm concerned that I'm concerned mostly
▶ 1:10:44with FEMA being able to deliver the mission that we expect it to deliver yeah uh if I told you that sisa employees uh have a CRI IAL Mission they have to maintain uh uh basically our cyber hygiene in for government and that we have people who are being discharged and now those that agency is losing its capacity to do
▶ 1:11:14what's its mission calls for that that creates a vulnerability by letting those people go I mean yeah in the area of cyber security particularly in cisa you know we've spent the last 10 years trying to get DHS the authorities it needs to bring on board people with those skill sets because they don't always want to work for government they can make a lot more money outside so with regard to cyber security Specialists yes I
▶ 1:11:44I I'm concerned about losing that talent and then being able to recruit the talent we need to address the threat we Face are you back Mr chairman the gentleman yields I now repes recognize the representative from Georgia Miss green thank you Mr chairman I can assure everyone the threat we face is millions of people that came into our country under the Biden Administration and full Democrat control under the past four years in Joe Biden's first few days and months as president
▶ 1:12:15in full Democrat control of this country the Biden Administration stopped construction of the border wall unlawfully granted Mass parole that means he let thousands and thousands of people in this country every single day expanded the grounds for claiming Asylum to pretty much anybody and everyone implemented Catch and Release oh if they caught them they just released them in with here's some paperwork here's a free flight here's a bus ticket and if you make it to New York City taxpayers
▶ 1:12:45in New York and other Sanctuary cities will pay for you to stay he terminated Cooperative agreements and took just about every action possible to facil fa itate the largest invasion of our country and create the highest national security threat in our homeland that our country has ever faced ask any Angel parent how they feel today about federal workers losing their jobs you know what they're going to say they're going to say the United States government failed our family
▶ 1:13:16because our child or family member were murdered by an illegal alien that shouldn't have been in this country ask Lake and Riley's mother how she feels about that Miss Bernard and Miss Lang in your testimony you stated that in a 2024 oig report CBP could not biometrically confirm the identity of all persons seeking entry in vehicles at landport of Entry nor did CBP maintain consistency in operational procedures
▶ 1:13:47to screen all vehicle passengers prior to allowing these noncitizens into the country we knew that CBP wasn't verifying the identities of people crossing the border in between ports of Entry but they weren't even able to fully identify people at ports of entry in cars that would be like us opening up our doors to our house opening up our windows and not not checking to see who's coming in with
▶ 1:14:17our children in our house you also testified that oig assessed dhs's actions related to the screening process of suspected terrorists and in 2022 CBP missed multiple opportunities to verify that an apprehended alien was a positive match for the terrorist watch list before releasing the migrants into the community terrorist watch list ladies and gentlemen this included not providing information requested by the FBI's
▶ 1:14:47terrorist screening Center which would have confirmed a positive Match Miss Bernard and Miss Lang why did these failures occur under the Biden Administration Miss Bernard yeah thank you um this is a critical area for us we've done a lot of work to look at border security and in that particular project that you mentioned we were looking specifically at how CBP was conducting screening and vetting at ports of Entry our Focus was on the technological
▶ 1:15:18capabilities um resources and processes that they were using and yes um we did find challenges in biometric screening capabilities um one was that um biometric capabilities are not available at all land border crossing lanes and the second was that um on occasion they would uh foro screening passengers so um if there was a backlog of a high volume of Travelers
▶ 1:15:49coming across the Port of Entry they may wave the screening of um of the passenger and only do the driver and so to increase people coming let's move the traffic along yeah that's a complete failure Miss Lang can you explain I can speak to the release of the individual who was a match for the watch list we found that that happened because of weaknesses that we see across DHS which is ineffective practices poor information sharing within
▶ 1:16:19CBP itself um Staffing constraints on the part of CBP and really it was is uh paper processes relying on paper files moving them across the country um so if these vulnerabilities can be addressed we did make one recommendation to the department about this particular case but the recommendation can be used more broadly across their processes right so these were the policies of the Biden Administration just to be clear the Democrats had full control and they allowed millions
▶ 1:16:49of people in the country uh Mr chairman president Trump and his administration is doing a great job Tom homman is leading uh as borders are and has reduced the crossings from thousands every single day to less than 300 this isn't about resources isn't about how many federal employees we have this is a difference in an election and this is what the American people voted for border security and the promises that President Trump made thank you Mr chairman I yield back the
▶ 1:17:20G lady yields the chair now recognizes the representative from Miss Ramirez for her thank you chairman and thank you ranking member you know it's our first oversight subcommittee hearing this Congress very first one and I find it really ironic that we're discussing waste Fraud and Abuse when you have a unelected civilian like musk and Trump who are getting who are actually gutting every single tool that DHS
▶ 1:17:50has to actually address waste Fraud and Abuse I mean just think about it one of the very first actions from this Administration this Administration that the general lady uh from Georgia loves to brag about was to fire 17 inspector generals and since many of my colleagues seem to be confused about the role of An Inspector General well let me go ahead and remind them their mission is to provide objective oversight to promote the economy efficiency and Effectiveness
▶ 1:18:20and integrity of our agencies since those firings the Administration has been on a rampage of terminations and fork in the road emails to gut the federal Workforce their objective let me be clear replace impartial independent federal employees with musk it has to be musk first Trump loyalist on top of all that Trump puts a billionaire who by the way gets $8 million a day in government
▶ 1:18:51contracts significant conflict of interest I'd say and numerous complaints and open investigations in charge of waste Fraud and Abuse come on y'all it's the fox guarding the hen house and then you add illegal impoundment funding freezes extreme budget cuts and you have a recipe for more abuse Trump's billionaire friends getting contracts and payouts on the back of working families and veterans that we all represent so
▶ 1:19:21you see how it's hard for me to reconcile that the chaos of illegal firings the irresponsible handling of conflicts the defunding of congressionally authorized Services is a credible way to approach handling waste Fraud and Abuse you see I too want to see an end to the misuse of funding and abuse of our agencies and especially within Homeland under this secretary but from where I'm sitting the biggest culprits of waste Fraud and Abuse are sitting at Doge and in the white house so
▶ 1:19:51miss Bernard and Miss Ling do you believe that the office of Inspector General plays a critical role in safeguarding the agency from ways from Fraud and Abuse yes or no Miss Bernard yes thank you Miss Lang yes thank you thank you and my follow-up question Miss Bernard and Miss Ling I want to ask you in your opinion is maintaining a sufficient Federal Workforce imperative to the success of the agency yes or
▶ 1:20:21no Miss L yes Miss yes Miss Bernard and Miss Lang I have another question is there a replacement for the office of Inspector General or an office or Department that can do the same work yes or no no Miss Bernard not that I'm aware of that has the same statutory function no yeah I I I I figured you'd say that the reality is that we need our inspector generals but this Administration
▶ 1:20:51overnight sends them an email at 7M and tells them you are fired thank you for your service this is the same Administration that wants to talk about accountability so I want to Pivot quickly to the importance of maintaining a sufficient Federal Workforce Mr Curry the gao's testimony states that you found that FEMA had an overall Staffing gap of about 35% across different positions at the fiscal year of 2022 what are the possible consequences if DHS does not properly staff up instances like disaster
▶ 1:21:22recovery and resilience well well quite simply if the workload Remains the Same which I think it will or or increase moving forward they're not going to have enough people uh to do the job that they're asked to do right now unless they are you know their their mission or their authorities are reduced in some way so Mr Curry uh we here say that we care deeply about the American people our constituents uh I have colleagues of here that do everything they can to um go after immigrants but the reality is that this Administration here
▶ 1:21:52is talking about cuts when we know that we need these funds for disaster recovery and resilience and not having the workforce actually makes it impossible for us to be able to deliver those Services let me close by saying this as a member of this committee especially this subcommittee my responsibility is to ensure that we are in fact conducting oversight and the reality that is that Trump is the president right now that the Republicans have the house and the Senate and so therefore we're going to have to do some
▶ 1:22:22internal assessment of how you you are functioning especially today given the unethical and illegal actions coming from billionaire bosses because I'm clear that maintaining independent oversight and accountability tools are critical for the health and success of our agencies and for the American people and I want that to be on the record with that Mr chairman I yield back representative yields uh I would now like to recognize for five minutes of questioning the gentleman from North Carolina Mr not
▶ 1:22:52thank you chairman um Witnesses thank you all for being here uh rather than than take up most of the time with speaking I would love to go in and ask some questions about the previous four years and the Border uh disaster that I saw firsthand I want to start um with Miss Lang one of the oig reports under the Biden Administration described um the screening and the vetting implementation as soiled
▶ 1:23:23uh are you a familiar with report or the vetting procedures that seem to have been um I would say deficient during the previous administration I'm going to defer to my colleague Miss Bernard Miss Bernard and Benning um if that is referring to our 2023 report and and I'm guessing that it is on uh Port of Entry screening and vetting yes are you familiar wh why what would what led to that conclusion
▶ 1:23:53so um you know in that particular report like I said a moment ago we were looking at the technology and the processes that CBP and Ice are using um at ports of entry and um you know one common theme that we see in that report and time and time again is just um the lack of situational awareness um there's a lot of as Miss Lang pointed to earlier there's a lot of manual procedures data inaccuracies um and other lags
▶ 1:24:23in getting information from partners that can just reduce situational awareness um every land port of entry is different has different technological capabilities and infrastructure so um is there a system is there a system that could have facilitated appropriate screening of 11 million encounters at the border um I I think there's a lot of nuances to that question but it all goes back to volume right and um DHS has certainly
▶ 1:24:53struggled to Pace with the volume do you know where the decisions were made to allow or to facilitate the number of of illegal immigrants at the border to admit them was that in the White House was it uh the DHS boss who who made those decisions I think that would be a combination of uh DHS guidance and federal regulations at the time okay was there ever any discussion about limiting the number of inflows so that we could vet them more thoroughly um
▶ 1:25:23we would get involved in those policy decisions at the inspector General's office that would be for DHS okay Miss Wang were you were you familiar with any discussions that went on about limiting the number of people who were coming into the country no I'm not familiar with that thank you um Mr Curry in regards to your role and identifying how the department functions most um I would say with the highest level of functionality uh were you aware of any discussions with uh leadership the
▶ 1:25:53White House under the Biden Administration about limiting the number of illegal immigrants who were coming into the country no sir okay were there any concerns that were relayed to the administration about you know we have terrorists coming in we have drug dealers coming in we have human traffickers coming in there are uh people that want to harm this country coming in because it's a sheer volume we miss some of them were those concerns relayed to your superiors and to the folks in the white house um well in in our work I mean we've certainly done a lot of work over the last four to
▶ 1:26:24five years on cbp's role at the Border in the processing and certainly the influx has had an impact on cbp's Mission and the number for example the number of Staff they need to process all those people so from that standpoint we've we've assessed those aspects of can CBP process 11 million people known encounters I mean I submit there's more than 11 million people that crossed over but is that a feasible ask to say CBP we you need you need to process 11 million people in four years well traditionally they've been very short staffed and struggled with hiring
▶ 1:26:54for example it's been a big problem to meet the numbers they need in general so it's been a huge challenge so is the agency able to facilitate 11 million people coming into the country can you facilitate vetting can you know with confidence these people are uh not a threat to the country well I'm not I'm honestly I'm not sure about the exact number of 11 million and and what they could do I can just tell you that based on our work that we know that they've they Str they've struggled to meet their mission for a long time and hire the number of people they need in regular
▶ 1:27:24times let alone when there's a surge in regards to the number of employees that you think CBP needs to secure the border and to effectively protect the Homeland how many more people do you think you need I don't have the exact hiring targets at the tip of my tongue right now they actually CBP does set a target of what they need and I know that they've had challenges meeting that and hiring enough agents we've done a lot of work on that part of the problem is is the process y it's like a multi-year process two to hire somebody yeah at CBP it's particularly Challen in and
▶ 1:27:54that's been something DHS has been trying to address for quite some time okay Mr chairman I gentlemen I got if it's okay with the committee can he ask a followup
▶ 1:28:25yes a few extra questions yes um in regards to the uh going to the the the portion of disaster relief to the states Mr Curry is there anything that GAO can do to assist the president's Council um in terms of research on returning power to the states in Disaster Recovery um he's mentioned block grants he's mentioned giving money more efficiently to the states is that something um that you would have interest in doing and if
▶ 1:28:55so what what kind of recommendations would you give us to assist in that regard yeah we haven't we haven't been contacted by the council yet but um we've been reporting on this for a number of years we did a report a couple years ago we had 10 major options for reforming this system which by the way has been a problem for many years when you say this system what uh the disaster recovery system I call it the system because it's 30 federal agencies including FEMA it's big large bureaucratic sort of uh soup of agencies that all provide assistance and what we've found
▶ 1:29:25over the years is that it's just it's too complicated is the bottom line and so for yeah we have a number of options we've laid out for example uh one is uh federal government providing less assistance and getting involved in maybe not getting involved in the medium and smaller disasters and letting the states manage those um another is is changing the the grant structure right now we have FEMA's grants are some of the most complicated in all of government uh you know like I said some of these disasters are 20 years Hurricane Katrina is still an open disaster FEMA
▶ 1:29:55is still writing checks and obligating funds for Hurricane Katrina so getting out of the business of that so they can focus on response near term is is another option so but there's there's many other options too is one of the the perverse incentives of FEMA and your department is I would think is it disincentivizes states and local governments from having their own types of of creativity or outlets in terms of dealing with disasters is that absolutely I mean they know they can rely on the federal government for example few years ago we looked at States how many
▶ 1:30:25states have a rainy day fund for disasters and very few do because they Bas they told us outright that if something is a bad it's bad then they'll just they'll have the federal government pay for it so right for sure um I'll would just go down the list if you all have any suggestions about how to more efficiently and effectively respond I'd love to hear it from you miss Bernard or Miss Lange um yeah I would just add to what Mr Curry said um there is a lot of bureaucracy
▶ 1:30:56and FEMA and something that we've seen over not just the last four years but certainly in the 20 years I've been here is uh FEMA really struggles with operational efficiency um there are a lot of Partners involved and they also struggle with um just making sure that they're collecting sufficient documentation um it's a heroic effort to review um just the sheer volume of trans actions that they're dealing with and so they have a
▶ 1:31:26lot of um different options for reviewing payments as they go along or reviewing a sample of payments and that's just something we see time and again it's um the more transactions they're dealing with the more opportunities there are for potential fraud or just misspent funds and what what's the source of the inefficiency um is it the workload is it the workforce is it the process I I think it's a definitely all three sorry yes all three Mr chairman I think
▶ 1:31:56my time's up I yeld back yeah I think the gentleman go ahead i' would like to ask for unanimous consent to enter a statement for the record from the Council of Inspector General on integrity and efficiency that speaks to the value of the IG Community without objection so ordered um I thank the witnesses uh for their valuable testimony members uh for your questions the members of the subcommittee
▶ 1:32:27may have some additional questions for the witnesses we ask the witnesses to respond in writing pursuant to committee rule 7e the hearing record will be open for 10 days the Witnesses are dismissed and the committee will be in recess for five minutes
▶ 1:39:52e e
▶ 1:40:32that's that in my notes um you you and I share commonality there right tough last names Mr Mike Hal is the executive director of the oversight project the Heritage Foundation Mr John Roth is a former Inspector General for the Department of Security Mr Andrew block is a senior counsel at the America First Legal Foundation I thank all of you as Witnesses for being here today and value your time I now recognize Mr Curtis shie for five minutes for
▶ 1:41:02his opening statement chairman ranking member and to the members of this committee thank you for having me here today my name is Curtis shubi I am the executive director of council to modernize governance we are a nonprofit and our overall mission is to reduce the power of the administrative State and ultimately return that power back to both Congress and the people um I'm here today to talk about internet censorship and Homeland Securities involvement in it um now the overarching principle that I'd like this committee to keep in mind today as I speak is this the answer to wrong speech is more
▶ 1:41:32speech not less giving government the power to determine what is true and what is not and the power to determine what narratives can be spoken and what cannot is and giving the power to silence the dissenting voice is opening the door to tyranny I submitted some written testimony for this committee I'd like to just give some of the highlights uh we all remember back in 2020 um election and Co related content was routinely marked as misinformation or mal information or disinformation on social media sometimes it was given
▶ 1:42:02that little moniker saying that this is disinformation sometimes it was deleted and sometimes the person who spoke even was removed from social media now in a time when 54% of Americans say at least sometimes they get their news from social media this is a very significant development it means that some messages are able to get to a significant portion of the American populace and some messages are not now we've come to find out that there were specific NOS who were driving this effort they had determined what messages
▶ 1:42:33were constituted MDM misinformation disinformation or mal information and they would funnel that off into social media companies who would in turn delete that content we've also come to find out that some government employees were involved in that during 2020 um but as far as we can tell leadership was not until President Biden took over um so I want to talk about sisa which we think was one of the more abusive sub agencies within this effort um so what sisa did was created in 2018 it was
▶ 1:43:03created to oversee American infrastructure with regard to secur cyber security but it took the term that was given in the statutory mandate quote critical infrastructure and took that to mean cognitive infrastructure so something that was meant for us the US government to oversee the tangible El elements of our cyber security they took that to mean it can censor American thought now uh if sisa had begun to itself routinely
▶ 1:43:33identify content and reported itself American the American public would have had an outcry because we intuitively know that that would violate the First Amendment what it did instead is it begun to fund these NOS that had been driving this effort in the form of Grants the plan was to have the the NOS do the Dirty Work the NGO would be the one to identify the content the NGO would be the one to contact social media and the government would have less of a hand in it um sisa spent a lot
▶ 1:44:03of money in this endeavor the center for Internet Security for example received $17 million and DHS grants in the last three years um other parts of the Department of homel Security like Fimo were also involved in these type of efforts and this is all by Design again the government knows that social media um has protections under Section 2 30 and other legal precedents so the government can claim hey we didn't remove any of this content you know Facebook did it and then Facebook in turn can say well we have protections under Section 230
▶ 1:44:33and other versions of the law and then they there's no legal recourse for the censored party there either uh and this is exactly what happened last year in MV Missouri when the Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of censored Americans lawsuits um because they supposedly did not have standing so members misinterpreting statutes and finding legal loopholes to avoid the protections given to all Americans under the first amendments is abuse funding that effort is waste the government knows
▶ 1:45:03that it should not and cannot censor the speech of American citizens so under President Biden's leadership it found that loophole and this must be fixed and unfortunately there are some opportunities for Congress to fix this it could pass laws that better Define what the term critical infrastructure is to keep cisa under control it can also pass laws that would prevent any funding of excuse me any government funding of an NGO or other private party who was involved in censorship efforts and third it can pass a law
▶ 1:45:34that would give citizens standing to have legal recourse if when the types of activities described here in today uh were to occur thank you for having me today and I look forward to any questions you may have thank you Mr shuy I now recognize Mr Mike Hal for five minutes for his opening statement members of the subcommittee thank you for the opportunity to testify about the role of NOS or non-governmental organizations in facilitating Mass illegal immigration
▶ 1:46:04I currently serve as the executive director of the oversight project and previously was at DHS and on Capitol Hill conducting oversight of immigration matters the United States of America is still reeling from the worst border invasion in its history this was an invasion that was planned promoted encouraged funded and sustained by radical elements of the previous administration but this Invasion could not have been accomplished without a colossal partnership with the NGO
▶ 1:46:34Community simply put the government just did not have the capacity to get these this many people in and around the country without the support of the nonprofits and to that end they gave them almost $6 billion dollars to a conglomerate of un agencies and over 200 NOS to do just that according to statistics from the center from immigration uh studies the result was that border patrol became a daycare it became Uber drivers just to shuttle illegals to the nonprofits to get them
▶ 1:47:04around the country now the oversight project has led the way in exposing what I call this border industrial complex in December of 2022 we did the first ofit kind study where we tracked illegal aliens by their cell phones as they went through these nonprofits ah the Border in just a one-month period in tracking 30,000 devices so a very small subset of the 10 million that Biden had crossed the border we found out that the illegals went to nearly every single congressional district in the United States we proved
▶ 1:47:34that every town was indeed a Border Town that work informed the House of Representatives to pass hr2 which notably contained a provision defunding the entirety of these NOS now this was a landmark event it was controversial even amongst politicians here in DC because the dirty seceret it is a lot of politicians have a very cozy relationship with these organizations in fact one member went as far to say that that provision in hr2 was unchristian well that's now a common
▶ 1:48:04sense principle for immigration policy today that we do not fund our own Invasion and to that end DHS pausing all money to these organizations is simply common sense now really quickly on hr2 because there's been a lot of confusion on this point some of your colleagues last Congress over in the Senate introduced a bill to undercut hr2 that would have mandated a new normal of illegal board and Crossings at over 5,000 a day now I'm going to quote president Trump here from his State of the Union last week people kept saying
▶ 1:48:35we needed new legislation to secure the Border but it turned out all we needed is a new president he was right he is right in addition the oversight project continues to lead the way in uncovering CD Behavior after Behavior at NGS in New York we found illegal aliens getting tax or false residing do docents in Mexico we found Flyers at an illegal alien stage in Camp encouraging illegals to vote for Biden in Arizona we found a former Mexican consulant official at the Southside Worker Center in Tucson advising illegals
▶ 1:49:05how to lie to law enforcement and vade Ice that's against the law additionally we produce documentary evidence of non-citizens admitting on camera to being registered to vote in Georgia North Carolina Minnesota Arizona so where are all the government investigations I am begging for for someone to please join us what about the DHS oig I see investigation after investigation into the conditions that ice facilities were the investigations of these nonprofits and the $6 billion dollars that flowed
▶ 1:49:35through them it's time that we start treating the Biden border crisis like the crime scene that it is now this body funded it I know a lot of members here want nothing to do with it but the money came from Congress to fund the Biden border Invasion and so this body retains a responsibility and luckily the authority to figure out exactly how that money was spent and where these illegals ended up and what NOS like the ones that help facilitate the travel of Jose abara where he ended up killing Lake and Riley what taxpayer dollars were
▶ 1:50:06involved in that and one thing I want to leave you with perhaps most importantly is the left designed a s sophisticated infrastructure to get this many people in the country you all can do the same thing to get them out I'm encouraging you to look at all available funding streams to help work with people outside the government to educate illegals on how to leave to help arrange or even pay for their travel home I call this whole concept home word balance people need to go home it's time for a modernization
▶ 1:50:36of the immigration enforcement system r large this means we don't need to secure the border for just 2025 but forever a Renaissance in implying technology scientific advancements the stove pipe system of various federal agencies holding this data needs to be fixed this is what borders are Tom homman called for just a few weeks ago and generally we should give Tom homman exactly what he needs to get this job done and finally we got to prepare for the cartels to fight back these people made a lot of money and gained a lot of power during the Biden Administration
▶ 1:51:06and they're not going to take this line down we need to get ready for when they start launching drones kinetic attacks other asymmetrical Warfare they are not going to go quietly in the night with that I I thank the subcommittee for the opportunity to testify and I look forward to answering all your questions thank you Mr Hal I now recognize Mr John Roth for five minutes for his opening statement thank you for the opportunity to testify here today my testimony is going to focus on the crucial role of the inspector generals
▶ 1:51:37they play in fighting waste Fraud and Abuse and the need for a sustained and thoughtful effort to identify and root out waste and the false economy of large scale indiscriminate Personnel reductions since their creation IGS have played a vital role in improving government operations saving the taxpayers billions of dollars and ensuring that agencies operate within the law IG offices actually save more money than they spend for example in 2023 alone IG offices identified
▶ 1:52:07over 93 billion in potential savings these savings represent a 26 to1 uh return on investments for IGS this is possible because IGS and their staff have the training and experience and audits inspections and investigations are bound by their Professional Standards to be independent of the programs and operations they review to make conclusions and recommendations only when well founded and supported by the evidence and to approach their job with the
▶ 1:52:37professional skepticism inherent in an auditor they ask the difficult questions they challenge their organizations to be better to be more efficient to ensure rigor in government operations and look to eliminate waste but they are often the bearers of bad news recent events have called into question the independence of these IGS the unprecedented removal of multi multiple IGS has sent a chilling message to the oversight Community produce
▶ 1:53:07findings that are uncomfortable or politically sensitive and you risk losing your job this undermines the entire system of government accountability these actions create an implicit pressure to avoid the kinds of work necessary for Effective Government and can lead to self-censorship even worse it destroys the public and Congressional confidence in the Integrity the accuracy and the independence of findings that the IG make I applaud the administration's interest in combating waste
▶ 1:53:38fraud and abusan government my career was dedicated to exactly that proposition but I believe that the Administration has missed the mark in relying on the department of government efficiency to identify Ro and root out waste rather than the mechanism that already exists the Inspector General Community IG offices are well positioned to understand the specific operational challenges and risks within their agency if the intent is to cut with a scalpel rather than a hatchet the Deep knowledge of the
▶ 1:54:08institution involved is necessary moreover IGS are accountable both to Congress this body as well as the general public IGS are required to submit written reports to Congress detailing their findings and recommendations which are published ensuring transparency and accountability IG staff meets with Congressional staff to discuss reports and recommendations they also review uh initiate reviews based on recommendations from this committee
▶ 1:54:38and other committees uh of government operations ig's testify before Congress as we saw today to explain their findings and answer Congress congress's questions and Congressional appropriators routin ly cite IG reports in their own reports directing agencies to fix problems that the IGS have uncovered because an ig's findings and recommendations are credible specifically because they are the result of a rigorous professional and transparent process
▶ 1:55:09no ad hoc process no matter how well-intentioned will Garner the same level of credibility and trust with regard to the reductions in federal Workforce that's C currently going on intuitively it makes sense that reducing the federal Workforce May save money but in reality I think the ACT actions will be unlikely to do so any reductions in force should be part of a wellth thought out management plan that aligns agency resources and priorities and Mission requirements with the workforce necessary
▶ 1:55:39to carry them out to do so otherwise we'll drain the agency of specific skills necessary to ensure that the agency performs its Mission moreover creating a climate of fear and uncertainty in the government Workforce simply drives out high quality employees those with the necessary skills and the record performance out of the federal government finally any reduction in force must comply with the laws that congress has enacted and be decided by those without conflict of interest and
▶ 1:56:09avoid prohibited Personnel practices failure to do so results in wasteful and timeconsuming litigation allegations of improper motive and loss of agency focus in dealing with the Fallout from such this concludes my testimony I'm happy to answer any questions the committee may have thank you very much Mr Roth Mr Block you are now recognized for to make your opening statement Mr chairman Mr ranking member and members of the subcommittee thank you for
▶ 1:56:39inviting me to testify today on the Biden administration's waste Fraud and Abuse at the Department of Homeland Security we at America versus legal have spent the last four years educating the American public on this topic and I'm honored to share some of our findings and results with you the vient administration's Cavalier attitude towards the law was on full display in the way that it approached immigration policy where at the direction of President Biden and secretary my orcus DHS failed to Faithfully execute the laws and even actively created
▶ 1:57:10barriers to law enforcement among the administration's many abuses none is worse in my view than its abuse of the Parole Authority Congress empowered the executive branch to use its discretion on a caseby casee basis in compelling exigent circumstances to temporarily admit otherwise inadmissible aliens when doing so is necessary for an urgent humanitarian reason or a sign a significant public benefit yet from
▶ 1:57:40this limited qualified and individualized authority of Last Resort the Biden Administration created whole programs completely disregarding all of the constraints imposed by Congress and and uh using it as a primary authority to indiscriminately admit millions of people one of these programs was the cbp1 app now when you or I arrive at a border or a Port of Entry we have to show our documents whether it's a passport a driver's license a Visa or some other document
▶ 1:58:11showing that we are entitled to enter the country but with the cbp1 app the last ad Administration said forget all of that and illegal aliens lacking any base bis or authority under the law to enter the country we're allowed to make an appointment show up at a port of entry and walk in the front door it wasn't even catch and release as uh Miss Taylor green said it was literally show up and walk in according to secretary gnome more than 1 million people entered the country
▶ 1:58:41this way AFL applauds dhs's announcement yesterday that going forward they're going to repurpose this app uh for their removal efforts other parole programs which I touch on in my uh more detail in my written testimony are the CH andv a programed so Rife with fraud that the administration actually paused it of its own valtion for nearly a month and the parole in place now Parole in place was particularly egregious uh an AFL took the administration to court and won stopping this program in its tracks
▶ 1:59:11through these three parole programs the last Administration attempted to bestow legal status on 2.6 million illegal aliens for context that is more than the population of 15 US states in the equivalent of the population of the United States's third largest city of Chicago and where the Biden Administration could not make a uh an argument under existing law it simply endeavored to rewrite the law one such example is the 2022 Asylum officer rule
▶ 1:59:42which gave USCIS Asylum officers the duties of immigration judges leading to AFL founder and president Steven Miller at the time calling it The Most Extreme immigration regulation ever proposed last uh is the issue of interior enforcement and while removals were statistically non-existent during the Biden Administration its attitude towards ice was even more pernicious than that under the Biden Administration DHS implemented policies that proactively
▶ 2:00:12made it harder for ice agents to take the routine enforcement actions against the worst of the worst under the ironically named priorities memo for example DHS required ice agents to seek pre-approval from Washington D.C headquarters for every proposed enforcement action every proposed enforcement action for almost all of 2020 21 I'm sorry all of 2021 records obtained by AFL show how ridiculous this policy was resulting in nearly 60,000 requests by field
▶ 2:00:42agents to do their job this is 60,000 enforcement actions against gang members cartel members murderers arsonists traffickers rapists and vient individuals that were slowed down or delayed because trained ice Enforcement Officers had to go to a desk write out a justification and get pre-approval from DC to do their job the story of the Biden administration's DHS cannot be told without emphasizing just how wasteful and abusive its policies were of taxpayer resources from willfully
▶ 2:01:12ignoring the law to attempting to rewrite it to actively erecting roadblocks to block law enforcement every Biden AA DHS PA IM immigration policy can be categorized as ways fraud or abuse thank you and I look forward to answering your questions thank you Mr Block uh members will be recognized by order of senority for their five minutes of questioning additional rounds of questioning may be called for all members have been recognized I now recognized my for five minutes of
▶ 2:01:43questioning Mr how um you encouraged Congress um just a minute ago relative uh to the non-governmental organizations and what we could do in particular to having the office of Inspector generals look into the NOS I really am intrigued by that because I think it's something that um committees are going to be uh lacking on if we don't do that I think it's a a great idea um so I'm going to take your idea I'm
▶ 2:02:13going to Pivot to a former um lead official within the office of Inspector General Mr Roth um how would Congress be able to approach the office of Inspector generals to be able to do the granular uh element of trying to find how the ngos we know we have an issue of financial management which we it came up minimal in the previous panel where we're with under Homeland Security Financial Management of controls of tracking monies what what did you see what can we uh
▶ 2:02:43do in your estimation quickly to to be able to accomplish this goal for for accountability with these well in my experience ig's offices are extraordinarily sensitive to requests from their Committees of jurisdiction so the fact that you are the chair of a subcommittee of uh Homeland Security means that typically at least in my experience when I was IG we would take that very very seriously so U my advice uh for what it's worth
▶ 2:03:14is that I would have your staff Call their staff engage in some discussions and then perhaps follow up with a formal recommendation as to or formal request um as to the sort of scope of the work and in terms of Nos and their ability to give the financial management element we know that there's we we're under high risk under Homeland Security right now were you able to to find things within NGO funding after it been let to the NOS that were on your radar screen
▶ 2:03:44when you were a part of the inspector General's office not in the immigration context we weren't and I am unfamiliar with the source of this funding to the noos whether it was like a Department of Homeland Security Grant or some other Federal agency obviously we'd only have jurisdiction over that is my old office would only have jurisdiction over sort of a Homeland Security Grant so I want to Pivot back to you Mr Hal because you talked I mean you're adding these NOS into what you call the Border industrial complex and you mentioned $6 billion
▶ 2:04:14were were spent under the Biden Administration that would specific to the NGS did I understand you correctly on that yes and that that there are 230 different NOS involved um can you name five you don't have to do five okay but a number of NOS just right off hand that you feel like were the most egregious offenders right so at DHS there used to be a board that kind of oversaw the distribution of the funding and on that board sat some of we'll call them the the name brand National Charities
▶ 2:04:44and those would include people like you know Catholic relief services or Catholic Charities USCCB one variation of that Lutheran relief services Hebrew immigrant Aid Society all these kind of Mega organizations that play in the disaster space sat on that board that distributed money through a web of nonprofits I'm sure the number far exceeds 230 but there's a reason why the left did it this way it's so that you couldn't get at who actually ended up with the money and how they spent it it is doing the government's work outside
▶ 2:05:15of government to evade this type of oversight and so I'd encourage you guys not to rely on the IG Community who has not shown an interest at all in the $6 billion dollars Who Sat by and watched the worst border crisis in history happen in front of them but to go get the information yourself with your constitutional Duty with your subpoena power to these nonprofits make them turn over financial documents records of legals have them answer questions and so forth so you mentioned though engaging the the inspector Generals in this process so in addition to what you just laid out
▶ 2:05:45how would you how would you see engaging the ig's office in this effort yes frankly I don't think they're going to be that willing of a partner because they haven't shown an interest in the Border crisis over the last four years I think it's certainly worthwhile to ask but I don't think Congress should absolve themsel on of the Constitutional responsibility by a request to the IG I'd even be looking at law enforcement a lot of this activity borders on criminal it's good um it came up Mr shubi a minute ago you got 30 seconds between you and I about NGS non-government
▶ 2:06:15organizations and how they were the ones that under the ability of what was supposed to be a network of information protection stop stop our electric grid from being taken down they were farming out internet policeing to these NOS you got 15 seconds what would you want to say in terms of what we can do to get to the bottom of that in the process you know I didn't mention this in my remarks but I think the same suggestion I think the IG Community or Doge could look into which NOS are were benefiting from this financially and what they were doing with that money
▶ 2:06:46thank you all very much um with that we'll open it up uh to Mr tadar uh for his five minutes of questioning thank you chairman and thank you to all of our Witnesses here for testimony Mr Roth I thank you for your service earlier today we heard from the GAO and the DHS office of IG about their work rooting out waste Fraud
▶ 2:07:16and Abuse these offices were created by and have legal authority to audit the federal government as you know the Trump musk Administration and house rep Republicans claim they want to eliminate waste Fraud and Abuse so does it make sense to you Mr Ro that one of the first things the new Administration did was fire almost
▶ 2:07:47every Inspector General firing the inspector generals was a disempowering act it sent the very clear message that if you have a politically sensitive audit or investigation or review um bad news is not welcome in this Administration and what it has done is sent a chilling effect throughout the oversight community and that's including the inspector General's office but also the office
▶ 2:08:17of special counsel office of government ethics um that they are unwelcome and that oversight is not apparently welcome thank you Mr do how does um Ilan mus Doge differ from the statutory Watchdogs Congress created who have a long history of rooting out vest Fraud and Abuse so one of the primary ways that it's different is the decentralized nature of the oig's
▶ 2:08:48so each oig is harbored within a specific specific department so for example for me it was the Department of Homeland Security someone else it would be NASA what that gives you is the opportunity to get deep knowledge as to the functions and missions of each agency sort of the pluses and the minuses so that you can then go and direct audits investigation and inspections the other thing that the ig's office brings that Doge can't bring is the kind of rigor that professional auditing does and you saw a
▶ 2:09:18demonstration of that today in the first panel with the she's office who was very well informed had written reports that were vetted and according to uh accounting and auditing standards you don't have any of that with uh an ad hoc group that isn't Bound by the same kind of professional auditing standards Mr Roth you were the Inspector General for DHS for a number of years and you work closely with other statutory was doogs
▶ 2:09:48created by Congress to protect the taxpayer offices like GAO and the offices of special councel based on your experience why is Independence such as critical feature for the office of Inspector General and how does that differ from uh the people at Doge so there's two answers to that question one
▶ 2:10:19is U sort of the ability to gain information from the agency in which you are sort of doing oversight on so if you were perceived of as independent and neutral you're more willing to get whistleblowers to come in and talk about and this is really the lifeblood of any or oversight is to be able to get people to trust you and talk about sort of what it is that they see and uh during my tenure at DHS we had a number of whistleblowers in different places because I was perceived as being on nobody's side
▶ 2:10:49I wasn't part of the administration I wasn't part of the non-administration um likewise the office of special counsel has special programs in place to protect whistleblowers so that's one aspect of it is that people trust you and they'll come to you so you can root out problems the second aspect of course is just credibility so when the IG or the office of special counsel writes a report the fact that they don't have a dog in this fight the fact that they aren't part of the management that they're not uh encumbered by any Financial conflicts of interest or other
▶ 2:11:19kind of political conflicts of interest makes those reports more credible than otherwise would be uh thank you thank you for that and uh it is um you know disturbing because uh we don't see the same level of competence again do you see the same level of competence or the independence in the the 19 year olds
▶ 2:11:49and the 20 year olds that are hired or if you look at their social media profile uh you see all kinds of uh uh racism and uh other background are these people qualified to do the job that they've been assigned to again the the process that the inspector General's offices have is that you have to have professional Auditors who are trained and skilled in the kinds of things that Auditors do they are
▶ 2:12:20reviewed they are super revised any report goes through vetting Etc my time is off so I Y back chair uh the gentleman yields I now Rec recognize the representative from Illinois Miss Ramirez for her five minutes thank you chairman and I'm really uh grateful for the opportunity to also stay for for the second panel at our first Homeland Security full Committee hearing a couple weeks ago I brought this graphic with me and as you read here um
▶ 2:12:50Elon Musk Elon Musk Elon Musk that is what I believe to my core is the biggest threat to our national security this is the committee on homeland and since then I've asked the members of this committee uh who is supposed to do everything in their power to protect the Homeland to really take seriously the threat that Trump musk and his army of account unaccountable Tech BRS represent every day so you can imagine my disappointment not really
▶ 2:13:20to see that instead the Republicans on the subcommittee have decided to throw their lord and savior a parade in the form of a hearing and while their lord and savior changes from time to time yesterday was Donald Trump today is musk tomorrow might be the next billionaire although this guy's about to become a trillionaire off the backs of people it's something that's very clear for me is that Republicans have willingly given away their power to conduct oversight over our agencies and the dangers that these
▶ 2:13:53unelected billionaires have on our security so you see my Republican colleagues and their hyperparasites sitting here today have completely ignored that the waste in our agencies is the millions of dollars spent on the Doge Army of unqualified workers stealing our data and firing dedicated qualified public servants the fraud in our government is Elon Musk whose greatest achievement on efficiency is a social media platform that crashed
▶ 2:14:23multiple times yesterday the abuse is our nation in our nation is a power grab with which Donald Trump imposes his authoritarian agenda they don't have any legal authority to take sledgehammers to the services and programs that working people depend on and by the way Congress authorized we authorized but Republicans have allowed it to happen anyway so Mr rth I want to ask you the questions today as dhs's former Inspector General
▶ 2:14:54could you share with us what are the potential threats posed by unvetted Doge employee with little to no government experience plugging into dhs's information systems and databases so I I can't talk about the specifics of exactly what doge is doing because obviously I'm not involved any longer in the government but I will tell you that the it systems within da D HS and really across the government according to
▶ 2:15:24um the dhs's reviews of those are extraordinarily sensitive are being targeted by um foreign adversaries in a way that is not represented in private networks for example and you heard the testimony of the GAO witness on the first panel talking about the vulnerabilities that exist the documented vulnerabilities that exist in Access controls so having an unknown person or an unvetted
▶ 2:15:55person have access in ways that you don't have a full understanding of is extraordinarily dangerous and represents a significant vulnerability in ic it systems thank you Mr Ro and I think in part you know when you said you're not quite sure what their Authority or what they're doing is I think it's actually the concern that a number of us have here I've said this in Veteran Affairs committee and I'm going to say it here I want to know what does Doge have access to who who authorize it who are they talking to what data do they have how is it that they
▶ 2:16:25can have sensitive data to our national security and that it go completely unchecked this committee this subcommittee specifically is responsible for oversight accountability and investigation and we've already seen the effects of having unqualified people accessing our data and making decisions in our agency because look the day after the do's website was launched it suffered a security breach putting our s set of data in the hands of anyone with a computer and access to the internet and
▶ 2:16:55how can we forget when Doge fired more than 300 staffers from the national nuclear Security Administration yeah that's the agency that tasked with managing the national nation's nuclear stockpile or the several employees who are working on the federal government's response to h5n1 avian flu outbreak Doge doesn't have a great track record and whether it's due to stupidity or hatred at this point a better name for Doge would be the department
▶ 2:17:25of obstruction and gross errors I really hope that this committee takes the threat of Doge and Elan mus seriously and I intend to work with all of my colleagues to do that with that chairman I yield back lady yields I now would like to recognize for his five minutes of question the gentleman from Alabama Mr strong thank you Mr chairman Mr how your organization published findings from your uh analysis of cell phone data revealing potential illicit activities by NOS
▶ 2:17:55such as providing false residency documents or um advising illegal immigrants to lie to law enforcement to evade ice after the release of your findings did the Biden Administration take any steps to address these concerns how did they respond to your research and your implications so the Biden Administration through the Biden campaign called me and my organization some variant of disinformation of course and then otherwise relied on their Legacy Media Outlets
▶ 2:18:26to try to come after us and discredit us which they ultimately failed and actually ended up supporting findings thank you how do you think the administration's failure to act on this issue might have embolden other NOS or other groups engaged in questionable practices well they they turn on the fire hydrant of billions of dollars of funding they built an entire sophisticated apparatus and infrastructure a lot of people gained a lot of power influence and money through out this and it resulted in the biggest invasion of the United States the biggest mass movement of human beings
▶ 2:18:56I can think of in an organized fashion throughout our country and into everyone here's Community with drugs crime violence all coming with it Mr how in your testimony you alluded to examples of NOS misusing taxpayer funded grants or resources to facilitate fraudulent activities can you elaborate on how these funds were directly misused and what measures can be implemented to to trace and prevent further misuse of public funds right so the behavior we
▶ 2:19:26see at the NGO ngo's ranges across the gamut of questionable and even illegal activity including advising illegal aliens on how to evade ice I I believe it can consts kind of harboring IL legal aliens too it potentially implicates the trafficking of them as well there's all amounts of kind of criminal negligence I think we can find at these nonprofits in addition in New York we found them giving false res prescy documents to illegal aliens who knows the impact that has in our voting systems did you know
▶ 2:19:56of any NOS that were helping people try to register to vote yes absolutely by giving them false residency documents with residency being one component of voting that that is a factor there also South of the Border in Mexico we discovered Flyers encouraging illegals to vote for Biden when they entered the country separate the White House themselves when they tried the federal takeover of elections via executive order 14019 they invited a lot of these
▶ 2:20:26nonprofits and their partner organizations to basically advise we don't need to do anything to warn illegals not to vote whatsoever they kept the system wide open because they were relying on those very votes that's why they opened the Border in the first place they can't win with only American votes they needed to import a new population dependent on government to fundamentally change the United States that's what this is all about your spot own switching gears American first legal has been U uh dedicated to ensuring transparency and holding the
▶ 2:20:56government uh accountable however these efforts have faced significant obstacles particularly from actions within the Biden Administration aimed at hindering oversight work Mr Block can you share some examples of how individuals within the Biden Administration have attempted to obstruct America First legal efforts to hold the government accountable and promote transparency yeah uh so a couple that come to mind I mean uh from day one the
▶ 2:21:27Department of Justice um moved to disqualify one of our our co-founders and general counsel Jee Hamilton from cases that he was uh qualified to work on and and had uh every right to be on uh from and that was day one to all the way up through to just before the election um Nara was supposed to produce documents uh depicting Hunter Biden and Joe Biden meeting President shei uh those were ultimately uh produced after
▶ 2:21:57the election there were other Productions that we were supposed to get before the election that came after the election as well um so I mean just from day one through the through the current day thank you Mr Block Mr chairman I'd be remissed if I didn't mention I walked in and I heard the word hyperarid to something else and I couldn't be here longer I want to defend uh these folks two of the three Republican folks that are testifying today have served with distinguished
▶ 2:22:28records for years for DHS and they've been called hyperparasites wants is the facts we want to know what worked we want to know what didn't work I thank you for your service and I hope that uh uh that hyper partisan statement doesn't affect anything you do in your future thank you for your service to our country uh gentlemen you um I thank the witnesses uh for your valuable testimony uh the members of the subcommittee may have some additional questions for
▶ 2:22:58the witnesses we ask the witnesses to respond to these and writing pursuant to committee rule 7e the hearing record will be open uh for 10 days I do want to just make a general statement relative to the actions of the administration what whether it was the Digital Services renamed Doge what we know is article two of the Constitution does provide invest all executive Authority Under the president and the authority of the president in in duly elected to be able to execute on the day-to-day operations is his prerogative
▶ 2:23:28um additionally I want to move to enter this letter from the vice president of the associate builders and contractors a national construction industry trade Association representing more than 23,000 members requesting members of the committee reduce wasteful spending and infrastructure Contracting by removing the Biden Harris administration's project labor agreement that discourage Fair contract completion without objection ction uh so ordered with that thank you to the witnesses for your testimony to the members for your time
▶ 2:23:58and at that now uh this committee stands adjourned for