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thank you mister chairman missed secretary thank you for joining us
today
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thank you for your service like to address two different topics I
want to
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an issue you raised with it which is ices
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and and foreign fighters to the best to DHS is knowledge
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about how many americans have traveled abroad
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to join up with ice senator the way
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I E the way we calculate that
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is there are approximately
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and this is the last time I looked it could be a little higher now
180
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individuals who have left to join the conflict
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in Syria and Iraq or attempted to leave that number
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as I said is probably a little higher by now but that's the number
which said
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publicly and I i think that that's a fairly accurate number there's
an
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unknown factor clearly sir
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so but on the order of magnitude 180 is is a good
approximation
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the last time I did the last time I saw a number it was about that
but it's
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probably higher by now
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chairman Grassley and I have joined together
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in introducing legislation the expatriate terrorist act
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that provides that an American citizen who travels abroad and joins
ices and
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with a foreign terrorist organization has in so doing
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constructively forfeited his or her American citizenship
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there's existing legislation on the book that provides for other
grounds for
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forfeiting your citizenship it right now joining a foreign
terrorist organization
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is not not one of those
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in your judgment would be beneficial to have additional tools to
prevent US
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citizens from using american passports
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to come back to this country and put it potentially wage jihad an
attempt to
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American citizens here at how senator I don't know
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that stripping somebody up there americans citizenship
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is is the most effective tool
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I do believe that we need
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to enhance our efforts
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to interdict those who were attempting to leave the country
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and prosecute them for material support or deny them boarding
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or deny them boarding on the return flight or in some way
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investigate and apprehend them before they can get on the fly to
once they
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return and we have spent
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allotted time with our counterterrorism partners overseas
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and within the Department of Homeland Security at
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better efforts to detect those who are engaging in travel to Iraq
and Syria
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including broken trap
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so we spent a lot of time in DHS and with law enforcement
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doing exactly that although I guess the
2:44
track record of apprehending people when they're coming back is is
not what it
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should be if I recall correctly the
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elders are now brother brother who
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carried out the Boston bombing one
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when he came back to america
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his his return in its travel was not flag other
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supposed to be is that correct very clearly there were some lessons
learned
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that case and we've done
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I believe a better job at connecting the dots
3:15
in reaction to that case well
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let's shift to a different topic which is the enforcement of the
book the
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up I am very concerned by the lack
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up and force minute the border the lack of enforcement of our
immigration laws
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and I'm very concerned on on multiple levels number one
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from a perspective national security and dangerous
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illegal immigrants being allowed to come into this country and
number two from
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the perspective of this administration on enforcing the law
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the washington times ran an article the headline on which was
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illegal immigrant deportations plummet as Amnesty hampers removal
efforts
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and it describes this year deportations have fallen
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by another 25 percent this year and indeed
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overall deportations have those who are here illegally
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are down 41 percent from three years ago
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and indeed the article goes on to say and the drop began almost
exactly
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at the beginning President Obama's illegal amnesty
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mister secretary how do you explain a 41 percent
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a valence here illegally a
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a couple things sir one the apprehensions
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are in fact lower on the southern border so the intake is
lower
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this fiscal year in particular to I
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Secure Communities Secure Communities was a controversial program
that led to
5:00
the enactment up restrictions prohibitions
5:03
on cooperating with our immigration enforcement personnel
5:07
in a number of different state and local municipalities
5:11
it so forth Secure Communities was coming so controversial
5:15
that mayors governors were passing laws ordinances
5:19
that prevented cooperating with us in our enforcement
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efforts and so we ended the Secure Communities program as I
mentioned
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and put in its place a new program that I believe
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will promote enforcement so that we can get at the criminals but
Secure
5:34
Communities in my judgment is one of the reasons where we're
seeing
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bpm select lower numbers along with a few other things certainly
East stated
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you're interested in just a moment ago at
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getting at the criminals sleep well I guess this is very much the
same as the
5:49
reported justification for his illegal amnesty program that it
would allow
5:55
the focus a prosecutorial Reese resources on violent
criminals
6:00
it strikes me as a fairly serious problem with that argument which
is
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namely that the department is not focusing its resources on
violent
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indeed the number of criminal aliens
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deported from the interior has declined 23 percent since last
year
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and declined 39 percent since the peak in 2011 so when it comes to
violent
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the department is not stepping up its efforts and indeed
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if you look to 2013 in 2013 the Department released
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thirty-six thousand and seven criminal aliens
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with serious convictions that included 116 with convictions for
homicide
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43 with convictions for negligent manslaughter
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14 with convictions for voluntary manslaughter one with a
conviction
6:50
for something ice classified as quote homicide
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will fall kill public official gun and that individual was
released
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in addition to that yet 15,000 635
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criminal aliens who have been convicted of drunk driving
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that were released back into the population
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2,691 who had convictions for assault
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that were released into the population why is that apartment
releasing so many
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criminal aliens and and secondly
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can you tell this committee in the six and a half years at the
Obama
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administration's tenure
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just how many criminal aliens have been released how many murders
how many
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how many people who have been convicted a violent assault had been
released into
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yes I as you pointed out senator and fiscal year thirteen
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there were about 36,000 individuals convicted of a crime
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who once in our immigration system were bonded out
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that number declined to about 30,000 and fiscal year fourteen but
in my judgment
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that number is still too high
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so in reaction to this situation
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I directed that we do a number of things differently including
elevating the
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approval for a circumstance where somebody has been convicted of a
crime
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is released from immigration detention it is the case that
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some these cases are due to release is by immigration judges
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or by the Supreme Court jurisprudence and zaba das purses
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Davis but I do think we could do a better job which is why I've
directed we
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elevate the approval level for that and
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that we no longer release people for lack of space
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that was an issue an f.y.i 13 especially when we were dealing
with
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sequestration we had a situation where released a lot of people
because we were
8:55
concerned we didn't have the space and have directed
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that should not be an excuse for releasing somebody we should find
the
9:02
and so this is a problem
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I recognize exist and I'm interested in promoting public safety and
that's why
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I've directed these changes sir
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thank you mister secretary now follow up with a a written request
for the
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information I asked for
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thank you written thank you mister