We'll divide the group into since it's uh a lot of people here with us and then we'll walk through the cbc one of the things that I ask you as as you're walking through the cbc please ask the questions of the subject matter experts on our tax policy that's the uh transportation escort and detention policy and how that governs what we do at the cbc so my goal here today is to really provide you with some context to what is act Happening in the South Texas border And we'll talk a little bit about the zero tolerance policy and answer those questions as well you will see that it is a very complex situation that cannot be understood or appreciated when one carves out a small piece of the equation and built an entire narrative around that piece in this case the zero tolerance policy we're gonna cover three areas I will give you a statistical overview of the sector we're going to talk about zero tolerance and then we're going to Talk about the operational impact of the family unit and the usc population and zero tolerance the impact that it has on our operations so statistically the southwest border is to thousand miles of border we have nine sectors throughout those two thousand miles of border aren't ev sector currently accounts for 44 percent of all the marijuana that is seized across the southwest border 40 percent of the apprehensions that are made across the southwest border and 38 percent of all the cocaine seized along the South Border and that is from a border patrol perspective only that does not include the ports of entry So when you have these high levels of activity and you couple that with a lack of personnel technology and infrastructure it creates this chaotic environment and this chaotic environment manifest itself with some very very concerning statistics and I wanna bring your attention to this chart over here If you look at this chart These are so last week there was another tractor trailer case I was uh found in San Antonio and we all know what happened in July of last year in San Antonio with 10 people losing their lives stash houses if you look at our stash houses we're looking at a 70 percent uptick in stash House what is the big deal about stash houses people are placed in very difficult conditions very dirty conditions people are assaulted People are robbed of their money and this uh these conditions there are extremely hot as well especially in the summer and the summer months this keeps federal state and local agencies constantly working these stash houses around uh uh here in the Valley painters to yield failures to do this when we try to stop a vehicle that is loaded either with narcotics or people what they do is a take off at a high rate of speed and what happens here in the last We had a vehicle that overturned killed one of the people that was being smuggled as uh as as he landed under the vehicle we have we have had some vehicles that crash into civilians innocent civilians we have had vehicles crash into border patrol vehicles and other law enforcement vehicles so that is a constant thing that we're looking at as well ages assaults were pretty much even with last year this is something that when you have that high levels of activity and that chaotic environment you start seeing some increases in increases in the ages of salt it and then gang apprehension This is a big one if you look at the number or the increase of this year of Ms 13 gang members that we have apprehended it's a uh 300 and 15 percent increase over last year so the good news for the Valley is that the majority of Ms 13 does not stay here in the Valley the bad news for the United States is that the Ms 13 gang members go to Maryland to Virginia to Houston and other places in the interior and commit atrocious acts many of them are online many of the Ms 13 murders um that have uh that have committed murders and other places You can see that they're link back to this very place that you're here to uh add today so this is this uh this this ticks are again a reflection of a border that needs a lot of work now a hundred and eight thousand apprehension is your today for Rio grande Valley 50 percent of that total are ot m other than Mexican family units and unaccompanied children in fact if you look at the family units they account for 36 percent of our total apprehensions as far as numbers go that is 39200 and 15 Your today unaccompanied children they account for 40 percent of our entire apprehensive and that equals 14500 today and let me stress this when we are talking about unaccompanied alien children that we encounter 14500 year to date these have been separated by their families or their parents already we are encountering them at the river's edge on a No family members so these do not fall into the separation that is being spoken about so remember that number 14500 Now zero tolerance I think everybody is aware that the attorney general sign the executive order or the order on April six dhl the hs Secretary signed the implementation guidance may fifth two thousand and eighteen so border patrol border patrol we implement that guidance we are the implement terse of that guidance but there are many offices that are critical to this effort for example if we are going to start increasing With the ultimate goal of prosecuting a hundred percent of those that are eligible it has an impact on the us attorney's office uh because they are the ones that are actually doing the prosecution it also has an impact on the u s marshals because of the the tension of that is required as a result of prosecution and also the services that they provide at the uh court houses uh ice immigration customs and import and uh immigration Some force meant their office of enforcement removal operations those are the ones that are responsible to be removing and transporting people out of this location as you may see later on today and then of course you have a health and human services office of refugee resettlement those are the ones that take custody of the children those unaccompanied children that we encounter on a daily basis and those that are separated as a result Prosecution under zero tolerance today this sector has prosecuted 600 adults has a hustle 600 adult heads of hots household immigration related prosecutions for the sector this fiscal year equal 11200 those are immigration related prosecutions altogether out of those 11000 208900 have been for entry without inspection 600 600 are under the zero tolerance initiative out of those 600 zero tolerance prosecutions one thousand 100 and 74 children have been temporarily separated as the adult goes through the judicial process one thousand 100 and 74 700 and 11 of those have been transition to human health services office of refugee resettlement for hundred and 65 or 400 and six three have been reunited here at the cbc once the adult goes through the prosecution process it is very important to know that when a us citizen parent is prosecuted for violating a law and that us citizen parent is accompanied by children they are separated from those from those children as they go through a judicial process this happens For example in a case where you have a parent us citizen United States citizen going through the checkpoint smuggling narcotics if that person is prosecuted those children are separated this also happens at the ports of entry So what is this what is this all this mean to us operationally I'm an operator I I run a sector the busiest one right now when we accept a category of people from the law it creates trends in criminal behavior that grow exponentially in the case of family units us sees these trends constantly adjust to our operational posture so I'm going to um ask for your attention over here on this chart here If you see this Red line this is fiscal year two thousand and 14 This fiscal year actually in fiscal year two thousand and 13 we were seeing an uptick an uptick that was a steady uptake of family units and unaccompanied children in two thousand and 14 we continue scenes at the constant update and because we did not enforce the law there was no consequences for family unit and unaccompanied children we saw that spike in June of two And then 14 to 21400 and 37 in a single month that created the crisis of two thousand and 14 at that time we were not prepared as an Organization to see or to handle those types of numbers that's where you see the footage of a lot of people being crammed into very small cells detention cells as they waited to transport to the other agencies the other agencies that do not have the capacity to deal with these numbers so that's what created this crisis in two thousand and 14 by far the worst that it has been today So that's two thousand and 14 what happens there's some uh political intervention we start working with Central America those numbers go down they actually go down as you can see the trend going into two thousand and 15 two thousand and 15 was actually manageable you didn't see a huge spikes but one thing to know is that as time lapses and you do not prosecute or there is no consequences for illegal entry these tran start growing so we will go from fiscal year 15 into Which is the Green the Green trend line right here and as you can see it it's up comes down for the holiday and then it continues on an upward trend that is two thousand and 16 going into fiscal year 17 October November or November December we actually erected some subsided facilities some of you may remember those in donna Texas and also in turn to Texas because the numbers were extremely high and we're talking about very very high numbers the first quarter Fiscal year 17 okay and the reason for that there is no consequence to illegal entry laws not being enforced you administration comes in they signed the executive order of order security that trend line goes way way below just to give you a very very uh point of comparison if you take a look actually March two thousand to And then a teen and you compare it to March of two thousand and 17 we are talking about 600 and 20 percent increase when you compare month to month And then you go on April 700 and 70 percent increase if you compare April of 20 eighteen to April of 20 17 so what we do and what we say impacts this look so tight that in use As it uh starts a movement away from uh from the administration of taking over you start seeing the numbers gradually increase and why is that because people that are still coming in they notice that they were still being release catch and release so that creates a magnet people continue coming in in bigger numbers bigger numbers this has been used quite 17 and then we come into fy ht u and it's As you can see higher than fy 17 so this is where we're at right now if we do not do anything is zero tolerance or start prosecuting detaining and removing people this trend line will continue until it reaches a crisis crisis points Make sense any questions Okay let me uh let me finish it up with this and then uh we'll have some uh some time for questions The other challenge that we see with this population is fraud because this population is exempt or was exempt from the law until recently what happens is everybody wants to be part of a family unit or wants to be an unaccompanied child because you will get caught and you will get released so year to date we've identified 600 plus cases of fraud and what this road looks like is a family unit where you have a father or a mother with children that may not be their children So we identify those we separate him we return the uh the uh the parent um that is not the real parent and sometimes set them up for prosecution we also have 19 20 year olds with fraudulent documents claiming to be under age the reason for that is because if you're an unaccompanied child you are caught transferred transferred to uh hhs and then eventually released Into the community The other challenge is what I call the the threat in the mix may second may second of this year actually last month we are rest and Ms 13 gang member full fledged Ms 13 gang member with a one year old child thinking that he was going to be released into the community because he falls under this family unit uh group so at that time we separate them we run them through the process he ends up back in to uh to his country of origin and then just last week that have been sentenced 15 years in prison last week we apprehend him with a seven year old daughter we prosecute him separate them and eventually he's going back to his country and there's been several or there are several reports in the news um or or on the Internet where you have Ms 13 gang members that have committed atrocious acts in the interior of the United States that again have gone through the process and or The family unit process So that is what I call the threat in the mix border violence criminal organizations and cartels are making millions of dollars in human smuggling that it rivals narcotic smugglers let me give you just a glimpse of that 300 dollars per person of the family units and unaccompanied children 300 dollars is what what is paid to the cartels for B sl diesel is simply just allowing somebody to cross through this area that is not the entire smuggling fee it's just the gatekeeper allowing you to cross in this area as 300 dollars I mentioned earlier That we have a total of 53000 54000 uh family units and or usc is combined just multiply that times 300 dollars and see what that means to the cartel okay so what's the big deal about that this fuels the cartel violence that we're seeing on the South side this fuels this chaotic border environment that I was talking about so it's a constant source of income to the cartels that this uh population is um is is causing now the border violence to the uh to the people that are being smuggled last Tuesday and I can Tell you that every day that we're here I can tell you stories that recently happened because of the condition of the uh border right now last Tuesday we had a uh a lady with her two children crossing the River one is a female and one is a male child as a cross and get to the us side those mugger wants money of course he has no money she has given and given all the money away and they grabbed the The male child thrown over to the us banks out of the River and says you're paying with your daughter they proceeded to assault the young daughter sexually assaulter her uh her short apart family rr mother instincts come out she fights him off and she makes it but that is what happens on a very regular basis that we do not talk much about to that end we have public service announcements where we Uh consent to to to give a testimonial we record them and we actually want to educate the people that would be migrants are thinking about coming because I know that we're not going to convince everybody not to come um we want to make sure that we enhance their awareness of the dangers uh that uh that are on this very dangerous trek rapes sexual assaults are common as smugglers prey on migrants many claims that are documented actually some This is that we've solved but these are common place as migrants make their journey uh North so in closing what has created this situation is truly our inability to enforce the law that is what's created these numbers and this trend that we're seeing right now This trend is not good for the country of origins think about all the kids think about all the population that are leaving on do does what the mala it's all about lord it is not good for Mexico it fuels the cartels as I mentioned before and it's not good for the people that are being smuggled because it is a very very dangerous trek and it's not good for the United States of America to have a situation that is not managed and or control the only winners Really the only winners in this are the criminal organizations that are making money based off of this human smuggling prosecution and then subsequent and proper removal of those entering illegally is a must if we are going to change this trend if we are going to deter this type of activity there has to be a consequence for entering the country illegally that consequence being prosecution and or Removal to their respective countries and lastly lastly and the real reason why we're here Congress needs to act on immigration legislation Congress needs to pass legislation that closes loopholes and that provides or addresses border security for what today's requirements are and tomorrow's requirements are and not be in the past yesterday's requires thank you so And now I will take some questions if you told the Washington post he told the Washington post that no children under five are currently being separated from their families when was that decided in relation to when the policy was announced and how many children under five I have been separated from their families okay so um we are not at a hundred percent of prosecution of everybody that is eligible we're still building capacity we actually have increased the prosecution as well over a hundred percent from where we were before zero Because we are not even close to a hundred percent right now we decided that anybody that is for an under we will not prosecute absent any exits and circumstances why did you decide to tell you um the case that I mentioned with the Ms 13 when was that decided in relation to when the policy was announced in other words how many children under four were separated before you decided that I can tell you that our G v nobody under four has been separated under the zero tolerance absent any Circumstances and it's a policy within the period that is correct and just to clarify when you said a levon hundred 70 fourth separated wasn't just in this sector since the zero tolerance policy and then the 600 fraud cases that you talked about is that a part of those numbers is that within those numbers you know so yes so the zero tolerance numbers that I spoke about are in this sector exclusively the fraud case That has been an ongoing effort because we know that there has been a lot of fraud in this population so I'm going to right here so let's question extended since we since the fiscal year the children the children and toddlers beat that are part of a family unit where the girls The ones that are part of a family unit and four and under or those that I've been prosecute prosecute Yes they go they are transferred to uh health and human services office of refugee resettlement where be help I cannot tell you where they're being held I know they have several centers throughout the United States until there are unified with a family member was their first stop I cannot tell you exactly where they take it so I mentioned there are several offices that are involved in the process when we have and you will see on a company children that there are They are an unaccompanied child they are transferred over to hhs human health services office of refugee resettlement that that office is responsible for their placement for their standards um I think there was a um a walk through one of the other facilities here last week uh cost of the battery um so that facility may be one of the first stops uh for hhs next question next question directly there go ahead what is separating families I hope you do Nobody is there is no policy to separate family that is a very good question and it needs to be very clear when you accept a group of people from the law I adults entering illegally that creates a draw that creates these trends right here this increases the zero the zero tolerance policy is intended to deter people from breaking the law of the thoughts of those if they are accompanied by a child that child is temporarily separated from them as they go through a judicial process and that is no different from a United States citizen parent that is going through a Judicial process prosecuted for violating the law and separated from his or her children as well your exactly what their children are going to and how long it will be there yes sir when you walk when you walk uh through uh through our holding um the facility uh you will be handed a sheet that is given to the parents explain to the parents what is happening in that process and workers who are are working The children in these facilities most of reporting about the attrition who did a recent visit to one of the facilities uh who was eating at some way in the process but was not allowed to touch the children uh in any way a toddler who's crying uh is it true that the workers are not allowed to touch the children I am not aware of of that claim that that you mentioned um we have medical personnel that actually do spend time with the children and you will likely see a better next question could be uh district Texas orders your agency to have a great time serve defendants from their children when you follow that order so when you have those challenges um those those issues are worked out with lawyers and lawyers when you find Order my lawyers will tell me where advice me you know what is it that we are bound to do this better should be so the workout to get the a walkthrough here shortly what is the capacity that this facility can hold the capacity in this was silly it is 15 hundred people how many left today um earlier we had about 11 hundred of people in this facility and that is a um as you walk through the facility if they haven't mentioned there is a place where there's a lot of processing going on there's efforts to identify fraud there's prosecution efforts and there's processing efforts even virtual processing efforts when we walked through that area we will Moving uh quickly because it is a very very busy area that we cannot protect the uh the effort that is happening there so normal number of people we've basis he said was 11 hundred bucks oh 11 hundred we were uh they they were here this morning and so it's a continuous movement of family units and and USA sees um by these different offices that I mentioned that's a continuing process all the time after the process um and about these aborted a person who is being prosecuted or about Or if you get the right people will happen to that child you know once they're in the shelter and their parent again is really sensitive yes so as far as the reunification between child or children with their parent um once they leave this facility here that is a function that belongs to human health services and ice uh enforcement and removal operations so it's a very very closely coordinated effort um that works here can you describe the separate He does happen there is no separation process um again I'll clarify that when we prosecute somebody that has violated the law whether it's a United States citizen or in this case of adults that have illegally entered the United States and we prosecute that person as they go through the judicial process they are temporarily separated from their child or children and the reason for that is because that child or children is not going through that process they will make sure the facility or is that when they're taken to federal court I mean when in their stay in this facility are they separated from their children yes when they uh when they go to court yes Charlie how long series together review separates you just so how long is temporary by law nobody can be in this facility for 72 hours or more than 72 hours this is not a detention facility it's truly a processing and transition facility to the arrow facilities or hhs facilities that are long term or are they there for longer how long Can a child be you know separated from their parent you know excluding situations where it was a fraud he's so there every case is unique if you have Goal is to have a consequence delivered to everybody that is eligible that enters the United States illegally and I will give you an example for that and so why is probably the question why are you doing that um we have had focus prosecution efforts and uh I know use the example of the real Texas and uh um the real sector in two thousand and 52 thousand and six uh time frame we started with a focus prosecution effort because there was a certain population that was increasing sewing these upward trends when you prosecute when you detain and when you return people to their country that trend changes That is the intent of zero tolerance is to make sure that this trend does not go unabated and becomes another christ to more question two more questions right here man so that's not inherently a crime that's the earnings even if their process why or those who are coming here trying to seek asylum also saying that they've been separated from their shoulder if they're not charging the crime that isn't what you do to us the digital separation from their families if you're seeking assist For help yes ma' am so there is asylum and there's a very defined process uh for asylum when when somebody claims asylum they go before an asylum officer and they determine if there is merit to that claim and then they follow that process if you are talking about a legitimate uh asylum claim that has been separated and prosecuted I am not aware of it I would have to look into last question even if you're only a 40 percent referrals you prosecution how long is it gonna take to get a hundred percent how long will it take to get to the hundred percent there are photos of a border patrol Moving the shoes of a child is being separated another shoelaces from a child is being separated from their parents is that standard procedure and is that because you concerns about there such so that is a very that is a very good question and the purpose of this President that I wanted to do because if we have honest and productive conversations we can actually reach an understanding right there is no separation that happens out in the field I know there's a picture out there where there's a uh a crying child And they kind of correlated to a separation that does not exist the encounter at the field the family unit is brought over here for processing and then handle the corning so very good question thank you so much folks we're gonna do we're gonna address the Spanish portion next so as mentioned earlier from this side of the room this way you already take it out to the cbc as a reminder folks visit your son operating any electronic recording devices