00:00Sorry. Madam Secretary. You don't need to be sorry Madam Secretary. Welcome. Thank you for your service. I think you've probably seen this chart. Yes. Why don't you bring it a little bit closer here. For the first time I've brought this chart and it's showing good news. For the previous four years it described a disaster, a catastrophe, a clear and present danger to this country.
00:23And one of the reasons I want to point it up here is to point out how we relied to during that entire four-year period by the administration, reinforced by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, saying we had to have Congress act. You know, we needed legislation.
00:38Right. The fact of the matter is, no, we just need a new president. We need President Trump. Now, I would have been happy to pass a bill to reinforce President Biden's authority to secure the border, but he didn't want to.
00:50I think what's clear about this chart is you can see when President Biden was considering re-election, he realized the catastrophe at hand was becoming politically unpopular.
01:01And so he used the executive authority that President Trump had used to secure the border in his first term. And he started actually making progress on that.
01:09So, again, it's just important the American people understand that for four years, the Biden administration, reinforced by the folks on the other side of the aisle, lied, bold-faced that President Biden didn't have the authority to secure the border.
01:23He wanted an open border. That's exactly what he got.
01:26Now, the question I have for you off this chart is, in his first term, it took President Trump about 12 months to go from his peak of almost 5,000 encounters per day to a little over 500.
01:38You know, he remained in Mexico, the agreements he had with the third countries, that type of thing.
01:44How could he do it so swiftly this time? This is literally a matter of months.
01:49February is 418 encounters per day on average, and March is 355.
01:53This is stunning success. I just kind of want to get your reaction in terms of how he accomplished it, how you guys accomplished this.
02:02You know, I would say, Senator, that the president used not only the laws that were already on the books and started enforcing them.
02:10He also made sure that he talked about it and messaged it.
02:13Throughout the campaign, he talked about the need for a secure border.
02:17What we need to remember constantly in this country is that the world listens to everything that we say and what our leaders say.
02:23And he told me specifically when he nominated me for this position,
02:27I don't want you just to go and run the Department of Homeland Security, secure the border, and make sure that our agencies are back on mission.
02:33I want you to tell the world what we're doing.
02:35Because the only way they're going to stop coming to this country is if they know never to leave their home country.
02:41If they know that we're enforcing our laws, they will stop coming.
02:44And that's exactly what's happening.
02:46Because of our messaging, because of the fact that we have actively talked in Guatemala, in Honduras, in Mexico,
02:54about don't come to the United States anymore illegally, there will be consequences.
02:59They have stayed there.
03:00In fact, we're showing now in the Darien Gap that it's reverse migration,
03:04that people that got to Mexico never even made it to the border.
03:08Now they're turning around and going back home.
03:10When I was in Mexico visiting with the president there and with government leaders,
03:14she said specifically they think there could be 500,000 to 600,000 people that just stopped in Mexico
03:20that turned around that were never even countered that reached our border.
03:23I think that's why in March you saw less than 200 encounters a day.
03:28And it was a historic low for this country in encounters.
03:31And it was because not only did he enforce the laws and show there would be consequences
03:35if you broke our laws, which is what our country was built on,
03:39he also made sure that we talked to the American people about why we were doing it,
03:44that it was for our safety and for our future,
03:46and that also to these other countries that it was no longer going to be the status quo of Joe Biden.
03:51And, of course, that's a sea change the Biden administration welcomed.
03:54I mean, they encouraged, incentivized people to come here.
03:57So this is a budget hearing I do want to ask.
04:00In the first Trump administration, I have best information we built something like 458 miles of walls,
04:08cost about $6.6 billion, about $14 million per mile.
04:14Your budgetary request right now is for $46.5 billion, a lot more.
04:21That would, at the same price, build something more than 3,000 miles.
04:25So can you kind of square that circle or circle that square or whatever?
04:31Can you explain exactly what are you asking for in that $46.5 billion?
04:35Why is the request so high when we were able to build so many miles in the first term for a lot less?
04:41Well, today the estimates are that building steel bollard wall will be over $12 million a mile,
04:47is what they're estimating.
04:48We have built about 70 miles of wall since the president has been in place,
04:53but that's been a mixture of permanent steel versus temporary versus a little bit of buoy barrier,
04:59where it's appropriate, that are waterborne.
05:02So, again, the $12 million is less than the $14 million I had calculated.
05:06That would be way more than 3,000 miles.
05:08Are you really planning on building 3,000 miles?
05:10The problem that we have at the border right now is that we have CBP cameras and towers that don't work.
05:16We have some authorities there with the FAA on infrastructure that helps us do surveillance of areas where there isn't a wall
05:22that is not even operational.
05:26I would say one out of three actually are functioning today,
05:30which makes the individuals that are there work even harder.
05:33And we know that we talk about gotaways and what happens today.
05:35The truth is, is that there's portions of this border that we still don't necessarily know what happens there 24-7.
05:41So, we need...
05:42We're $37 trillion in debt.
05:44I'm just going to ask that you and the department sharpen your pencil on that wall request.
05:47I think it's more than you need.
05:49Okay?
05:50Again, I'm happy to provide the support you need to secure the border, do the deportations,
05:55but we need to be very concerned about how much we're spending, and it needs to all be justified.
06:00Senator Hassan.
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