Hearing Wrap Up: Federal Immigration Enforcement Officers Can Leverage Cutting-Edge Technology to Apprehend and Deport Criminal Aliens

WASHINGTON—The Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation held a hearing titled, “Leveraging Technology to Strengthen Immigration Enforcement.” Subcommittee members discussed cutting-edge technologies that can be utilized by law enforcement officers to assist in tracking, identifying, and deporting illegal aliens within the United States. Subcommittee members also discussed the Biden Administration’s disastrous border policies and failure to adequately use technology solutions.

Key Takeaways:

The Biden Administration oversaw the worst border crisis in United States history and failed to properly use technology to help secure the border and enforce U.S. immigration laws.

• John Fabbricatore— Former Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Senior Executive and Field Office Director—testified that data is critical to law enforcement efforts: “Now is the time to embrace new technology and unconventional methods to improve targeting. We need new, innovative data platforms that can help us identify these individuals and where to apprehend them. Emerging companies use advanced machine learning, cloud-native platforms, and massive data repositories to reveal unseen relationships and deliver actionable intelligence. Data is the key to targeting.”

Cutting-edge technologies can help track criminal illegal aliens, assist law enforcement officers with apprehensions, and keep Americans safe.

• Doug Gilmer—Retired Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Senior Law Enforcement Advisor and Assistant Special Agent in Charge—testified that technological adoption must be streamlined: “Standing in the way of onboarding third party solutions, however, is the current acquisition requirements and the inability to onboard safe and secure technology quickly. This obstacle directly impacts public safety. When technology becomes available to help law enforcement solve critical public safety issues, the time it takes to acquire the technology, with the way budget cycles work, and the time it takes to receive authorization to actually use the technology after security and privacy vetting, means that by the time it is onboarded, we have missed opportunity and the solution can be outdated.”

Member Highlights:

Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation Chairwoman Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) discussed how cartels exploited the CBP One app during the Biden Administration.

Rep. Mace: “Can you speak to how the Biden Administration used technology to facilitate the invasion of illegal aliens into the country?”

Mr. Fabbricatore: “For one, the CBP One app I believe was definitely misused by the Biden Administration to allow people to come in and that was one technology that was developed for something that it should not have been used for. I think it was a ‘go-around’ around Congress to allow people to enter the country and the United States and we have seen a lot of those cases that have been entered on the CBP One app show up on the criminal aliens in the arrests that we’ve made.”

Rep. Mace: “How is the app used?”

Mr. Fabbricatore: “Well we’ve seen, especially the fraud from it is that the cartels were actually using it down in Mexico and having people sign up through them to then get on the CBP One app and get around and be able to go through, so the cartels were actually making money off of the CBP One app.”

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) spoke about how technology used to track illegal aliens could help reduce the number of criminal illegal aliens in Colorado.

Rep. Boebert: “Do you believe that using modern tracking technology would have helped secure out border and our cities in the state of Colorado?”

Mr. Fabbricatore: “It definitely would have helped, it’s something that the ERO officers need in order to be able to facilitate making arrests quickly because that’s what we want to do. We don’t want to give criminal illegal aliens an opportunity to commit more crimes in the U.S. We want to arrest them as quickly as we can.”

Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) asked about new technology tools that could enable border patrol officers to stop the flow of illegal aliens across the border.

Rep. Crane: “How would some of these technology tools we’re not currently using enable border patrol officials to stop the flow of illegal aliens while also assisting our law enforcement officers?”

Mr. Gilmer: “Whether it’s the EDDIE device, whether it’s facial pattern matching technology, it helps us to rapidly identify individuals and identify where they might be on a threat matrix, whether they are a known or suspected gang member, or are they on the terrorism watch list for instance. Are they a person who is already the subject of an ongoing investigation by HSI or another federal law enforcement agency. Being able to rapidly identify that information and that biometric information…it’s difficult to get biometrics to lie. A person can tell us a story, give us a wrong name all day long.”

CLICK HERE to watch the hearing.