From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Watchdog Report: Alien Smuggling along the Southwest Border Audio interview by GAO staff with Richard Stana, Director, Homeland Security and Justice Associated Report Number: GAO-10-328 Released on: July 22, 2010 [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the Government Accountability Office. It's July 22, 2010. The southwest border with Mexico is the principal entry point for people who are smuggled illegally into the United States. This practice poses security risks for the country and is dangerous for law enforcement officials as well as the people being smuggled. A group led by Richard Stana, a Director in GAO's Homeland Security and Justice team, recently reviewed federal agencies’ efforts to combat alien-smuggling operations. GAO analyst Jeremy Cluchey sat down with Richard to learn more. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] The major title of this report is Alien Smuggling. What exactly does GAO mean by that term? [ Richard Stana: ] Alien smuggling differs from, say, human trafficking or illegal immigration centrally because in an alien-smuggling arrangement an individual is paying to get himself smuggled into the United States in this case, and it is an affirmative transaction. In other words, the alien wants to go into the United States. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] Can you describe the process of alien smuggling—what it looks like typically? [ Richard Stana: ] Well, typically an individual who wants to come into the United States arranges with an alien-smuggling organization to have him or herself brought across the border safely, brought into perhaps a stash house in the city, and in some cases even find them employment in a city away from the border. It's a real challenge to law enforcement to get to the alien-smuggling organizations because by their very nature they're concealed, number one, and number two, increasingly the Mexican drug-trafficking organizations are becoming involved, and they're using their resources to bring individuals into the country like they do with drugs, and they're bringing more violence and crime into the transaction than was there before. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] What are some of the methods that federal agencies have employed in order to counter alien-smuggling operations? [ Richard Stana: ] Well, of course there's a tiered level of enforcement, you might say. At the border, the Border Patrol is the primary instrument, and there are some Border Patrol agents on the southwest border who patrol on the border, just beyond the border, and at interior checkpoints to see that people who are coming into the country are identified and apprehended and dealt with. In addition to the Border Patrol, in the interior of the country we have Immigration and Customers Enforcement, or ICE, and they have an Office of Investigations, which is DHS's primary investigative unit. And they undertake investigations of alien-smuggling networks, in addition to work site enforcement and criminal alien removal. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] Can you talk a bit about the Office of Investigations or OI's efforts to seize assets associated with alien-smuggling operations? [ Richard Stana: ] Yeah, this is a real challenge for them. Alien smuggling is a multibillion-dollar industry, and every year, in other words, these organizations take in billions of dollars while they're smuggling sometimes high-value individuals into the United States. It is ICE's goal to take down these organizations by going after their lifeblood and that is the dollars and other assets. Of the multibillion dollars that are in smuggling, they have been able to seize only about $8 million a year, so it has not really been as successful as I'd like. The trend is going down instead of up, but still there are things that can be done to improve their chances of success. One thing is they need to have the authority and partnership with the Department of Justice. They need to have the authority to seize the assets of these organizations; similar to what's being done with the drug-trafficking organizations. So where there is a stash house where smuggled aliens are kept temporarily, they need to have the authority to seize those assets as well. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] What other steps is GAO recommending federal agencies take in order to more effectively combat these practices? [ Richard Stana: ] Well, there are several things we recommend—getting back to these seized assets. The state of Arizona has a framework for dealing with the assets involved in alien smuggling. So far they have seized about $17 million; they've closed down a relative handful of auto dealerships and travel agencies, so they have had some success, and we think that perhaps the Department of Homeland Security ought to look to that method to see if there's something that's appropriate or transferable to the federal level. On a broader sense, there are other programs that are used to combat alien smuggling, like Oasis and ATAP, MURP. We use these acronyms—they're all in the report—but we don't know how well they're working and we're recommending that the department make sure that the objectives are clear and the performance measures are assigned and monitored so that we can gauge success and identify which programs are worthy of more resources or which perhaps we ought to cut back on. [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] To learn more, visit GAO's Web site at gao.gov, and be sure to tune in to the next edition of GAO's Watchdog Report for more from the congressional watchdog, the Government Accountability Office.