Homeland Security Bomb

I had experience with Homeland Security over the years, and always thought they were the least efficient government agency in existence, but they have managed to strike bottom at the Government Oversight Committee hearings.

Government agencies know how to testify at hearings.  Anyone who does it gets a briefing on how to behave and answer questions.  The information witnesses prepare is carefully gone over and reviewed all the way up to the agency head.  Nobody testifies on anything without the senior leadership of the agency knowing what is going to be said.

Jim Jordan, asking questions about the Visa Waiver Program:  “Ms. Burriesci, I’ve asked you the number of Americans that have travelled to Syria — you don’t know; the number of Americans that may have travelled and returned — you don’t know; the number of Syrian refugees who have entered the country in the last year — you don’t know; the number of Visa Waiver Program overstays — you don’t know; the number of visa waiver overstays who may have been to Syria before they came here — you don’t know; and the number of American citizens on the no-fly list — and you don’t know.” 

We worry about such things, of course, because we have weak border controls and we allow potential terrorists to enter, stay without being removed, go to sanctuary cities and avoid removal, without the slightest bit of oversight.  This is what Congress is supposed to do - find out what policies are actually enabled, and make recommendations as to what to do about those that are not.  In this case [https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/terrorism-and-the-visa-waiver-program/ ]  instead of making everyone feel better about what the government is doing to protect them, we find that not much is being done, the witnesses were ill prepared to talk to major portions of the issues, and we could have any number of people who came on visas and never left.  That made me very uncomfortable.  Do I feel safer now?  No.  Do I think our government is on top of immigration and terror screening?  No.  Do I think Homeland is going to be improving this situation in the near future?  Not likely.