00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Scott, thank you. Thank you for being with me.
00:05Congratulations on your nominations. We talked a little bit about this, about the impact on travel in general, international, national travel, but particularly international.
00:15As you well know, CBP is responsible for ensuring the safe, lawful, and efficient processing of the millions of tourists and visitors who travel in the United States each year.
00:26Travel experts are already estimating the number of people arriving in the U.S. from abroad to decline by about 9.4% this year and travel spending to fall 12.3%.
00:38That's a $22 billion annual loss to this country.
00:43I'm seeing this in projected declines in revenues and job losses in Nevada as well.
00:48And I've seen reports of concerning CBP practices that are discouraging visitors from traveling to the United States.
00:57So from your perspective, is CBP as an agency aware of the essential role it plays in the travel and tourism industry?
01:05Can you talk a little bit about your priorities there?
01:08Sure. Thank you for that question.
01:10CBP is very aware of our responsibility to keep trade and travel moving.
01:15It's written right into our mission statement, but it's not just something on a screen.
01:19It's part of the conversations all the time because I'd mentioned a little bit earlier,
01:24national security and the economic security of this country is just as critical as to many of the other factors that CBP has to deal with on a daily basis.
01:33So there's a lot of discussion about something as simple as staffing lanes at an airport or getting cargo coming through and the messaging.
01:41I commit to you, one of the things I brought up over and over again within CBP, and if I'm confirmed, I will continue,
01:49is that we're literally the ambassadors of the world.
01:51That the CBP officers are the first people people interact with from around the world.
01:55Sometimes even U.S. citizens come in and go in.
01:57It's the only real government officials they interact with.
01:59And that relationship also sets a tone, the professionalism, the honor to deal with people with respect,
02:06but making sure that we focus our efforts on the real threats and we use things like global entry.
02:14We use things like Nexus and FAST to expedite the flow of people through the border that we've already identified the trusted travelers is not a threat,
02:21so we can speed up the rest of it.
02:24I have sent a letter to the DHS secretary and others in the administration about the negative effects the actions of this president
02:32and the cabinet are having on the trillion-dollar travel economy.
02:35I thank you to the chairman and ranking member for putting it into the record.
02:40My ask of you is can you commit to helping to address those concerns in that letter and getting a response,
02:46but also addressing the economy in general and the impact that tourism is having.
02:53Hopefully you can commit to that, and then I look forward to working with you further on it as well.
02:59I'm not familiar with what specifics in the letter, but I commit to you that I'm open to conversations
03:04and I will work with everyone in this committee and in the Senate to make this country safer,
03:11and that includes expediting the flow of a legitimate trade and travel.
03:15Thank you, and we talked a little bit about this in my office as well,
03:18but obviously the CBB's border security mission is critical.
03:23It's really critical to the safety of our country, and should you be confirmed,
03:27what is your vision for our border operations during your time as commissioner?
03:32Could you restate that?
03:33Sure.
03:33What is your vision for our border operations during your time as commissioner?
03:39Thank you for that question.
03:40My vision for border operations, and this is between the ports and at the ports of entry,
03:45is to make investments, strategic investments, that actually buy time back for our officers and agents
03:51to do things that only a human being can do.
03:53That face-to-face interview.
03:55One of the questions earlier, more in a land-border environment, was about children being trafficked.
04:00The number one way that we've ever identified children being trafficked is by a face-to-face interview,
04:05by slowing down the flow of illegal cross-borders through technology,
04:10through NII at the ports of entry that actually may get us to focus on the real threat vehicles,
04:15the trucks, that frees up the human being to do what only a human being can do.
04:21And I commit to you that if confirmed as commissioner,
04:23that's going to be one of my priorities for any investments,
04:26is we can tie that back to actually man-hours, human-being-hours,
04:30on things that only human beings can do.
04:33I appreciate it.
04:34Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
04:34Thank you, Senator Warnock.
Comments