Mr. ROGERS. What are your busiest points?

Mr. GREENE. The busiest points for persons would be El Paso, Tex., and the Port of San Diego just north of Tijuana.

Mr. ROGERS. Would this lead to the conclusion that you probably have more problems at these two with drugs than any other?"

Mr. GREENE. I think that the customs consider they have more problems at the Port of San Diego than any other land border port.

Mr. ROGERS. Is it true you have confiscated about twice as much in contraband drugs as the Customs people?

Mr. GREENE. The Immigration service? No, I don't believe that figure. I hear it bandied around.

Mr. ROGERS. I had heard that, and I wondered about it.

Mr. GREENE. If the total that is published by the Bureau of Customs is accurate, our seizures wouldn't be twice theirs. If you deduct our marihuana seizures from the totals reported, I think it would average out that our seizures have been less than half as large as theirs-about 40 percent.

Mr. ROGERS. If you would let us have those specific figures, I think it would be helpful.

Mr. SYMINGTON. And perhaps a chart showing the progress made over the last 5 or 10 years.

Mr. GREENE. We will try to get that.

(The following information was received for the record :)

1 Border patrol seizures were not collated prior to July 1, 1968. Does not include seizures or referrals by immigration inspectors at ports of entry.

2 Includes seizures or referrals by immigration inspectors at ports of entry.

Mr. ROGERS. Now, you have already said you have a shortage of manpower and you are getting 140 men. What did the agency actually request in manpower?

Mr. GREENE. Mr. Chairman, I can't really tell you that, because I am not in the budget area.

Mr. ROGERS. Let us know what was actually requested of the Department and what the Department requested of ŎMB.

Mr. GREENE. All right.

(The following information was received for the record:)

Mr. ROGERS. You mentioned you are using some radar. Are there any other electrical devices or electronic devices you are using?

Mr. GREENE. We are using electronic devices, but we are not using radar at the present time. These are sensor devices that we have installed in various border areas to detect cars traveling on back roads and persons walking through fields.

Mr. ROGERS. How many work visas are now outstanding, would you estimate?

Mr. GREENE. Do you mean the certifications?

Mr. ROGERS. Yes, the work certifications that allow them to come across the border. Isn't it a work certification?

Mr. GREENE. Are you referring to the commuter?

Mr. ROGERS. I presume so.

Mr. GREENE. There are about 37,000 that are generally referred to as commuters who are living in Mexico and who work in the United States.

Mr. ROGERS. Now, is there a work visa?

Mr. GREENE. Sometimes it is so characterized.

If I may make a clarification, these are aliens who have been admitted to the United States as immigrants to work or to live. They have decided that for some reason or another they want to live in Mexico. They go back and live in Mexico, and then they continue to work in the United States.

Mr. ROGERS. What about when a person is allowed to come in to work? How many of those have been issued, do you know?

Mr. GREENE. I think last year it rounded out to about 350,000 aliens, whom we refer to as immigrants.

Mr. ROGERS. Yes; but the total that are outstanding that are in effect. Is it near some 10 million?

Mr. GREENE. Applications pending with the State Department for aliens who wish to come in?

Mr. ROGERS. No; for those who already came into the country.

Mr. GREENE. At our last registration, which took place in January 1971 we registered approximately 3.7 million permanent residents of United States.

Mr. ROGERS. Do those work permits expire?

Mr. GREENE. An immigrant's permit does not expire. Now, there are some aliens who come here on a temporary basis and who are admitted for periods of 6 months or a year. Sometimes they get an extension. Those do expire.

Mr. ROGERS. Have you had any problem with these being counterfeited?

Mr. GREENE. We have had problems of our documents being counterfeited, yes, sir. All types of them, except the immigrant visas. The cards which they carry and which they use for crossing the border, have been counterfeited.

Mr. ROGERS. Has there been any thought given to changing this to where they are tamperproof?

Mr. GREENE. Yes; it is under study right now. We would also like to make it into a card which would be read electronically or a magnetic type of card.

Mr. ROGERS. What is the estimate of the number of people you actually apprehend coming across the border as to those you may feel that may get across without being apprehended?

Mr. GREENE, Mr. Chairman, I scrupulously avoid trying to estimate how many aliens get by us. Last fiscal year we apprehended nearly 300,000 Mexicans, approximately 50 percent of whom were caught within 72 hours, while another 25 percent were caught within 30 days, of entry.

Mr. ROGERS. How would you characterize the people you have caught with the drugs? In other words, have there been big hauls or small? Do they appear to work for syndicates, or are they small amounts, which would indicate they are dealing on their own? Can you generalize in those?

Mr. GREENE. I would find it difficult to generalize. We found some fairly large loads of marihuana; whether it was an organized effort is unknown to us.

I assume that some of the larger seizures that we made and referred to customs had some organization behind them.

Mr. ROGERS. What about the heroin?

Mr. GREENE. As I have said earlier, these referrals were primarily by our inspectors at ports of entry-few individual seizures were large. I would suspect that the more sizable ones were organized efforts. Mr. ROGERS. As I understood, you say you no longer maintain boats or airplanes in Miami?

Mr. GREENE. That is correct, sir.

Mr. ROGERS. Do you think this should be reviewed and perhaps expand that effort?

Mr. GREENE. Mr. Chairman, the reason we don't have boats or planes there is our studies and intelligence reports do not indicate that aliens are being smuggled into the United States in that vicinity. Our funding is for prevention of alien smuggling. If we were given the responsibility for prevention of contraband smuggling in that area we would need to have both boats and planes.

I think the customs are expanding their effort considerably, and I think they would have a boat operation in that area.

Mr. ROGERS. We will go into that with customs.

Now, let me ask you, suppose there is a conflict between you and customs. Who resolves it?

Mr. GREENE. At the present time?

Mr. ROGERS. Yes.

Mr. GREENE. If it gets up to me it is resolved by a telephone call to Commissioner Ambrose or Mr. Smith.

Mr. ROGERS. Suppose the two of you can't. Then where does it go? Who is the final arbiter for any disagreement between immigration

and customs?

Mr. GREENE. I would think it would go to the Department of Justice. It would go to the Deputy Attorney General's office or the Attorney General.

Mr. ROGERS. Could his decision be binding on customs?

Mr. GREENE. You are getting into an area I am not sure of.

Mr. ROGERS. I won't press you. I understood from Ingersoll in his testimony that he said that the Attorney General did have that authority to settle any disagreement between customs and immigration and not the Secretary of the Treasury nor even a consultative position for the Secretary of the Treasury.

Mr. GREENE. I understand the Attorney General is the final authority on the drug enforcement effort.

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you so much. We appreciate your presence here today.

Mr. GREENE. We will furnish the information as soon as we can put it together.

Mr. ROGERS. The committee stands adjourned until 10 o'clock tomor row morning.

(Whereupon, at 12:05 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Wednesday, July 28, 1971.)

SPECIAL ACTION OFFICE FOR DRUG ABUSE

PREVENTION

WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 1971

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT,
COMMITTEE ON INTERSTATE AND FOREIGN COMMERCE,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to notice, in room 2322, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Paul G. Rogers (chairman) presiding.

Mr. ROGERS. The subcommittee will come to order, please.

We are continuing testimony on the proposals to meet the drug abuse problem in the Nation.

Our first witness this morning is the Honorable Claude Pepper, our distinguished colleague and my colleague from Florida, who has rendered distinguished service in the Senate and House and particularly has given great attention to this whole problem through his Crime Committee.

We are very pleased to have you with us, and I am sure the committee will benefit from the testimony you will give us today. It is a real pleasure to welcome you to the committee.

STATEMENT OF HON. CLAUDE PEPPER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA; ACCOMPANIED BY PAUL PERITO, CHIEF COUNSEL, SELECT COMMITTEE ON CRIME

Mr. PEPPER. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would like to have, if I may, the Honorable Paul Perito, the chief counsel for the Select Committee on Crime, with me at the table.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much for your kind introduction. To you and the members of the committee, I wish to extend my very deep thanks for the privilege of appearing here before your distinguished subcommittee this morning.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I have a prepared statement which, by your leave, I would like to offer for the record, and then I would like to summarize orally certain portions.

Mr. ROGERS. Without objection, your full statement will be made a part of the record following your summary presentation.

Mr. PEPPER. We all applaud the President for having come to the recognition that drug abuse in this country has, in the language of the President, "assumed the dimensions of a national emergency."