Portman challenges Homeland Secretary Jeh Johnson on border security, migrant children and visa screening

On Tuesday, U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio), a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, questioned Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson about what steps are being taken to secure porous borders, protect migrant children from human trafficking rings and improve the screening process for visa applicants.
 
This hearing follows up on Portman’s request in February for better information-sharing among federal and local law enforcement to stop terrorism and his questioning in November on what steps are being taken to ensure terrorists do not exploit the U.S. Syrian refugee resettlement program.

Excerpts of Portman’s remarks are below.
 
“We will lose probably 25 people in Ohio this week, 100 people in America today to overdoses. We understand that this heroin is primarily coming from Mexico, over the border… Can you give us a sense of what we can be doing better to intercept these drugs, keep them from coming into the United States and specifically, if you could, what percent of the heroin coming in is apprehended and stopped at the border?

“On the unaccompanied children issue, as you know we held a hearing in the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on this issue. This is where unaccompanied children come in… Sadly, what we found out in our investigation is that some of these children are actually placed, not with sponsors who are family members or surrogate family members, but actual traffickers.

“In a case in Ohio, we had kids from Guatemala who ended up on an egg farm being exploited … Are you aware of this, and two, are you working with HHS to come up with a way to implement legislation that is currently in place which would prohibit these children being placed with traffickers?

“Final question … can you tell us briefly what you’re doing to ensure that this social media is something that is looked at when people are screened?”