Air Force Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, and Navy Adm. Alvin Holsey, commander of U.S. Southern Command, testify at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington, February 13, 2025. The topics include the Northcom and Southcom postures, 2026 fiscal year defense authorization requests and future years defense programs.

Transcript

We’re joined by General, um, Gregory Gi. Thank you for being here from Northern Command and Admiral Alvin Holsey from Southern Command. The United States faces the most dangerous security environment it has entered since World War II. We know about the threats in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, but we must not lose sight of threats in our own hemisphere. Both of these commanders face an increasingly complex set of actors who seek to harm Americans and undermine our interests. The Chinese Communist Party has exploited our poorest southern border to facilitate the trafficking of fentanyl and other deadly drugs. Beijing has brazenly violated US airspace. It has borrowed its cyber payloads into core US telecommunications infrastructure and spread its predatory economic practices to South America. China, Russia, and North Korea pose an increasing nuclear and conventional threat to key US cities, not to be outdone. Iran continues to try to kill Americans on our own soil. General Gio, I would like to hear your updates in three key areas. First, border security is a priority for the president, and I agree with his decision to declare a national emergency at the southern border. President Trump has asked you to deliver an updated plan to ensure border security. He’s also directed you to assist law enforcement in its security and deportation operations. DOD has a lot to offer to support law enforcement. The. 2022 national defense strategy. Published by President Biden listed homeland defense as the military’s first priority. So this is bipartisan. It is clear that the American people do believe that border security is national security. I look forward to hearing from you on your work in this area. Second, President Trump has asked you to contribute to a new plan for homeland air and missile defense. I would welcome your insights in this effort. Please tell us where in your opinion new investments should be targeted. Do they involve updating our ground-based radars and building out new missile warning satellites?

Perhaps they involve developing the most cost effective methods of intercepting incoming crews and ballistic missiles. Third, you have led on the development of a new strategy for countering drones here in the homeland. My friend and ranking member, Jack Reed, held a great classified briefing on the Langley incursions. There have been numerous similar incidents since, since all of them troubling. Senators Cotton and Gillibrand are working together on ways to counter drones. I would appreciate your comments on how we can be more effective in this space. Tell us what new authorities you need. Admiral Halsey, I would appreciate an update from you on how your adversaries are using economic coercion in key Latin American against key Latin American partners. The CCP aims to drive a wedge between US between the US and our neighbors. China hopes to reverse long standing policy recognizing Taiwan’s independence, and it wants our allies to look the other way as it builds so-called gray zone dual use. Civil military infrastructure. Beijing is also trying to force our friends to rely on Huawei for telecommunications even as numerous Latin American leaders have adopted this CCP controlled TikTok app. We need to look no further than the Panama Canal. President Trump has rightly expressed concern about the PRC state-owned port infrastructure on either end of this vital maritime artery. Those PRC facilities pose a risk to the free flow of US flag merchant ships and US naval vessels. This issue must be addressed. There are additional troubling PRC developments in the SOCOM region. The PRC has leased a spaceport. In the remote Patagonia region of Argentina. That perch provides the communist Chinese with unprecedented surveillance capabilities in our own hemisphere. Since at least 2019, Beijing has operated a spy base out of Cuba and has done so with impunity. Just last year in Lima, Peru, a PRC state-owned power company purchased the city’s entire power grid. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping presided over the opening of a Chinese funded deep water port. Just north of Lima, which is capable of holding PRC warships. So Emeral Hosey, I would like for you to update this committee on how you are integrating military and non-military tools to fight. Against these predatory techniques, despite the significant and growing security threats in the region, SOCOM is consistently under-resourced. To fulfill its many critical national security missions, I, I look forward to hearing from you about how these resource constraints, um, are affecting SOCOM. I would also like to learn how innovative solutions like the Office of Strategic Capital. Can be leveraged to close this resource gap. Again, I thank our witnesses for being here and for their earlier meetings with members of this committee, and I now recognize my friend and the distinguished ranking member of the committee, Senator Reid. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and let me join you in welcoming, uh, General Gregory Gio, uh, the commander of Northcom, and Admiral Alvin Halsey to today’s posture hearing the commander of the US Southcom. Gentlemen, over the past month, both of your commands have been ordered to conduct new missions in support of US border security and immigration enforcement. President Trump has deployed over 2000 active duty soldiers and Marines to supplement the 2500 guard members and reservists already deployed to the southern border and has directed Northcom to seal the southern border. Additionally, last week, President Trump ordered the Defense Department to expand. The Department of Homeland Security’s migrant operations center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to accommodate up to 30,000 migrants and to begin transporting migrants via military aircraft to that facility. Thus far I understand that around 100 migrants have been transported to Guantanamo, at least half of whom are being detained. Not at the migrant operation center, but at the detention center where alleged and convicted international war criminals are also housed. Border security and immigration enforcement is critical to our national security. But Guantanamo Bay is a dubious location to detain immigrants. The detention center has only been used for law of war detainees, and it is unfortunate to equate immigrants with international war criminals. Further, the facilities at Guantanamo are in poor condition and are extremely understaffed. The US military, which is already stretched for resources, is now spending millions of dollars to use military aircraft and burning thousands of hours of military personnel time for these operations. While a naval station in Guantanamo does prepare for mass migration operations. These operations are for saving people. Leaving dire situations in Cuba or Haiti on unsafe craft, not moving individuals already in the United States to a place where the status of their rights is ambiguous, I have questions about the legality of this operation, and I’m concerned that this is part of a broader effort by President Trump. To militarize immigration enforcement, I hope the President and Secretary Hier will use common sense, follow the law, and stop spending significant amounts of taxpayers’ dollars on performative deportation activities. General Guillo, Admiral Halsey, I would like to know how these immigration force missions are impacting the readiness of your forces. Specifically, I would ask for your estimates of the course personnel. And resources required thus far and any concerns you have about the limitations you have to continue conducting such operations, particularly in light of your other critical missions. Indeed, US Northern Command is key to our national security, as the principal command for protecting the American homeland. As we consider threats from China and other competitors, our very concept of homeland defense must evolve. General Gio Northcom publishes its homeland defense policy guidance to address this challenge, and we ask for an update on the status of its implementation and how it will transform the homeland defense plans of the department. The urgency of this mission has been made clear with the recent incursion of drones and unidentified aerial phenomenon in our airspace. America’s skies and seas must be secure to protect our citizens, and the department must pursue technologies that provide adequate detection. The Trump administration has proposed an Iron Dome program for North America and issued an executive order to develop additional defenses against crews, ballistic, and hypersonic missiles. I would note that many of these efforts have already been underway by the missile defense agency for years, and that the concept of space-based interceptors that President Trump is interested in has been debated and tested at enormous financial cost without significant promise. General Guillo, I would ask for an update on how the Homeland missile defense mission is proceeding and your view on how a space-based interceptor system could affect Russia’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon in space. Turning to Southern Command and will hold it, your command faces growing challenges from China and Russia in Latin America. The political and economic instability in the region presents a situation that our adversaries are seeking to exploit to increase their own influence. China in particular is expanding its presence in the region, including through investments in strategic infrastructure, 5G telecommunications, and an expanding network of space tracking installations. Admiral, you testified last year that the PRC and Russia are strategic competitors who seek to undermine democracy while gaining power and influence in the region and that partnerships are our best deterrents to countering shared security and economic concerns, but that for now the US remains a trusted partner or the trusted partner. US international development programs strengthen US partnership in the region which advance US national security objectives. Now that USAID has been dismantled, I am interested in your assessment of whether the US will remain the partner of choice in your AOR or whether China and Russia will use this as an opportunity to gain further inroads with our partners. I’m also interested in your assessment of how we might work strategically with our partners in the region to build resilience against these activities. SOCOM, like Northcom, continues to work closely with the US interagency to support counter-narcotics and countertransnational criminal organizations or TCO missions. I am concerned about the growing threats from TCOs and synthetic opioid trafficking, including fentanyl, which are contributing to more than 100,000 overdose deaths each year in the United States. Admiral, I would ask for an update on SOHCOM’s work with partner nations and other US government agencies in counter-narcotic and counter TCO efforts, giving SOTHCOM’s limited force posture and resources. Finally, we know that insecurity throughout Southcom area is contributing to the flow of migrants north to the US border. Economic instability, violence, and corruption continue to be a major source of insecurity in much of the region, especially in the northern triangle countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Admiral Holsing, I would like to know your views on what more can be done to help improve the situation and strengthen our broader security throughout the region. Thank you again to our witnesses. I look forward to your testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. And we’re now ready for testimony from our witnesses before we begin, uh, as members know, there are votes, 2 votes beginning at 10 a.m., um, and, uh, I will, um, I’ll, we’ll keep the hearing going. Um, when the vote begins, I’ll, I’ll try to run over very quickly and come right back. In the meantime, uh, a, a member of, uh, 0, 10:30, OK, um, uh, uh, a member of our committee will, uh, will preside and we’ll keep going. So, uh, we are ready to begin testimony. General Gio, you are recognized with the thanks of the committee. Thank you, thank you, Chairman Wicker, Ranking Member Reid and distinguished members of the committee. It’s my honor to command the men and women of North American Aerospace Defense Command and United States Northern Command. I’m also pleased to appear alongside my US SOCOM shipmate Admiral Bull Halsey. It’s I’d like to highlight three trends in particular that uh NORAD and Northcom. Faced with direct implications for homeland defense, first is the growing cooperation between China, Russia, North Korea and Iran to challenge the United States. While their cooperation does not approach the level of complete integration demonstrated by the United States and Canada, their transfer of weapons, military technology, and basing access is cause for significant concern. The associated risks to North America have also grown as the number of Russian bomber incursions into the Alaska and Canadian air defense identification zones has returned to levels not seen since before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Russian navy surface and subsurface vessels conducted out of area deployments off both US coasts, including in the vicinity of Alaska. Second, evolving technologies demand that NORAD and Northcom rapidly adjust our defense posture. Small uncrewed aircraft systems or UAS proliferate the open market and in the hands of malign actors pose a growing threat to safety and security. Likewise, as competitors continue to target US networks and critical infrastructure and cyberspace, a whole of government effort is increasingly necessary to mitigate potential harm. Finally, non-state actors continue to target our homeland. Radical Islamic terrorist groups have rejuvenated attack planning and anti-American rhetoric intended to inspire lone wolf attacks like the daily New York New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans, and transnational criminal cartels based in Mexico threaten US territorial integrity and the safety of our citizens. With that strategic backdrop, homeland defense is our command’s top priority and essential task, and in mindset and action, nobody waits on NORAD or NORTHCO. The mantra proved true over the last year as the command’s planning and preparation generated swift and effective responses to competitor actions, major disasters, and emerging requirements. Over the past 12 months, NORAD and Northcom intercepted joint Russian and Chinese bombers off the Alaska coast, tracked Russian surface vessels off both coasts, detected and assessed numerous North Korean missile launches, tracked multiple Chinese dual use military and research vessels in the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean, supported Americans in needed following Hurricane Helene and wildfires in California. Posture to support uh Hurricane Milton response, deployed troops and unique military capabilities such as airborne ISR along the US southern border, illuminated transnational criminal networks, deployed military personnel to assist US Secret Service in securing 195 presidential campaign events, and improved defensive capabilities against all threats ranging from ICBMs to small drones. Looking forward, Nora and Northcom modernization is crucial to our outpacing our competitors. Establishing a layered domain awareness network from seabed to space to detect and track threats approaching North America is critical to immediate and future mission requirements because you can’t defeat what you can’t see. To that end, I appreciate the department and congressional support for fielding. All domain capabilities such as airborne moving target indicator satellites over the horizon radars, the E7 wedge tail, and an integrated undersea surveillance system. Defending our borders, establishing a continental missile shield, protecting critical infrastructure and force projection capability, and safeguarding our citizens will require the best our nations have to offer, and I’m grateful to the committee for your ongoing support of NORAD and Northcom’s vital missions. Thank you again for the opportunity to appear today, and I look forward to your questions. We have the watch. Thank you, General Admiral Holsey, you’re recognized. Chairman Wicker, ranking member Reid, distinguished members of the committee, I’m humbled to appear before you today as the thirty-third commander of the United States Southern Command. We are a war fighting organization, and I’ve moved forward to lead this command service members, civilians, contractors, and their families as we foster democracy, security, shared prosperity throughout the Western Hemisphere. I’m honored to testify alongside General Gio as the relationship between NorthCOM and SOCOM is vital to the safety and security of our homeland. The United States and our partners in Latin America and the Caribbean are linked together not simply by history and geography but by family bonds, cultural traditions, security, and economic cooperation, and a steadfast devotion to democratic values. This enduring commitment to these values is a cornerstone of our collective partnership. Together we seek to achieve lasting security, stability, and prosperity throughout the Americas. Today this vision is imperiled by a host of threats. These threats include strategic competition from China and Russia, the impact of transnational criminal organizations, the complex transboundary challenges such as irregular migration, natural disasters, eroding democracies, food and water insecurity. China is our pacing threat and continues to its methodical encouraging to our shared neighborhood, wilding diplomatic, informational, military, and economic influence to export its authoritarian model to the region. Most focus to the east and west when they think of great power competition. A look to our South reveals that China has already established a strong presence. Its predatory and opaque investment practices, resource extraction, and potential due use projects from ports to space threaten the security and sovereignty of our partners while jeopardizing the United States’ national security. Simultaneously Russia supports like-minded regimes like Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela using disinformation, military engagements, arms sales force projection. Moscow is now attempting to undermine the United States’ leadership, interests and influence in the region. Meanwhile, TCOs continue to fuel instability throughout the region. They exploit the permissive environment and engage in brutal violence, illicit trafficking, and other criminal activities to undermine the rule of law and disrupt the legitimate government functions, and they’re having devastating effects which are spill over into our homeland, destroying lives. Border security is a concern for us all. SOCOM recently stood up. Joint Task Force served the guard in at Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay. In support of the Department of Homeland Security to provide safe and humane care of illegal aliens until they are returned to their countries of origin. Our time is now deliberate and meaningful action to address these threats is required. Well this region, our neighborhood, will continue to change. Partnerships are our most effective approach to countering shared security and economic concerns that enable our enduring trust in the region. However, we cannot take this for granted. To be a trusted partner, we must be credible, present, and engaged. During my tenure at SOFCOM, I’ve witnessed how enduring presence builds trust. As a result, partners prefer to work with us over China, Russia, and other nations to overcome their most pressing challenges. SOFCOMs continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with our partners. We have and will continue to respond rapidly to crises in any form. Together with our partners, we’re building their cap building capacity to mitigate, respond, and recover from our collective threats. Sustained investment and security cooperation, joint exercises, disaster assistance among other initiatives enable us to innovate and deliver at the point of need as this department sharpens its war fighting edge. I’m grateful for the continued support of Congress today. This vital support to defending the democratic principles and interests that underpins the stability, prosperity in the region. And ultimately the security of our nation. Thank you again, Chairman Wicker, thank you Me Reed and members of the committee for this opportunity. I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much for your testimony. Um, let’s get started, uh, quickly, General Gio, uh, you, you can see from Senator Reed, uh, and, uh, me, we’re, we’re interested in, uh, in, um, the executive order to renew America’s aging missile defense architecture. So, um, I’ll jump right in there. So how are we gonna do this?

uh, what are the options?

What are your top, uh, priorities with respect to upgrading our air and missile defenses, what role do you see space-based capabilities in this effort and is our industrial base primed to execute this mission?

So what are your top priorities?

Chairman, the, uh, top priority in that uh in our efforts to meet the direction of the executive order is first and foremost to establish uh increased domain awareness. Uh, as I mentioned in the opening comments, you can’t defeat what you can’t see, and the adversaries have an increasing capability of, uh, reaching us and threatening us from ranges beyond what uh some of our current, uh, systems can detect and track. So the first layer of any uh approach to uh defending uh the the United States or North America uh from the uh NORAD perspective would be a a sensor layer from seabed to space of systems that uh can detect threats uh from a further distance. Uh, those are seabed ground based airbase such as the E7 and then space based systems for detecting tracking and warning. Inside of that I think we build on our existing uh GBI and NGI capabilities, the ground-based interceptors and next generation interceptors to defeat uh intercontinental ballistic missiles. Let me interject uh on the sensor layer. How soon can we get there?

Uh, Chairman, some of those, uh, capabilities are right on the edge. Uh, others are probably 3 to 5 years out, but I think, uh, within inside of a year we could have a significant capability that could network those into a single uh sensing grid. All right, well then, then go ahead uh on if you’ve got anything to say about space-based or our industrial base capabilities, uh, chairman, cooperation with the industrial uh base is is critical, uh, so they can keep pace with. Uh, not only our requirements, but those requirements are based on the capabilities of the adversaries which are rapidly increasing, so I can’t emphasize enough the need to develop systems and move them left on the timeline to field them more quickly to achieve our goal. OK, and, um, again, the, uh, ranking member and I spoke about fentanyl deaths. The estimate I have is more than 225,000 Americans are estimated to have been killed because of fentanyl overdoses, um, from 2021 to 2023. Um, So uh what uh what progress are we making there?

Um, who’s to blame?

I understand. Uh, that, uh, we, we’ve been told in the past there are more Russian GRU spies operating in Mexico City than anywhere in the world. Um, is that true and what’s Northcom doing and needing to do?

Chairman, the, uh, the, the fentanyl crisis is a, is a significant concern to our command. Uh, we have a number of intel analysts that work with the, uh, interagency and lead federal agencies to provide, uh, intelligence that gets after the cartel networks that drive, uh, the production and distribution of fentanyl, uh, and pushes it across the border. Recently we’ve been, uh, permitted to increase our, uh. ISR, our intelligence surveillance and uh reconnaissance to, uh, permitted by Mexico, uh, no, by, uh by the department, sir, um. But uh we do have uh intelligence sharing with Mexico to show them uh what we see and we have increased cooperation with Mexico, uh to go uh address the cartel violence in in terms of, uh, sending more troops and so because time is limited, we had 225,000 in a 3 year space. Are we making any progress now, now it’s 2025. From our perspective. No, I, I wouldn’t say it’s better, but I do think, uh, Chairman, that we have a better foundation now that we’ve increased the intelligence to, to make a rapid progress against this threat. It definitely needs to get better. And so tell us what you need and uh thank you for your efforts. You got 8 seconds. More, uh, more ISR is the first and then, uh, expanded authorities would be required to, uh, uh, more advise and assist types of operations between our forces and the tier one Mexican forces. We want to be your teammate there, Senator Reid. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And General Guillo following along in your questioning of the chairman with respect to the space-based systems and used both for acquisition of targets and perhaps for uh Contact with targets, uh, you need to unfettered access to the expand is that. Fair to say. Senator, uh, to have to properly employ all those systems, we would have to have uninterrupted and complete access to the entire spectrum. And as a result, uh, the proposed spectrum auctions would complicate significantly your ability to carry out that mission, Senator, uh, compromising that part of the spectrum is a significant concern to me and the systems necessary for homeland defense. Thank you, General. And General, also, uh, there’s approximately 2000 active duty personnel now down at the border and, uh. There’s always an opportunity cost, whatever you do, and one of the opportunity costs obviously is the readiness and training of these troops. Are you aware of what training is being missed, deferred, or, uh, ignored because of this deployment?

Senator, first, all of the forces that come to us from the services are extremely well trained, disciplined, and highly qualified. If they are conducting missions that are outside their normal specialty, uh, we have a series of 5 work days, 1 training day, and then 1 day off each week, and in that training day, uh, we prescribe our leadership to make sure that the forces that are operating outside of their standard specialty have the opportunity to train and maintain some of those. Skills some of the other, some of the others such as helicopter pilots and uh some of the infantry are doing work that is already in line with theirs and I think they maintain their readiness. So you know, in a rough metric, uh, uh, 1 out of 5 days it’s, uh, my math is terrible. I went to West Point and so now they’re doing 20% of the uh training they would have done at home base. Uh, uh, yes, sir. Thank you. I didn’t have the privilege of going to Navy or Air Force, so forgive my math, uh. Ahoy, um. Can you give us a a a concise but uh detailed description of your role, SouthCO’s role at Guantanamo’s migrant detention center and the GTF Gitmo, the uh Uh, yes, Senator, so SOCOM, uh, plans and postures has always over the years to conduct migrant operations. Uh, in fact, one of our enduring missions is to plan for a mass migration scenario, uh, on the current situation, what we’re doing is, um, uh, modifying our existing plan to be able to support the migrant ops at JTF, uh, at, at Gippo, the naval station. And uh to provide safe and humane care in support of the Department of Homeland Security. Now to be clear, there are two different sides of the base. One is the naval station, uh, both are naval station Gitmo, but you have the MOC, which is a a migrant operation center where we are actually setting up tents, and then you have JTF Gitmo on the other side of the island which we have the law of war detainees. Uh, now, have you estimated the cost that you’re going to incur DOD Southcom for your operations?

You have to construct facilities for 30,000 individuals, which would include mess halls, which would include the healthcare centers, uh, sanitation provisions, etc. Uh, how much money is that going to cost us?

So right now, sir, we’re in the initial phase of this process, so we’re in a, it’s a tailored approach to get to 30,000 if that is desired. So right now where we stand, we’re in the initial phases, so we’ll get some numbers to you, but right now we’re still building out. We have forces on the ground, and that process is still in place, sir. Thank you. Uh, going back, General Gio, to, uh, the concept of Iron Dome, unlike the Israelis, this is not a missile defense system. This is a system of systems, and, uh, one of the most important aspects of the system, I think you’ve already alluded to is detection, uh, rather than interception. Uh, is that fair?

Senator, I, I agree with you. The, the first and most critical part is the detection capability, and, uh, I met recently with the defense minister from Canada. They are very much interested in participating. They have legal obstacles, but they assume they can jump over them, very much participating in the missile defense system, and their best contribution could be come in what way, sir?

Senator, I, I welcome their participation. I think the first would be to buy into our domain awareness expansion, whether ground-based or space-based, and then further down the line if they get defeat mechanisms, see how they would mesh with our existing, uh, defense mechanisms, defeat mechanisms, uh, in a similar way that we employ fighter aircraft with NORAD, perhaps we could do the same with, uh, missile defeat systems from the ground. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you, sir. Uh, thank you, uh, um, Mr. Ranking member. Perhaps that would be, uh, one way that Canada could begin to meet its NATO, um, requirement is, as far as defense spending as a, uh, portion of, of their GDP. Let me ask both witnesses to move the microphones a little closer and, uh, and then I recognize Senator Fisher and then Senator Shaheen. Thank you Mr. Chairman and thank you, Admiral. Thank you, General, for your service to this country. The work you do is extremely important. Thank you, uh, general. You’re gonna hear I think a lot about uh spectrum because here in the Senate we’re discussing that and general you were um talking about um that many think that the Iron Dome for America is similar to what we see in Israel uh it is not. It is not, uh, what we’re looking at is you said we can’t defeat what we can’t see, so we have to be able to increase domain awareness. An increasing domain awareness means that we need additional radars, um, terrestrial, airborne, space-based, underwater you hit that in your opening comments. I’m trying to hit it more here to make, to make a point, uh, not just with the media but with my colleagues as well. All of those systems depend on spectrum, the spectrum that the Department of Defense has, is that true?

Yes, Senator, that’s exactly correct. Can can those systems function if if there’s a lot of noise, which means additional users close by, uh, and creating a lot of noise. No, Senator, we have to have complete control of the spectrum to operate our systems effectively, and operating those systems effectively means protecting the homeland, correct?

Yes, ma’am. That’s the purpose for all of our systems. It all centers on homeland defense. Thank you. To move to a different topic, General, um, you predicted during the posture hearing last year that Chinese and Russian aircraft, you said that they flew a mission into Alaska air defense identification zone. Do you assess that the United States will see more of this from China, whether it’s aircraft or ships or submarines?

Senator, I do think that they’ll increase their presence both uh independently as well as increased cooperation with the Russians in the air, in the maritime and under sea. And in that cooperation um with the Russians, what do you worry about the most?

What I worry about the most is that uh instead of just weapons and technology that they will trade access which would shorten our timelines to react to uh either country’s military capabilities. Are there any authorities or capabilities that um North Northcom and NORAD would need in order to protect your AOR?

Senator, the, the most important capability we would need is the improved domain awareness, uh, to allow us to see at further ranges as the military capabilities improved by the adversaries. We have to match that with our detection capability at this time. I don’t, I do not lack any authorities. Uh, Admiral, since you took over command, uh, late last year, what is your assessment of China’s long-term strategic, uh, objectives in your AOR?

Thank you, Senator. The, uh, PRC has continued to do their expanding their economic engagement to, uh, having more influence and diplomatic and, uh, political influence in the in the region, and they’re continuing with the Belt and Road initiative, uh, throughout, uh, currently 22 countries are members of the Belt and Road Initiative. And so they continue to go down this path. The state owned enterprises, the Huawei hold the all nine yards. So that’s just one aspect of it. The aspect is more critical to me as a military officer is the military view, right?

So right now when I think about, uh, uh, deep water ports, uh, dual use sites, facilities, so deep water ports support of Chang Kai in Peru. I think about the space enabling infrastructure. Uh, throughout the AR, at least 10 PRCs linked space sites across 5 countries in the region. Then you get into the 5G, the Huawei, right?

You get into the, uh, the safe city technologies, so they continue to do this, and when our partners, uh, use Huawei and and safe City technology, now they’re they’re having threat of having Chinese technology on their critical. For infrastructure. So again we have to continue to block them out and find ways to deliver for our partners and so I do that by engaging security cooperation as well as trying to make sure from an economic standpoint working throughout the region and working with uh the Office of Security uh uh Strategic Capital Exim Bank, and others to find ways to block out the PRC. Thank you, thank you both. Senator Shaheen and then Cotton. Thank you both for being here and for your service to the country, uh, General Gio, um, I’m not sure if any resources are coming from the operations in your area of responsibility to address some of the flights that have been transporting migrants out of the country, but I understand that last week an Air Force C-17 transported 104 migrants from the United States to India. That flight cost the American taxpayers $2.5 million and I understand that we’re currently spending nearly $30,000 an hour for every deportation flight that’s being run by the military when Homeland Security used to charter flights like these at less than 1/3 of the cost or $8500 an hour, doesn’t seem to me like a very effective use of. Our dollars, um, given the needs that you and Admiral Halsey talked about in terms of um what you um require for additional resources to address the threats facing the country. So can I ask, are you seeing any of the impacts of those costs yet on NorthCO’s, um. Budget and um. Do you Do you know how those costs are being paid?

Senator, I have not seen any impact at this point, but I’ll remain transparent with the committee if I do feel strained in that area. Uh, as you alluded to at the beginning, uh, those flights are flown by US Transom, so we coordinate with the border patrol to have the, uh, the migrants available, uh, but we do not operate those flights. Um, and do you know if Transcom is, if that’s, those flights are coming out of Transcom’s budget?

Ma’am, I can’t say for sure, but, but I assume they are. Um Mr. Chairman, I, I would hope that this committee would um request information about the cost of those flights and why we’re doing them from, why the military is doing them as opposed to doing them the way we used to at 1/3 the cost. Thank you for that suggestion, Senator. Admiral Halsey, over the last year, we’ve actually seen an almost 15% decrease in drug overdose deaths, um, Illegal drugs, however, as you pointed out and General Gio pointed out, are still killing nearly 90,000 Americans every year. Um, both of your commands rely on partnerships with governments and militaries in the region to help stop the flow of illegal drugs. So can you talk, um, Admiral Halsey in particular about um whether you’re seeing any impact of the. Stop on our foreign assistance in countries in Latin America on the willingness of those countries to cooperate and then are you seeing or do you see the concern that China may move in in some of those areas where um our presence has is being discontinued?

Sara, thank you for that. China continues to look, uh, incredibly hard at every opportunity to come in and engage, so we can’t take that for granted with regard to our partners in engaging, uh, in the, in the kind of drug piece they’re they’re very resilient, uh, some. Or our training that do the security cooperation, the exercises specifically focus on uh the counter drug uh flight fight. If you look into the uh Eastern Pacific right now, uh, in the 1st, 90 days, I’m sorry, since the 1st of January we’ve already, uh. uh, uh, interdict the 50 metric tons of cocaine, right, and, and actually arrested, uh, 84 detainees. So again, when you think about this piece, uh, our partners are with us, so 80% of our, uh, interdiction last year was done by our partners use actually a ship special mission. We actually bring out interceptors from our partners along with us and get after the fight. So they’re all in with us. So I’d like to continue to do that security operation. I haven’t seen any impacts at this point, but we’ll look and I’ll be, uh, happy to let the community know. Thank you. And General Gio, as you’re looking at um the challenges with our northern border. Are, are you finding Canada willing to cooperate in all of the ways that um are important as we’re looking at the interdiction of drugs and other illegal activities across our border?

Yes, Senator, I am. I find that the uh my counterparts in Canada are very open to, uh, planning, uh, potential, uh, partnering on the northern border to, to, uh, detect illegal crossings both ways, uh, in the future. And, and Canada has developed a plan to address their commitments to NorthCO. Um, are you seeing that beginning to be built out at this point, or is all that all still in the future?

And did we participate in the development of that plan?

Senator, they’re very collaborative on uh defining the NORAD requirements, and their NORAD modernization is at the very beginning stages. We are seeing, uh, improved F-18 radars and missile capabilities already. Uh, the next step we’ll see is the arrival of the F-35 in the next two years. Uh, so they’re well on the track, but we do have some immediate, uh, improvements with their F-18s. Great, thank you. Thank you both. Again, I’m looking forward to our friends in Canada, um. Fulfilling their commitment to NATO, Senator Cotton. Thank you gentlemen. Uh, General Dio, as the chairman mentioned his opening statements, I have legislation with Senator Gillibrand to address the drone threat here in America. We seem to have drones just flying around everywhere, uh, and many times people don’t know what’s going on, most notably in the public eye late last year in New Jersey. Um, this is also happening around our military bases a lot. Um, you’ve had drone incursions over Joint Base Langley, Wright Pat Air Force Base, Vandenberg Space Force Base, Picatinny Arsenal, Anderson Air Force Base. Could you explain to us briefly, um, what is the threat that these drones pose to US military operations, facilities and personnel?

Senator, the, the primary threat I see for them, uh, in the way they’ve been operating is detection and, uh, perhaps surveillance of sensitive capabilities on our installations. And um and that’s all installation not just super sensitive ones like nuclear sites it it could be our fighter bases or army bases or or naval bases or what have you. Uh, yes sir, there, there were 350 detections, uh, reported last year on military installations, and that was, uh, 350 over a total of 100 different installations of all types and levels of security, but it’s the case right now that that only at certain sites which you might call the super sensitive. Sites like nuclear bases, do commanders have the authority to protect their airspace from these drone incursions?

That’s correct, Senator. We call those uh covered installations and not all the in about, uh, half are covered, which sounds crazy to me and I, I think most Americans would think it, it doesn’t show a lot of common sense. I mean base commanders at every base around America that they have the authority and they have the capability. To protect their perimeters, say if some terrorists got a dump truck and drove it through the front gate or we’re trying to breach the perimeter fence, we would expect base commanders to protect their base with force if necessary. Is that correct?

That’s correct, sir, and, and I would, I would propose and, and advocate for expansion of 130 I to include all military installations, not just covered installations. I’m glad to hear you say that because I have legislation to do just that, the counteract with Senator Gillibrand that again would give these commanders the legal authority they need plus the capability required to protect their bases from these kinds of incursions and then hold them accountable for doing so is that exactly what you’re advocating for?

That is, sir, and if I could add, I’d also like to. The uh the range expanded to slightly beyond the installation so they don’t have to wait for the threat to get over the installation before they can address it because many of these systems can use side looking or slant range and so they could, they could surveil the base from outside the perimeter and under the current authorities we can’t address that. Even better. Now last year you also said that there were thousands of drone incursions over the southern border and just last week Mexican cartel leaders reportedly were reportedly authorized to use drones equipped with explosives against US border patrol agents. um, now I know that this is primarily a DHS responsibility at the southern border, but do you need authorization for DOD to share information with DHS and the border authorities about these incursions?

Yes, yes, Senator, I would like 1301 to be expanded to allow a seamless exchange of data on drones. Again, sounds like a great idea. I’m glad that Senator Gillibrand and I have legislation to do just that, and I hope that we can pass into law this year. Uh, thank you, General Admiral. Um, I, I know that the Navy is responsible for Guantanamo Bay, but Southern Command is responsible for some of the operations there to include the operations I gather uh of the violent. Illegal migrants who were recently transported, could you give us uh a little bit of sense of the security measures in place that protect against any risk of violent criminals and terrorists being held at Gitmo?

Senator, the, the, the JTF Gitmo is a, uh, the detention facility. We have highly trained, uh, military military police who come down on rotation with the, uh, guards force. They’re on a one year rotation. They’re highly qualified. They’ve been trained to do their mission. They’ve been doing it for years, uh, throughout. So again, I think they’re very capable of force and the, uh, and they’re ready to deal with any situation and you’re confident that your personnel are are trained and ready to do that and and are safe in doing so 100%, sir. That’s great because I’m also very confident that it’s much safer. To have depraved savage criminals from other countries waiting at Guantanamo Bay for deportation than it is to have them waiting at a base on the American mainland soil where we hope they’d never be able to cause any problems, but you never know. There are American citizens on those bases and just outside those bases, gentlemen, thank you again both for your appearance. Excellent point, Senator Cotton. Senator Hirono, and then Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, General Giro, the president’s recent missile defense executive order tasks you with providing, and I’m quoting an updated assessment of the strategic missile threat to the homeland, and quote that that is, uh, the president’s direction to you. I remain concerned about the. Viability of DOD strategy to defend Hawaii specifically from missile threats we’re looking at China, North Korea examples will you commit to include the missile defense of Hawaii as part of your assessment?

Senator, I absolutely will. Uh, Hawaii is, uh, and the defense from ballistic missiles of uh for Hawaii is part of my, uh, responsibility. Thank you again for you, General. Last year, the former National Guard Bureau chief testified that the border security mission provides no military training value. To guardsmen, no military training value to guardsmen and does not prepare troops for great power competition. Additionally, a GAO report from 2021 found that multiple units lost critical training opportunities due to deployments to the border. OK. That of course impacts military and operational readiness. General, do you agree with the assessment that these missions provide no military training value to guardsmen?

Senator, I, I, I don’t agree. I think that, uh, specifically in the helicopters and in our intel, uh, specialties that are conducting missions on the southern border, uh, those are exactly in line with their, uh, trained specialty. However, there are, uh, I, I certainly recognize there are areas where they are cross trained and they are not getting immediate, uh, uh, benefit to their primary specialty in in about half of those roles. So your testimony is that that that using uh military troops, our troops at the border, um, but that is not gonna have an impact on on readiness. How many troops are do we have on the border right now and do you expect that number to grow?

Senator, we have, uh, 5000 Title 10 forces on the southern border right now, and I do expect that number to grow. As the ranking member on the readiness committee, I do have concerns about what these kinds of of of troop movements will do to to readiness. What specific military training events and readiness exercises will NORTHCOM forego due to the resource demands of the border mission?

Senator, to this point, uh, none have been altered, and, and we don’t project that we would lose any of our exercises as the forces are provided by the services. Uh, we still have the capabilities to conduct all of our scheduled exercises. Well, the GOA report in 2021 noted that there will be some critical training opportunities that will be lost, and I am going to follow up with you as to whether that is also what is happening for Admiral Hay. Uh, in your confirmation hearing last September, you stated that SOFCO’s main campaigning tool is security cooperation utilizing a hollow government approach that includes USAID. How will President Trump’s decision to freeze foreign assistance and dismantle USAID affect SOFCO’s security cooperation mission?

Senator, for right now as we look at the we’re still assessing the impacts of uh USIED I’ll tell you from a military standpoint I still can do my security cooperation at this time. And uh so I look to trade winds exercise right so that’s one we do yearly uh and it focuses on the humanitarian assistance disaster release in the in the Caribbean, right?

So we go out there, we do these missions, we’re training our forces for earthquakes, hurricanes, and the and the like. So those type opportunities give the, uh, our partners a chance to develop their skills for, uh, you know, uh, emergencies or contingencies. I really don’t see how in action like closing USAID, but would not have a negative impact on on on part of your mission. Regarding uh Guantanamo Bay, uh this is uh. Again for Admiral Halsey. SOCOM is responsible for implementing the president’s directive to expand the detention center in Guantanamo Bay to hold 30,000 migrants. Admiral Halse, who are these migrants and where will they be coming from and what is the estimated cost to. Lead the expansion and support of this development Department of Homeland Security mission including food, medical care, construction, and sustainment. We’re talking about a very big, I would say uh infrastructure that we’re gonna need to house 30,000 migrants. Can you explain how all this is happening?

How much it will cost?

How it will impact Southcom’s mission. Briefly running out of time. I’ve run out of time. So very, very briefly from the standpoint of who decides, that’s a DHS mission. They decide who comes to the, uh, the, uh, to, to the base, uh, for the migrant ops. Uh, they decide that point. We just support them. We’re supported, uh, DHS, uh, with regard to the pricing we’re still understanding it. Phase approach right now and so we’re gonna build it up as we understand how large we’ll get we’ll have a better uh focus on the price. So even if it’s DHS, uh, we’re gonna wanna know how much this is actually gonna cost and I know that you were asked Mr. Chairman, thank you, um, about the amount of money that went to. Deporting 104 people to uh India. And whether or not that was appropriate use of your funds. Perhaps the witnesses can take that for the record and and also we’ll have another round uh if we need to then we have the Senator Sullivan and Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, gentlemen, thank you for your testimony. I want to echo what the chairman’s been saying we do need Canada to step up, you know, when they, uh, don’t meet their 2%. Uh, GDP NATO commitments and undermines the entire alliance. So I appreciate the chairman mentioned that General, uh, it was good to meet with you the other day. We had a meeting with senior Trump administration officials just a couple days ago, a number of senators who were focused on the border, and they focused like your testimony a lot on the northern border, which I really appreciate. I have a chart here that depicts a lot of the air and sea incursions that we’ve seen. In the last few years it’s been quite remarkable, particularly the joint Chinese Russian strategic bomber, um, missions into our aid is and the joint Chinese Russian naval task force, quite big, a 12 ship naval task force last summer. President Trump himself commented recently that we need to increase military investments in Alaska as Russia and China make more menacing. Moves in the region, um, that’s a list that’s just an example of all the different, uh, incursions, air and sea, just in the last 3 years, which is quite astounding. General, I wanna. Go a little bit more detail, your troops have done a great job of intercepting these uh strategic bombers by the way, they come with armed Migs, right?

This is a serious incursion, not easy to do. Our navy’s done a good job, although the first time we had that joint Russian, uh, Chinese task force, we didn’t have any navy response, nothing, which was ridiculous in my view, 1150 ft coast guard cutter, but these are difficult missions. Made more difficult, for example, when you’re intercepting um strategic bombers, a lot of times our fighters are having to fly over 1000 miles just to get to the end of the 80s to um. Intercept them. So my question, can you put the other side of the one with the map, the first one with the map. There you go. Um. Do you agree we need more infrastructure?

You and I’ve talked about reopening the airfield and the uh navy base at ADAC, which is out here on the Aleutian Island chain, or Utiavi in Barrow, Alaska to help with the SAR missions. Can you explain that in a little bit more detail?

Admiral Paparo is in agreement with you on this where these incursions are gonna increase. This is America, our northern border, and yet the infrastructure we have for the young men and women who are doing these dangerous intercept missions both at sea and in the air, they need more infrastructure for their safety and for our rapid response. Do you agree with me that they do and would you support reopening the ADA naval base and the uh extension of the barrow runway. Which is way up there in the northern part of America, North America. Senator, I, I do agree with you and, uh, as you mentioned, Admiral Paparo and I are very closely linked and aligned on all issues, uh, in the Pacific. Uh, I, I would support ADDAC for for sure for maritime and air access and as you pointed out dead horse or a point at the far north part of Alaska because those missions aren’t only long, 1000 miles or more with 5 or 6 or 7 air refuelings usually at night. Uh, but also the harsh conditions if, uh, a, a pilot should have to eject, uh, having those four points that that you mentioned uh would allow us to preposition search and rescue aircraft or be able to land there in an emergency, which are capabilities that we just don’t have right now. Great, thank you on that and and again I wanna uh thank the men and women under your command. They do these intercept missions all the time. They’re very tough they’re dangerous. They don’t make a lot of news down here in the lower 48, but they’re doing a great job. Let me turn to missile defense. Senator Cramer and I, uh, recently introduced our Iron Dome Act that reinforces what President Trump’s executive order does. That’s a depiction of that covering the whole, uh, United States with integrated missile defense systems to protect our homeland. I’d love, love to get co-sponsorships from all my colleagues, my 2017 Advancing America’s Missile Defense Act, which pretty much became law in the NDAA at 30. Co-sponsors, 10 Democrats, 20 Republicans, but can I get your sense to first a commitment to work with me and Senator Cramer on that and then you mentioned the NGIs and the ground-based missile interceptors, uh, those are almost all based in Alaska. Why is it taking so long to fill those 20 silos that we just fill out that are needed and can I get your commitment to work with me as part of this Iron Dome Act?

To accelerate that. Senator, you have my full commitment to work with you on the Iron Dome. It’s the core mission of NORAD and NORCO is to defend just as you described there, and you also have my full commitment to work to move all, uh, uh, defense industrial based capabilities to the left to bring these capabilities earlier as our adversaries are advancing their capability, and we must keep pace. Thank you, General. I ask unanimous consent that the three charts. That Senator Sullivan referred to be admitted to the record at this point without without objection so ordered Senator Kaine and then Senator Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chair and thanks to our witnesses for your service, um. This morning I received an email from one of my long standing staff members and um Mark runs constituent services for me and he did so when I was governor as well. Mark graduated in Richmond from JR Tucker High School, kind of looked in the mirror and decided he wasn’t college material yet and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. Uh, Mark served for 4 years as an enlistee in the United States Marine Corps, and it put him on a path. It’s been an amazing path. He finished his Marine service and then went. And got a social work degree at Virginia Commonwealth University and advice to any of my colleagues if you want somebody great in constituent services, pick a Marine with a social work degree. The dogged persistence of the Marines and the skill in working with organizations and listening to people of a social worker Mark exemplifies that. Mark sent me this morning, he reached out to send me this article that appeared on the 10th of January in Military.com. Military drops recruiting efforts at prestigious Black Engineering Awards event. I’d like it entered into the record, Mr. Chair. First two paragraphs of the article here they are. The Army and other service branches are abandoning recruiting efforts at a prestigious black engineering event this week, turning down access to a key pool of highly qualified potential applicants amid President Donald Trump’s purge of diversity initiatives in the military. Until this week, Army Recruiting Command had a long standing public partnership with the Black Engineer of the Year Awards, or BYA, an annual conference that draws students, academics and professionals in science, technology, engineering, and math, also known as STEM. The event which takes place in Baltimore has historically been a key venue for the Pentagon to recruit talent, including awarding ROTC Corps scholarships and pitching military service to rising engineers. Past BA events have included the Army Chief of staff. and the defense secretary, this is one of the most talent event, dense events we do. One army recruiter told Military.com on the condition that their name not be used. Our footprint there has always been significant. We need the talent. My staffer Mark said to me when he sent me this article, I would never have served in the military if there weren’t men and women who looked like me in the recruiting process. Limiting military recruitment to avoid qualified black applicants in the name of DEI will ultimately hurt our all voluntary military. I was intending to ask questions about NorthCO and SouthCO until I got Mark’s email this morning. Intentionally avoiding an event chock full of STEM talent and engineers because it happens to be a draw for black engineers is more than an anti-DEI initiative. It is an intentional effort to avoid certain kinds of people in recruiting. The article goes on to say it’s not just the army that has pulled out of this event all the service branches have pulled out of this event. And I just want to put this on the record. Two things happened on January 30th that I found very unusual. The President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, did what every president since Gerald Ford has done on January 30th. He declared February Black History Month. And on January 31st, the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, put out a directive, identity months are dead at DOD. That that was not the newspaper headline summarizing the directive. That was the directive from the Secretary of Defense. Identity months are dead at DOD including Black History Month. So we have two events on January 31st. We have the president and commander in chief issuing the standard Black History Month proclamation for the nation, but apparently at DOD it’s different. At DOD, Black History Month is dead. At DOD we won’t go and recruit engineers who happen to be black to come in and serve at a time when we need more people serving in the military and all of our service branches are struggling with attracting talent. There’s a lot of issues dealing with NorthCO and SOCOM. I’m glad my colleague, um, Senator Cotton asked about UAS’s. I had a whole series of questions I wanted to ask about Haiti and other SOCOM priorities. Admiral Halsey, I’m glad we had the chance to talk about those in my office. The United States military has been at the forefront. Of including talent of all kinds. With the actions on January 31, the president acknowledging Black History Month, but within the DOD family now this is dead. I worry that the military will no longer be at the forefront, won’t even be at the average, but will be behind, and that would be a terrible sellout. Of an amazing tradition. That our United States military should be very, very proud of with that, Mr. Chair, I’ll back. Thank you, Senator Kaine. Senator Scott, thank you, Chairman. Uh, thank you for being here. Thank you for all the servicemen and women that, uh, served with you. So all these hearings are important. Uh, this is an important one. I like this one a lot because SOCOM’s here it’s from my home state of, uh, Florida. I was hoping my good friend Dan Sullivan with Senator Sullivan was still here because all he talks about is Alaska all the time, so. Um, I’d like, uh, I one thing I would always like is if people understood the risk we’re having in, um, in Latin America, and I think we have to put more effort into it. I know Admiral Halsey, we talked about that, uh, yesterday, and I know you’re focused on it. So after years of Joe Biden’s open border crisis wreaking havoc on our domestic security, with millions of illegal alien encounters at our border and appeasement dangers of dangerous regimes, the safety of our nation and communities are top of mind, I think for all of us. I think you have a very important job. uh, here as we bring back peace through strength, um, so let me just get to the questions first. General, President Trump recently signed two executive orders, one to seal the southern border, which is right, and another deploying 1500 servicemen and women to the southern border, which none of us hoped he would have to do, but unfortunately he will have to do to secure the border. Can you speak to how the administration is preparing for and do you feel you have the capability to face down the cartels and other US enemies present in Mexico?

Senator, I do think that we have the capability and the support to to meet the requirements established in the executive orders. Uh, as, as you might know, we’ve doubled the number of Title 10 forces inside of a week down there, and they’re operating in 7 roles in support of the Department of Homeland Security and then we’ve also increased some uniquely military capabilities that will get after the the point you made, the cartels which are driving the illegal migration. And that’s primarily through Airborne ISR, uh, to get more information on those and figure out how we can counter their actions. You think there’s any chance you’re gonna need a carrier strike group in the Gulf of America, Senator, at this time I haven’t, uh, gotten to a carrier strike group, but I will need a significant increased maritime presence in cooperation with the, uh, Coast Guard. Are the LCS chips at Mayport helpful at all?

Yes, sir, those would be, uh, those would be right in line with what we’re looking to do in the maritime. Thanks. So Admiral Halley, um, I’ve been up here about a little over 6 years and it seems like, and I think we talked about this a little bit. Indo Paycom and SINOM receive a majority of this committee’s attention and a lot of their assets. Um, I think we’re seeing a little bit of change with that under President Trump. SOCOM’s area of responsibility faces real threats to our national security as we all know we’ve got problems in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and potentially Colombia. Um, so you might need additional assets, especially with what China, Russia, Iran. Uh, are doing in our in the region. Can you talk about the importance of having the right assets, uh, at SOCOM to be able to, to deal with the threats?

Yes, Senator, to be clear, presence means power. Presence means relationships. And so not only when uh out of air deployers come or the TCOs are moving drugs, when they see presence, it gives them pause, but also, uh, when we come down and work with our friends and partners in the in the region, they look for us as leadership. So when they see our ships, our aircraft, you know, our boots on the ground, work with them again and again. It builds those partnerships and it shows that we are there enduring and we can block out the PRC and others. Can you talk about the importance of Homestead Air Force Base, um, and, um, its mission?

Yes sir Yes sir, for Homestead Air Air Force Base, uh, located there in, uh, uh, south south of Miami right now we, we’ve used it in the past. Uh, we’re using a Haiti operations as a jump off point. We use it in exercises as well. So again it’s a key location when I think about, uh, contingencies down range and how I engage and using that as a, as a, uh, a base to, you know, to forward deploy if you will, and also I’m looking at some opportunities, uh, coming up for, uh, unmanned assets as well, so I continue to, to work on that. You think it needs to be returned as an active duty base. I think I think it’s more of a in the Air Force, uh lane to answer that, but I could definitely use a a duty base, sir. Thank you, Chair. No, uh, sooner King. Thank you, Mr. Acting Chairman. Appreciate it first time, uh, big promotion as we’re sitting here, news feeds often come across and I just saw one that the Department of Defense has indicated in its February and it’s uh 2025 procurement plan to buy $400 million worth of Tesla trucks. I’m gonna just let that fact sink in. That’s all I’m gonna say about that, um. Uh, Admiral, you talked about the activity of the Chinese in, in Latin America. Would you, uh, uh, would you?

Belie do you believe that that activity is #1 significant and #2 increasing and the nature of the activity as I understand it is public works projects, uh, ports, two ports in Panama, for example, uh, is this significant activity on behalf of China and Latin America?

Uh, yes, Senator, I think all their efforts from a, uh, uh, infrastructure standpoint, the development of dual use sites and facilities is a challenge, and we should be concerned about that. I would point out to the committee that, uh, two weeks ago we unilaterally disarmed in Latin America when we destroyed the agency for International Development because that’s the agency that provides funds for these kinds of projects, so we basically we’ve left the field. In Latin America and I think that should be understood we’re always talking about competition with China and the facing threat but here is a place where we basically have, as I say, left the field we’ve abdicated we’ve surrendered to China in Latin America by unilaterally and illegally and unconstitutionally abandoning the vehicle by which we were competing with them. Uh, in terms of, uh, development and work in Latin America, I just, I think that should be noted, um. We’ve gone almost entirely through this hearing and not talked much about terrorism. I believe that in all the talk about pivoting to great power competition in the Indo-Pacific, we’ve taken our eye off terrorism, and it worries me that that’s still a threat. General is terrorism still a threat uh to this country?

I believe you mentioned lone wolves, which is the most difficult kind of terrorism, uh, to combat. Senator is still a uh a threat and a and concern and one of the primary focuses in the Northcom part of my job uh to to address that we have very close ties with Central Command and Special Operations Command to follow their operations in, uh, overseas and they give me any indication of uh activities moving towards the United States that we have to plan for and of course we have great uh relations across the. Intel and interagency to ensure that we have a consolidated look at any terror threats to the US Well, I hope that there is significant emphasis because I worry that this is one of those things we’re going to wake up and find ourselves under attack and everybody’s going to say, well, what happened?

and it’s a matter of taking our eye off the terrorism ball. That’s one of the greatest threats to this country. Uh, particularly if, uh, terrorists get a hold of nuclear material, uh, and there are a lot of there’s a growing nuclear family including Iran and North Korea, uh, where nuclear material might become available, and that’s the nightmare scenario because deterrence doesn’t work with terrorists they don’t care about dying and they don’t have a capital city to to destroy. So intelligence and awareness of what the terrorists are thinking and planning and plotting, I think is absolutely critical, uh. Admiral, every year when we have this hearing, I talked to the SOCOM commander about the fact that we have intelligence reports about drug shipments coming to the US in the maritime domain and we have the assets to interdict 25% of them. To me that that is just straight up unconscionable. There are people dying in my state from fentanyl overdoses, from drug overdoses generally, and We’re not Meeting because of a lack of basically allocation of assets, uh, the, the drug shipments that we know about that’s what’s so, uh, objectionable about this, uh, is that percentage still, uh, reasonable 75% is, is not being, uh, interdicted that we know of?

Yes sir, about 10 to 20% is what we can get after what we see, yes sir. And that’s because of a lack of assets. Is that, is that not correct?

They’re just not enough. We don’t have enough boats, ships, primary lack of assets, the lack of resources, ISR capability. Yes sir. Well, I, I would argue that again this is a misallocation of resources that here is a active attack on America that’s killing our citizens and we don’t, we don’t have an. Enough, uh, ships and, and whether it’s coast guard or navy uh in the region to interdict these, uh, these, uh, uh, drug shipments. I think that’s a, uh, a, uh, uh, uh, basically it’s a dereliction of duty not of you but of the entire policy apparatus and this goes back 34 administrations, uh, but it’s one that I hope that this administration might pay some attention to. Uh, and correct, uh, uh, maybe there’s a second round we’ll talk about icebreakers. General, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thanks, Senator King. What one thing did was it Secretary, was it, uh, state or defense about the Teslas, do you know?

My understanding it was the Department of Defense armored Tesla cyber trucks. OK. All right, Senator Biden, thank you, Chairman. Congrats on the promotion. Admiral General, thank you all for being here. uh, general, enjoyed our conversation, uh, earlier this week, uh, and also just wanna thank you on behalf of those in Western North Carolina, uh, for your efforts there in the early days late September of last year, early October, there was some bureaucratic hand wringing at the top, but that was not from you, that was not from our military. So, um, again, thank you, uh, for all those in uniform who served, uh, those out west. Uh, I want to shift to the southern border, and we’ve heard this a lot from our colleagues this morning, and I share the concern about fentanyl in North Carolina, we lose every single year, um, the totality of what we lost on 9/11 just in North Carolina. And that’s our whole country compared to just my uh great state. um, I’m interested in stopping the supply of these Chinese precursors and chemicals that end up in Mexico and make their way here, um, and also stopping the Chinese nationals that are being caught illegally crossing our southern border, um, in record numbers I think it’s up by a factor of 50 from 2021 to 2023. So what concerns do you have, if any?

That foreign malignant actors, not just South American immigrants, but they’re using the southern border to access our nation. We’ll start with you, Admiral. So As I look at the uh daring gap of the last uh year or so we did see an increase in the number of uh uh Chinese uh uh. Actors coming across, uh, typically what we do is, uh, we’ve been working with the, uh, Panamanians as well as Colombian, uh, to kind of support them in, uh, stopping the flow of migration. Now slowed down this year. I think President Molina was pretty clear to try to stop, uh, migration when he got in office. We supported from a logistics, intelligence and training equipment standpoint with Colombia and Panamanians. Uh, we saw the drop about 90% coming through the dairy right now, but we have to keep our eye on it, of course, general. Senator, I, I, uh, want to thank you for your comments for the men and women of primarily of the 18th Airborne Corps. They did an outstanding job supporting their teammates in the, uh, western part of North Carolina. I appreciate that. Uh, I, I share the concern on the, uh, the intent of many that are crossing the border and in particular work closely with the border patrol to figure out why the Chinese migrants, uh, one or so many and two, through such a uh a narrow corridor in the, uh, San Diego region and my concern there is a, uh. A wolf in sheep’s clothing coming across, uh, having someone who intends us harm, so we work very closely with the border patrol to see who is coming across and making sure that our intel agencies are tracking them. I’m encouraged by the recent decrease in detections and, uh, uh, incursions across the border, uh, but, uh, as I’ve mentioned before, the increase in uh military presence down there and some of the unique military capabilities, I hope will continue to seal that border. Thank you for that. uh, let’s go, uh, to another topic which was previously discussed in regards to UAS, um, as you mentioned in your opening statement, um, and in the discussion with Senator Cotton, um. We’ve seen UAS incursions over sensitive sites, military bases, it’s an alarming, uh, amount. Can you briefly, briefly describe how bases are determined to be covered facilities?

I say that in quotes, under Title 10 Section 130 I entitling them to an active defense. Yes, Senator, uh, to become a covered installation, there’s 9 criteria that, uh, any one of those could allow the base to be covered, uh, ranges from, uh, nuclear deterrence, missile defense all the way down to if it’s a, a test facility there. Roughly half of the 360 installations in the US meet that criteria. Uh, my request and proposal would be is if we look at 130 I again would be to expand coverage to all military installations and not just those that are covered. Thank you. So as the lead synchronizer of counter unmanned aerial system operations in the US, um, how are you preparing our bases to defend themselves from these threats?

I know there’s a policy discussion in your prior answer, but what are you doing right now?

Senator, since we were received this responsibility in in November, uh, we’re responsible for coordinating any response. Uh, the authority to defend the base, as Senator Cotton mentioned remains with the installation commander and the services, but we can be a synchronizer role and are a synchronizer role, uh, to ensure standardized training response tactical, uh, techniques and procedures, uh, and if the base and the service aren’t able to handle the incursion we can bring in. Uh, help from across the interagency and DOD to uh support and, and perhaps most critically is we can work closely with the inter agency to give them the authority to operate the systems once they arrive due to our close relationship with the FAA and in the near future I think we will have our own capabilities to bring in from Northcom once we procured them, uh, to assist if the service and the installation cannot handle the incursions. Thank you Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, in, in your absence I made a statement about uh the purchase of Tesla trucks. Uh, I was misinformed it was not the Department of Defense that’s announced this purchase. It’s the Department of State, so I would just want to clarify the record. Thank you thank you very much for that, Senator Warren. Thank you Mr. uh Mr. Chairman. So the Trump administration is sending troops to the southern border and holding immigrants at Guantanamo, redirecting active duty military personnel from critical missions and costing taxpayers several times more than when DHS does the same job. That seems to be bad for national security, bad for our military families, and bad for America’s bottom line. We’ve seen this before when the first Trump administration deployed troops to the border. It pegged the cost at a billion dollars over 3 years, but the GAO found that the Department of Defense estimates were not reliable and excluded significant costs. DOD reports to Congress missed more than half the. Actual total cost for entire fiscal years. So GAO made 7 detailed recommendations for the Department of Defense to improve its cost estimates, but 4 years later, the Department of Defense has not executed a single one. Now DOD estimates that this new border deployment will cost almost a billion dollars over the next 8 months, but that may be another underestimate. So General Ga, you are overseeing the border deployment. Does underestimating the costs of an operation put future missions and future readiness at risk?

Senator, I would assume so, but I, I, I think I need to point out that NorthCO is not appropriated funds for the Southwest border, and we’ve never had reprogramming or pass through funding. This is all done through the Department comptroller and the services. I, I appreciate that, but I’m asking the question about running past the limits and the consequences of that because the money has to come from somewhere and I’m concerned that we’re gonna see the same problem that we saw the last time. Big costs and little transparency and accountability. When DOD has been tasked with doing DHS’s job, it has cost taxpayers a lot more money. It costs 3 times more to deport migrants on military aircraft than civilian planes that ICE often uses and has cost ICE at least 5 times more per detention bed. To hold migrants at Guantanamo Naval Base than at facilities in the United States any time civilian authorities ask DOD for help, DOD is supposed to evaluate the request based on 6 criteria including cost, but we don’t even have a cost estimate for the new Guantanamo operations, so Admiral Halsey. What do you expect the budgetary cost of South SOCOM’s Guantanamo operations will be through the end of this fiscal year?

Senator, we’re new into the process right now. We sur Mergy assets down there to start building up the camp. Uh, it’s a phased approach, so it’s not automatically going up to 30,000. So right now, so you’re telling me you just, you actually don’t know the cost yet, not at this point, ma’am, not at this point. So the decision to deploy. DOD personnel and assets was made without knowing the cost, which is exactly what DOD is supposed to consider in making the decision to deploy. Will you at least commit to provide that estimate to Congress as soon as you have it?

Yes, All right. Yes, I will I will work with the OSD, um, I will hold you to that. I’m relying on both of you also to tell us if DOD blows past whatever estimates you give us given the potentially astronomical costs, will you commit to informing this committee if you determine that these operations are not militarily effective?

Uh, yes, Senator. You know, we need to know if the operations are having an unmanageable impact on readiness and morale. Political stunts like this can easily damage troop morale. Um, many Texas National Guard members who deployed to the southern border have felt isolated without purpose, and some have even. Committed suicide, uh, I think it is important that we have better oversight over these plans and that we make these plans conform to the law. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, um. Um, yes, Senator, Senator King, uh, 11, follow up, um. General, uh, give us an outline of the Russian activity and militarization of the Northern Arctic Ocean. I I don’t know how to define northern and southern when you’re coming from the North Pole, but, uh, the, the, the on the Russian shoreline. Senator, over the last year, we’ve seen a significant increase in both Russian air and maritime activity uh in the vicinity of Alaska, uh, both in the bearing and up in the Arctic Ocean. In fact, the uh, incursions and the number of ships, uh, this past year, uh, equal or exceeded the rate that it was before the Ukraine invasion, after which, uh, I think we all know the the numbers dropped, and we’ve also seen, uh, uh, increase in air patrols. On the eastern side, what we call the 2 o’clock approach through the uh Greenland and Iceland gap towards uh Maine in the northeast portion of the United States. Uh, so, uh, I’m certainly concerned by that and, and I would expect the numbers on both sides of our coast to increase in the coming year and then also, uh, um, sir, along those lines also, uh, the Russian out of area patrols for both uh. Surface and under sea uh was significant last year and I expect to see that on both coasts again and the Chinese are increasingly active, are they not?

Yes, sir, last year was the we saw the most Chinese vessels uh off the coast of Alaska than than we’ve ever seen in many simultaneously. I was at a conference some years ago on the Arctic and there was a huge delegation from China and I said, what, what, what is China’s interest?

They said, we are a near Arctic nation. My response was Maine is a near Caribbean state. Uh, they are very active and increasing their actions now. How about where are we?

Do we have a, a port for a facility, for example, uh, uh, in the Arctic?

And secondly, give us a breakdown of the status of icebreakers. We are, we are woefully inadequate in terms of icebreakers, particularly for the use of the North Northwest Passage. Senator, I was gonna use the same word. Uh, we’re in a woeful, uh, situation with icebreakers. Uh, the Coast Guard is, uh, working very hard to increase that for us, uh, but at this time we’re completely outnumbered with icebreakers, but they’re building one new icebreaker, but it’s, it’s really merely a replacement for the ancient one that’s about to go out of service, is that not correct?

It is so there’s no net gain in icebreakers. That, that’s right, Senator, and the icebreakers we have commute between the Arctic and the Antarctic. Is that not correct?

That that’s correct as well. And how many icebreakers do you estimate the Russians have in the Arctic?

Between 20 and 40?

20 and 40 to. Less than one, I would argue that the icebreakers are the essential infrastructure of the of the Arctic region and, uh, uh, to say we are inadequate and behind, uh, where we should be is, is I believe an understatement. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, Senator King, um, let me just say I think you’ll find a lot of bipartisan support both in the Congress and in the administration for, uh, a substantial increase quickly in our number of icebreakers. I, I, I believe that’s the case, and I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman. All right, we have uh Senator Peters and then Senator Rosen. Thank you Mr. Chairman, gentlemen, thank you uh for uh your service to our country and for being here today as uh as ranking member of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, uh, as well as, uh, having served uh in the US Navy Reserve, I, I wanna echo some of my colleagues’ concerns on the dangers of increasing the Department of Defense’s role in uh border security and civil immigration uh enforcement. I’m gonna be following up uh with both uh the Department of the Defense and the Department of Homeland Security to get additional information including related to the uh DOD uh deportation flights and DHS’s use of uh naval station, uh, Guantanamo Bay. Well, my questions, uh, uh, uh, first, uh, uh, General Gio, uh, as you have previously, uh, stated, the, uh, successful execution of your mission as commander of both NORTHCOM and NORAD, uh, relies, and gives a quote, relies on uh cohesive strategies, integrated planning. And a collaboration across the, the whole of government and to quote, uh, I completely agree with, with that, uh, and with your assessment and believe this also applies to executing, uh, SOCOM, uh, missions as well. So my question for you, general, uh, uh, your, uh, how do your commands collaborate with several intergovernmental agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, Miss Missile Defense Agency, and the cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency. In executing your missions and how do you coordinate with these agencies and deconflict efforts to ensure the successful events of our homeland while certainly maintaining uh left of launch uh framework. Senator, our partnership with uh DOD, other combatant commands, and the inter agency is, is critical to us. Uh, the way we approach it is we have uh well over 100 liaison officers, usually very high ranking, highly placed. And trusted from their uh home agencies that work in our headquarters and participate in every one of our uh morning updates uh uh intel uh and uh operations updates commanders updates as well as all of our planning efforts and then for the combatant commands uh we meet regularly, we talk regularly and uh just for example in this southern border, uh. The responsibility uh is is widely shared between USOCOM, US Northcom and Transom and the commanders and at all levels of our command we integrate daily in a number of uh different uh planning groups and sessions. Uh, question for both of you, you, you both know, uh, uh, about the importance of artificial intelligence systems and the pivotal role that they play in informing commanders’ decisions by predicting, uh, or providing predictive analysis, real-time decision support. Uh, and enhance situational awareness and, uh, in a future conflict. Uh, earlier this week we received a classified briefing from CENTCOM commander General Carrilla who, who shared those views as well. So my question to, to each of you is, given the rapid advancements in AI, how do you see AI shaping the future of commander’s decisions, making, uh, ability. Uh, defensive operations and weapons integration, uh, for, for both SOCOM and NorthCO, and, uh, how can we be helpful, uh, in your efforts to, to, to, uh, accelerate the use of these new technologies, Senator, the, uh, use of AI is becoming more and more important in NORAD and Northcom. Uh, we currently use some capabilities in, uh, helping us look at imagery and find uh. Uh, assets or, or activities, uh, with imagery using AI to help, uh, alert our intel analysts, uh, anything in the future that you’ll see from us incorporating in, uh, artificial intelligence certainly will always have what we call the, you know, the man on the loop, uh, we will always have men and women. Uh, that are QCing it, but we’re finding that we can go through reams and reams of, uh, information much quicker, and I, and I think that I should point out we’re also looking to see what the adversary is doing with AI and how we might be vulnerable, uh, to, to them and their use of AI in our defensive capabilities. Thank you, Admiral. And Senator, at uh SoftCO we’re in the process now of sending some of our senior leaders through training to actually learn more about AI so we can continue to use it. Uh, another thing we’re doing it at Jad of South joint interagency Task Force South. We actually have an AI machine learning battle lab where we’re able to take, uh, 15 years of data, uh. Based off a ship size, you think about a drug drug smuggler ship size, location, time of year, uh, expect a route, and now we can use that predictably to locate our assets, uh, to, uh, interdict them, and that’s been very successful and we’ll continue to look for some more support to get after that even, even faster. Thank you. Great, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator Peters, Senator Duckworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m sorry. I, I should have, I should have recognized Senator Rosen first. I’m more than happy to. It’s the first mistake I’ve made, um. Uh, yeah, Senator Kelly, thank you for unanimous consent, uh, to my left, Senator Kelly. Thank you, Senator Rosen. Thank you, Senator Duckworth. Really appreciate it, um. So General Dio, um. And for, for both of you, Admiral, you as well. So both North Northcom and SouthCom have been tasked with supporting a border security and immigration enforcement mission. And while I agree that our immigration system’s broken, and that we have to do more to secure the southern border, I’m concerned about the effect of these missions on our military readiness. So General Gio last week over 100 migrants were flown to India on a C-17 costing the American taxpayer approximately $2.5 million and using up the limited flight hours allocated to that aircraft. Using millAir costs around $28,000 an hour or so for a C-17. That’s 4 times as much if ICE would have chartered a flight. So given the strain on strategic airlift assets, are you concerned that continued use of C-17s and C-130s, and C-130s are less expensive but still. There are readiness issues with that. Are you concerned that using these for deportation flights could impact availability for higher priority missions?

Senator, we work closely with the Transportation command that uh operates these flights and uh are always uh looking to see if there are the authorities to contract that capability. Do you know what was uh what was dropped, what missions were dropped and. Uh, Admiral Halsey, same for you. Do you know if we dropped any missions to be able to support the flights to India or Gitmo?

I did not know, sir. And Senator, I’m not aware either. And are you aware what the chain of custody looks like for detainees?

As we transfer them. As as as far as right now, the, uh, DHS has the chain of custody for the detainees, uh, as far as those coming to uh Gitmo, so that’s not a military responsibility at all, uh, no, sir. All right. And then Admiral, I’ve got a Question we talked a little bit in my office about this uh yesterday uh we’re in the mid midst of a global strategic competition with China and China continues efforts to influence politics and societies in the western hemisphere in our neighborhood. And they use economic engagement to gain access and influence in countries in Latin America and in the Caribbean. So what’s your assessment of the security situation in Panama?

And what is your strategy to deter CCP influence in the region. Without contesting Panama’s control over the Panama Canal. So Senator, the, uh, just like all places around the world now, uh, the China continues to gain their economic and infrastructure influence and so we know they have, uh, um, uh, some controlling interests in ports on both ends of the canal. We know that they are, uh, have infrastructure projects as well. Uh, my role as the SOCOM commander is to, uh, defend the Panama Canal in time of, uh, crisis or contingency, and I intend to do that. And do you agree that working with our partners would be part of this strategy?

Yes sir, and our partners, meaning the Panamanians, yes sir, the Panamanians are, are, are key to work with us. In fact, uh, right now we have an exercise called Panamax we do every year and that’s an exercise where we work with the Panamanians and our allies and partners in the region to do a scenario where we defend the Panama Canal. And just recently the uh Panamanian president mentioned that he wants to do Panamax in Panama so that’s a a change, right?

So we’re, we’ll continue to work with our allies and partners, uh, continue to work with Panamanians and and uh as we go forward. And can you describe a little bit what that exercise would look like in Panama?

Yes sir, so, uh, we think about, uh, nefarious actors, uh, trying to, um, you know, create a, uh, explosion or something in the canal or stop up the canal. So again, uh, as we’re working and the approaches to the canal, so it’s whole entire entire thing to include cyber activity as well. So again, in every exercise we do throughout the region, there’s always some cyber component and so we continue to work that. So we do have a strategy and this exercise being part of the strategy to counter. The PRC’s influence in the region as it is today. Yes, sir, and, and to be clear, I think I go back to a statement I made earlier about presence, right?

Uh, I need presence in the region, presence mean power, presence blocks out the PRC and so I’ll continue to do that. All right, thank you and thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator Kelly, uh, General and Admiral, um. Senator Kelly was not the first to, to mention the cost of Miller, as, uh, compared to the cost of a charter flight. Um, to, uh, to your knowledge, uh, are those figures correct?

Senator, uh, to tell you the truth, I don’t have knowledge of that because, uh, those are all run through US Transportation Command. I, I don’t have access to those numbers. OK, but you, but you’re, uh, you’ll get that to us, will you not, Senator, uh, Chairman, of course I’ll be very, I know, sir, but we can work together. Mr. Chairman, I can if I can just make one comment just from experience. About 21,000 pounds an hour of fuel for a C-17. 737s about 5000 pounds per hour per hour for for fuel costs. So just in fuel costs, it’s about a 4x. OK, thank you, but you will follow up the witnesses will follow up. I think we now have Senator Banks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Gio. The president’s executive order to establish the Iron Dome for America stresses the need for both weapons to shoot down enemy missiles, and also the satellites to track them. The EO called for the acceleration of the deployment of the hypersonic and ballistic tracking sensor layer. IfOCOM is going to have an effective Iron Dome for the US homeland, how important is it that we expand our fleet of ballistic and hypersonic missile tracking satellites and space-based sensors?

Senator, expanding those capabilities would be imperative to having a successful shield over the, uh, North American continent. You expand on that. That’s why that’s important first and foremost, uh, Senator, we have to detect anything that we want to defeat and, uh, so the HBTSS that you described, uh, is the first capability that, uh, we think will reliably and accurately tracked. Uh, hypersonic missile, uh, we have some capability already that can detect intercontinental ballistic missiles, but those are fairly, uh, easy to track because their ballistic profile, whereas the hypersonics are both maneuverable and much faster, uh, so getting the, uh, space-based capability to detect and track those that could cue defeat mechanisms in the end is imperative. How fast do we need them?

How fast we need the capability?

Yes, immediately, immediately, uh, thank you for that. Admiral, uh, some of my colleagues have said that the US military operations to defend the neutrality of the Panama Canal would be unprecedented or illegal. Do you agree with that?

Uh, senator, that’s more of a policy, uh, discussion I think Department of State is better equipped to handle that. No, no opinion on whether or not that’s. Uh, if you were ordered to defend the Panama Canal, you would, that would be legal to do so. So my job as commander commander is to provide options to the president, sir. Um, fair, fair enough, um, Mr. Chairman, that’s all I’ve got. I yelled back. Uh, thank you very much, Senator Rosa Rosen. Chairman Wicker, Ranking Member Reed for holding this hearing. I’d like to thank General Gio and Admiral Holsey for testifying today for your service, uh, to our country. We really appreciate you. I wanna talk a little bit about Guantanamo Bay. So Admiral Halsey, the administration has announced it’s using our naval base at Guantanamo Bay to house undocumented individuals detained in the United States. And although I have deep concerns about this cruel and misguided policy, including about whether we can trust that ICE is not detaining American citizens, legal permanent residents, TPS recipients, dreamers, or children in these facilities. But Admiral Halsey, understanding that you are only implementing policy decided by uh by others, um. How is DOD planning to pay for the transport and care and more importantly, what are the divisions of the uh missions and the responsibilities between DOD and ICE are military personnel charged with the guarding, carrying, feeding of people at Guantanamo Bay, so you’re paying to get them there and are you, are you. Staffing when they are there. So Senator, we’re not paying for them to arrive at I guess a more transcon would probably be able to answer that question there, uh, as far as our role is to provide safe, humane treatment of those, uh, in the facility, uh, to be clear, we’ve done this mission before from a migrant standpoint. I plan. Every year for a uh mass migration scenario so it’s kind of a modification to the existing mission and again to bring them on board. The role of the uh military forces there is to provide uh uh supplies, food, care, shelter, uh, medical support at this time. Well, uh, I, I guess we, uh, have a lot of things to worry about in that whether it in, um, whether it impedes our readiness from a readiness perspective having to take care of migrants takes you away from your mission, but I, I’ll move on because we only have 3 minutes. I want to talk to you, Admiral Halsey now about critical language skills because the Department of Defense is increasingly making investments on countering the People’s Republic of China. Uh, we know they are a major threat to us and. Are there any concerns regarding a lack of language expertise needed for countries in SOCOM area of responsibility, especially considering the evolving situation at Gitmo, the potential need for more Spanish speakers, and how will the elimination of some of these diversity initiatives impact your ability to recruit and retain linguists, people who speak all of the different languages speak Chinese, um, to enable your critical mission. And to be clear, uh, uh, Senator, we are a war fighting organization. It’s our most fundamental duty is support in the Constitution, to ensure the safety and security of the American people. We look for talent throughout and so I think right now as I look at the, uh, critical skills, uh, language skills in the, uh, so. throughout my entire headquarters. I’m, uh, have, uh, several, uh, multilingual people and then, uh, we’ve been able to hire folks as well. We’ll continue to do that and, uh, and that’s kind of my, uh, uh point to be made there this. Well, we just wanna be sure you’re not, um. Hampered in doing that because it is critical to have those language skills, um, I wanna move on and talk about, uh, with General Gio safeguarding domain awareness, you know, our competitors continue to feel advanced capabilities across domains that have the potential to threaten the homeland. In light of these threats, North Northcom and NORAD have to ensure that the systems providing the homeland with domain awareness are survivable, adaptable, and modern. In addition, The systems must be hardened as they’re going to be subject to an array of cyber attacks during any contingency. I’m encouraged by your efforts to modernize, but what steps are you currently taking to harden our command and control nodes, particularly in the cyber domain so that we’re able to effectively share operational picture during a potential conflict?

Senator, as you alluded to, the, uh, most persistent and present threat that we face in, uh, the NorthCO area of responsibility every day is in the cyber domain with hundreds or maybe even thousands of attacks or attempted attacks on our networks. So we, uh, the way we harden that is, is primarily through, uh, uh, cyber protection teams that that we have that first look at our, uh, unique NORAD and NORCO, uh. Computer systems and networks and then across the uh DOD network uh in partnership with Cyber Command uh to make sure that those are protected and then when you go outside of that ring we look at uh critical infrastructure uh for uh uh uh capabilities that not only help the American citizens but also help the DOD. And then it’s uh it’s there’s 4 partners we have there the and 3 others in addition to Northcom CyberCom, uh, the FBI and CISA, and we work very well with them, uh, to monitor the cyber, uh, uh, domain, uh, to ensure that all of those systems are protected. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Rosen. Senator Tuberville. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, thank you for being here and thanks for your service. Good visit with you, both of you. You got tough jobs. General, um, you talked in your opening statement about the cooperation and the coming together of our adversaries. Uh What do we need to do and what do you need to do for the next 3 or 4 years to protect our country from those coalitions that are coming together, possibly for a threat to us?

Senator, first we need to continue to work on our ability to detect their activities, um. Not only are they working together but even independently they’re increasing their own uh capabilities and they can uh they can affect us from further ranges than they could in years past individually and certainly combined uh that just magnifies that challenge and so our ability to detect them from all domains under sea all the way to space is, is the first so we can watch what they’re doing and have awareness of what they’re doing and then after that is just presence not only with the US uh forces but within our command. Anything that we can do uh with the Canadian Forces to show that uh we can one detect them and to respond to them in order to deter their activities would be the second uh emphasis that I have. That’s the other question I want to ask you as we speak, how’s our working relationship with our Canadian partners up North?

Senator, on a military to military, uh, basis, it’s outstanding. Uh, they are, it’s uh NORAD is a binational command. And so they’re partnered with the United States at every level uh of of the command and we we talked earlier about the uh first time ever the Chinese and the Russians flew together in the Arctic. Our intercept of that was with US and Canadian fighters that were completely integrated. Uh, so at the mil to mill level, uh, in NORAD, it’s, it’s excellent and then also between Northcom and CAC, uh, the Canadian Joint Operations Command, uh, there’s several times where we have Russian or Chinese ships out in the, uh, Arctic that are being patrolled by the Canadians, uh, out of US bases, uh, to, to build that, uh, strength and relationship we have. Yeah, speaking of the Arctic, do we actually have a icebreaker that works now?

Uh, the, the Coast Guard, uh, has one that is, uh, was just repaired, but unfortunately it was out of service for, uh, a, a period of time over the last few months, yeah. We obviously need, need to add to that, I would, I would imagine, uh. Admiral. You and I talked about cell drones which were made in my great state of Alabama and uh Uh, can you give us this group a kind of a rundown of what you think about cell drones, your, your experience and the need, but probably for more all over the world. We have them in the Indo-Pacific and we have them in the Caribbean and your experience with cell drones. Uh, yes, Senator over the last, uh, couple of years, uh, we’ve seen a decrement in Navy assets in the region and one thing that Navy has done with this new hybrid fleet, uh, out of, uh, NAVS South, they’ve, uh, we’ve been able to incorporate cell drones into our mission sets. Uh, they provide great, uh, domain awareness, and, uh, right now we’re doing Operation Southern Spear where I where at this point we’ll have, uh, cell drones in the in the Caribbean and in the Eastern Pacific along with. Other unmanned assets to counter the drug fight, right, so it gives me more maritime domain awareness and uh it it helps our partners as well because we’re trying to bring them into this piece and so they have a better understanding. One thing our partners continue to ask for is uh domain awareness, uh, intel sharing. So again, uh, having those assets in the region, uh, for a lack of other assets is making a difference for me. Used for what main reason are they used for as we speak for drug runners. So right now it’s a maritime domain awareness, so overall surveillance, right?

So they actually have the, the capability to patch back to our, our mock a maritime operation center in Na South. uh, so again they can pick up contacts and it completes the picture, right, and the information can sell. So if you spread these assets out they can cover more domain as opposed to just one ship. Yeah, as we speak, how many do you have operable in the Caribbean?

So right now I have uh I have 8 operation in the Caribbean and 3 in the, uh, Eastern Pacific and more flowing in. So I have a total of 20 here in the next, uh, uh, couple of days. That’s great. Well, we appreciate what what both of you do and anything we can do to help, let us know. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator Tuberville. Senator Duckworth. Yeah, it’s my turn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and ranking member Reed, um. The number of troops assigned to the border mission continues to grow. We’ve had this discussion today, and, but I want to emphasize it with the total expected to reach at least, uh, uh, 3600, and I think, General, you testified that it’ll be maybe even upwards getting closer to 5000 potentially. Um, this number includes some of our most experienced infantry and support units. Are we really preparing for a great power competition with the communist, uh, uh, uh, PRC, or are we asking our marines to lay concertina wire at the border?

Are we asking our pilots to be combat ready or are they supporting deportation flights as we consider the ways that responding to these missions in NorthCOM and SouthCOM is impacting the military’s ability to focus on the primary mission of great power competition and war fighting, we need to also factor in uncertain but rapidly increasing cost of DOD support at Guantanamo Bay. On January 29th, President Trump greenlighted the expansion of the migrant Operations Center or MOC at Guantanamo Bay, and as you’re likely where this expansion comes with a range of costs that will impact the overall budget, everything from medical care and sanitation to education for migrants, as well as expenses tied to deploying military personnel to Gitmo. Admiral Halsey, could you provide a breakdown of the timeline and projected construction costs for increasing Gitmo’s capacity to 30,000 people as outlined by the president’s directive?

So at this time, uh, we’re doing a phase approach. So right now we’ll have a capability for about 2500, uh, cots, and that plan is gonna go up if we continue to phase it in, and we haven’t decided that yet. I’m waiting, uh, for the direction. So at the initial point I don’t have a cost estimate of what would take for 30,000, uh, so right now we’re still in the in the MC phase of it. Well, you have a presidential directive. Have you not started planning for to fulfill that directive?

So right now again we’re it’s a a a staged approach, uh, a tailored approach, right?

So right now we won’t necessarily go, we don’t know, we’re working with DHS to understand the flow of, uh, migrants, so we’re not gonna go, we won’t go to 30,000 unless we know that migrant flow will come. So we’re, we’re waiting at this point. Well, as that process, that planning process moves forward, can you get me that those data?

Yes, yes, we work through the uh OSD, yes. Thank you. The fiscal year, uh, 17 MLCO actually, uh, a project for mass migration complex was actually for 13,000 migrants, and it cost $33 million in FY17 MLCO just as a comparison. It stands to reason that an expansion to more than double that capacity nearly 10 years later would almost most certainly cost much more than the $33 million that was projected to cost in FY17. In addition to facilities costs in 2019, the commander of detention ops estimated that it cost more than $100,000 for each guard. Each guard’s nine month deployment to Gitmo cost taxpayers $100,000. Admiral Holte, do you have, um, as you’re doing this, do you have an estimate for the personnel costs associated with this effort even for the 1st 2500?

No, we do not yet, but I can say that the cost of running Gitmo at this point, just the facility, the last several years has been approximately $100 million and $100 million per year, yes, for the, uh, JTF Gitmo facility along with the uh rotational force that comes in. And how many, how many detainees are there?

Uh, currently there are 30 detainees, 15 La War detainees, and then approximately 68, uh, other detainees, uh, detainees, but migrants, uh, from the, uh, DHS. So to house 118 detainees there and to maintain Gitmo, it’s costing taxpayers $100 million currently and we’re gonna project to go up to $30 million for the Gitmo facility for the Gitmo facility just a facility, so the cost would be much higher than that. Um, what is the source of funding for the expansion of the MOC?

So right now as the forces flow in the services are bearing the initial cost for the initial flow and uh so that’s where it’s at right now, the services. So it’s coming out of the service’s pockets. What priorities will be left unfunded as a result of this shift in priorities?

I can’t answer that, ma’am. I think we have to ask the services OK. Um, I would also like to address accountability on the DOD flights. Admi Mayor Hoy, what is being done to ensure that risk mitigated is mitigated for pilots and what security measures are in place to manage the personnel on board?

Right now, the DHS actually are controls those flights along with Transcom. Uh, Transcon probably have better uh understanding of the flow of migrants to their, uh, what they do on their air on the aircraft. So Transcom is responsible for the safety of the crew of the aircraft on those flights. Uh yes ma’am. I, I do think um that we need to run this down, um, and, and if the DOD does not take ownership of migrants boarding their aircraft, who on board the aircraft is responsible for the passengers?

Again, I would say that uh Transcom has a plan in place, uh, and, and Transcom would better have that the understanding of how they, uh, protect the aircraft in flight. A lot of unanswered questions. Thank you. Thank you, Admiral, indeed and um. Senator Duckworth, this is part of our oversight responsibility. And, um, and so I appreciate the member’s uh uh participation today. This concludes the open portion of today’s hearing. I’d like to thank our witnesses for their testimony. For the information of members questions for the record will be due to the committee within 2 business days of the conclusion of this hearing. We will commence the closed portion of this hearing. In Senate security in 15 minutes, we are recessed until 11:45 a.m.