Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 28th, 2012

[Joseph Humire]

Primarily U.S. foundations and individuals.... You know, we're actually a department, a centre within a larger organization called the International Freedom Education Foundation, and that's funded primarily by foundations and philanthropic individuals.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Hsu.

Mr. Menegakis.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Humire. Thank you for joining us today and for your testimony.

As you know, the Auditor General here in Canada has made recommendations in support of our improving our biometric system. We simply collect biographical information today and fingerprints. Do you think this is sufficient data?

[Joseph Humire]

Yes and no. I think it's definitely sufficient for the purposes of screening, but biographical information and fingerprints are really just law enforcement mechanisms. On the intelligence side, which is what I have a little bit more experience with, you also need demographic information. You need personality as well psychological profiles to fully understand the individual.

Now obviously I think that's not the case for every individual who crosses the border, but that's why I think I'd put a little bit of emphasis on understanding how to create an intelligence superstructure abroad. If through your embassies you create, say, a more enhanced intelligence capacity, you can start to case individuals well before they apply for immigration or any type of visa or any type of entry into the country, so they're on a kind of target list, so to speak.

For law enforcement mechanisms specifically for the purposes of just screening, I believe that yes, that would be good enough, but not for intelligence.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

How is biometric data used in the United States?

[Joseph Humire]

It's used to corroborate with different agencies to see if an individual is on a certain list or what this individual pertains to. It's basically a measurement tool to look at corroborating information.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

In your opinion, what other information do you think would be beneficial to obtain to ensure efficient travel and the protection of the general public?

[Joseph Humire]

If an individual is to be identified as a potential threat, I think you'd need two things. You'd need demographic information as well as psychological information to build a full profile on this individual.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

During your time in the United States Marine Corps, you were part of a very special purpose task force involved in counterterrorism and counter-insurgency operations. What are some of the ways foreign nationals have tried to illegally gain entry into Canada or the United States?

[Joseph Humire]

I mentioned a case earlier, which is essentially that agreements are popping up all over the world, particularly in this hemisphere, country to country. When I was in the military, some of the work we did in Colombia increasingly ran into forged passports. I'm not talking about very amateurishly forged passports; these were very professional, done particularly by Cuban intelligence agents, who were running a fraudulent passport ring allowing drug traffickers and now terrorists, Islamic extremists, to come into the country and change their identity. That was probably one of the biggest cases we investigated.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

What is your overall opinion of Canada's border security? I'm interested to hear your perspective. You're in the United States. You're obviously experienced in the field.

[Joseph Humire]

I think it's improving. Your president has done quite a bit of work to enhance border security, including doing innovative things like these next-generation teams that allow cross-border agents to work on both nations, but my emphasis isn't so much on the border.

You have to adjust the security measure to the threat, and if the threat is identified by your own intelligence organizations to be terrorism and Islamic extremism, border controls aren't necessarily the best way to neutralize them—at least that's what we've seen. We put a lot of emphasis on our southern border with Mexico, yet they still find their way into the country, and it isn't always through the border.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

What about Canada's visa screening system? Do you think Canada is effectively managing who comes in and out of our country?

[Joseph Humire]

Sir, that probably would be outside my area of expertise. I never really worked with the visa screening procedures. I don't have any experience with it.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Would you care to share with us some ways that you think would deter foreign criminals from taking advantage of our generous immigration system?

[Joseph Humire]

You mean practical measures?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Yes.

[Joseph Humire]

When it comes to actual technical or practical measures of the pre-screening or the visa screening, I feel that's a little outside my area of expertise. I haven't worked in consular affairs. I worked on the law enforcement side, so I would hesitate to put forth any really practical measures.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Let's go back to biometrics. Do you know of any cases when biometric data has saved lives or stopped crime from occurring?

[Joseph Humire]

Yes, quite a few. In the instances of our southern border, our U.S. Border Patrol has used biometrics quite successfully to deter narco-trafficking. We put a camp along the northern Mexican border. We're constantly travelling to and from the border states—Texas, Arizona, even California—and once we started using more of our biometric capabilities, the correlation between implementing biometric capabilities and arrests of narco-traffickers went up. In one instance, as individuals came across one entry point, the biometric data would allow you to quickly corroborate that individual with his previous attempts at other entry points in other states. That cross-referenced the information and allowed law enforcement to quickly apprehend those individuals. In the past that would have been a difficult thing to do, considering different law enforcement procedures in different states. It was a difficult process, but it has become much more streamlined and efficient.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Kellway. I apologize.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and through you, thank you, Mr. Humire, for being with us today.

I also represent our party on the national defence committee. Much of this discussion reminds me of the one we have at the defence committee. We're currently doing a study on the readiness of our Canadian Forces. What we end up talking about a lot are the capabilities of our forces in the context of threats and vulnerabilities. What we never seem to get from a security perspective is a real assessment of those threats to and vulnerabilities of our country, which is what we're talking about today. We leap ahead to an assessment of our capabilities and proposals about our capabilities without understanding those threats and vulnerabilities.

You've put to us today some proposals on what this country should be doing to increase security. Can you provide us with an assessment of existing threats and, more importantly than the threats, the existing vulnerabilities of this country to those threats?

[Joseph Humire]

Let me preface this by saying one thing. One thing I've seen that seems to work—correct me if I'm wrong, but I might have heard that this might be part of the Beyond the Border initiative—is doing joint threat and vulnerability assessments. That, I think, has worked in the past among inter-agency task forces, being allowed to go into different theatres of operation—I'm speaking of the military—and doing joint threat and vulnerability assessments. That tended to be very practical and very effective in trying to understand the actual nature of the threat.

On what an existing threat or vulnerability to Canada's immigration system is, I essentially think it's what some professions have termed as domain awareness. It’s having the intelligence infrastructure abroad to essentially go out and do sourcing operations, to go out and find individuals and institutions and entities that can present a potential threat to Canada's national security. Finding these individuals, locating and identifying them, and then sharing the information with other intelligence organizations within the host countries is critical, to me, before we start to talk about enhancing elements on the border or within the perimeter of Canada.

A lot of these groups, whether Islamic terrorist groups or transnational criminal groups, work in very tight networks. In these networks they have a lot of access, whether through the border, air, land, sea, or through companies. I think having that intelligence capability abroad to go out and source these individuals, case them, and provide information to internal law enforcement is probably your biggest vulnerability as of the present day.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

You suggest that we need to do a threat analysis or a vulnerability analysis. Is that to say it doesn't exist right now, to your knowledge?

[Joseph Humire]

I'm not sure, but I do think I remember when I was reviewing the Beyond the Border initiative...I do believe I saw it in there, so it might be part of something that's going to be implemented in the future. I'm not entirely sure it does not happen now, at least not to my knowledge.