Mark Pryor

Which, really also raises another question that we have not talked about, and that is, Mexico's commitment to thwarting the efforts of these cartels.

I know this isn't the focus of this hearing, but in those task forces, are you seeing evidence of State and local corruption as well?

How far behind are you on the periodic background checks?

Do you have a sense of what your oldest backlog is?

Mr. Perkins mentioned the Crispin case, and he mentioned a figure of $5 million. What is typical? How much money does it take to corrupt a Border Patrol officer?

Does a chart like this tell the whole story?

That 60-percent number is alarming to me.

And my understanding is you are only doing about 10 percent right now. Is that right?

90 percent of the cocaine in the United States comes from Mexico.

Let me ask about your impression of this--I know there is no empirical data on this, but is your impression that there is a bigger problem with the new hires, that people may be intentionally trying to infiltrate and go in and try to do…

The Border Patrol seems to be the biggest target and have the most corruption.

And that is because of budget issues?

The two words you mentioned are 'challenged' and 'backlogged.'

I know that we see some of these charts with how many arrests have been made in these agencies.

I know there are a lot of good reasons why those numbers have grown, but my understanding is that the CBP policy is to do a polygraph on all the applicants.

Mexico ships over 50 percent of the methamphetamine and marijuana into the U.S. market.

I think my State has a good story to tell there. The numbers in my State are going in the right direction, but it has taken a lot of hard work at the local and State level.

Your three Fs are fair, flexible, and focused because I do think you have to be fair, but also you have to be flexible.

But if healthcare reform is enacted and I know that's not a certainty as we speak.

We can do this a lot smarter. And I think we can save tens of billions of dollars every year by doing that.

I support the idea of trying to get to a point where we can go to real time.

I believe the administration has made a commendable effort to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse in healthcare programs.

That is a great savings. I love that.

Does the proximity of the Little Rock Air Force Base help?

Right. We have been reminded with Haiti and Chile about how devastating an earthquake would be.