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Washington, D.C.— The twin responsibilities of facilitating legitimate trade and travel while fully carrying out antiterrorism efforts are straining an understaffed frontline workforce at Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the president of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) testified today.

“CBP’s continuing emphasis on reducing wait times without increasing staffing at the ports of entry creates an extremely challenging work environment for frontline CBP personnel,” NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley said. Kelley made her remarks during testimony before the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism. It is chaired by Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.).

The NTEU-represented 24,000-employee CBP workforce includes Officers, Agriculture Specialists, Seized Property Specialists and trade enforcement and compliance personnel and has among its duties not only helping protect the nation’s security, but facilitating well over a trillion dollars worth of trade every year.

“The major challenge of this mission is securing movement of goods without costly wait times and delays,” President Kelley said. “On one hand, CBP Officers and Agriculture Specialists are to fully perform their inspection duties, yet at all times they are made aware by management of wait times.”

Increased staffing is the key to the more effective movement of people and goods at the land ports of entry while at the same time ensuring that illegal drugs, drug money, arms and other dangerous items are stopped at the border, NTEU has argued. Kelley pointed to the conclusion in a recent draft report by the Southwest Border Task Force that more frontline officers are needed.

She added that CBP’s own staffing model, last produced in 2007, called for several thousand additional CBP Officers and Agriculture Specialists at ports of entry; NTEU has been consistent in calling for an increase of at least 4,000 new CBP Officers.

Also threatening effective inspections is CBP’s continued consolidation of the roles and responsibilities of the inspectional workforce at the ports of entry. That initiative of the previous administration is known as ‘One Face at the Border” and has resulted in a “huge expansion of the duties of each officer,” Kelley said, “and has led to the dilution of customs, immigration and agriculture inspection specializations, thereby weakening the quality of cargo inspections.”

CBP is to be commended, Kelley said, for taking two steps at the urging of NTEU to greatly improve recruitment and retention of CBP personnel at the ports: the extension last year to CBP Officers of an enhanced law enforcement officer retirement benefit and an increase, announced last week, in journeyman pay from GS-11 to GS-12 for CBP Officers and Agriculture Specialists.

“Both of these measures were hard won and well deserved,” President Kelley said adding that NTEU is continuing to fight for the addition into the retirement program and the journeyman increase of CBP personnel not included by the agency.

President Kelley offered a number of recommendations for improving cargo security including:

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Filling CBP vacancies to those levels in the agency’s own staffing models;

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Fully staffing all existing lanes at the ports of entry;

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Ending the One Face at the Border initiative and reestablishing specialization of prior inspectional functions;

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Extending General Schedule Grade 12 journeyman pay to CBP personnel not included in the recent agency increase; and

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Extending the enhanced law enforcement retirement benefits to CBP personnel not included in its 2008 program.

She further called on Congress to require CBP to submit yearly workplace staffing models that include optimal staffing requirements so that all lanes at ports of entry are fully staffed.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.