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Washington, D.C.—While House Homeland Security Committee markup of border security legislation resulted in some positive provisions, it represents overall “an unfortunate lost opportunity” to move forward in a number of areas important to employees, and thus to the country, the leader of the union representing thousands of homeland security employees said today.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) welcomed committee approval of a provision advanced by its chairman, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) that calls for an in-depth study of the impact of the ‘One Face at the Border’ initiative put in place by the Department of Homeland Security’s Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The initiative, which seeks to combine the work of legacy Customs Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service and Agriculture Department inspectors into a single position, has instead resulted in a serious loss of expertise, training and inspection coverage, Kelley said.

“The critical missions of Customs, Immigration and Agriculture are being diluted by this ‘one size fits all’ approach to CBP operations,” said President Kelley. “This loss of specialization does not make our country safer.”

On another issue, she applauded the committee’s decision to boost the number of Customs and Border Protection Officer positions.

At the same time, the NTEU leader said she is disappointed by the failure of the committee to approve a number of important provisions offered by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) that would have addressed in meaningful ways issues affecting CBP employees. The Jackson Lee amendments failed on party-line votes.

Among those amendments were efforts to increase journeyman inspectors’ pay grade to 12 on the General Schedule; improve the existing foreign language award program; provide CBP officers with law enforcement officer (LEO) status; and require that trainees at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia, be paid for working a sixth day of training each week without pay.

“Each of these provisions would not only improve operations at the border,” President Kelley said, “they would go a long way toward addressing the very serious issue of low worker morale within CBP.” She said NTEU will continue to fight for these improvements and other gains in the work environment of homeland security employees.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments, including some 14,000 in CBP.