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Washington, D.C.—The union representing thousands of homeland security employees today called for prompt approval of legislation that would authorize more than 6,000 additional frontline workers at the nation’s air, land and sea ports of entry over the next five years.

“For the nation’s security, the dangerous cycle of inadequate resources for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) leading to insufficient staffing at the country’s 326 border crossing points has got to end,” said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

She welcomed House legislation introduced by Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) that would authorize the hiring of an additional 5,000 CBP Officers (CBPOs), as well as another 1,200 agriculture specialists and 350 new support employees. Rep. Reyes is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee; his El Paso district lies along the U.S.-Mexican border and includes four international ports of entry.

“NTEU has long advocated substantial increases in CBP staffing,” President Kelley said, pointing to a wide range of problems related in large part to resources and staffing that impact CBP’s critical missions of helping ensure the nation’s security while facilitating more than $1.3 trillion in trade annually.

These problems include seriously low employee morale stemming from such unilateral agency actions as implementing new work schedules on short notice, changing the policy under which employees can be excused from mandatory overtime, and similar steps adversely impacting the balance between employees’ work and personal lives.

Employee turnover numbers tell a significant part of the story, Kelley said, noting that during 2007, an average of 52 CBPOs left the agency every two weeks. “Clearly, this much-needed legislation would be an important step forward,” she said.

The NTEU leader pointed out that CBP’s own staffing model confirms its need to hire between1,600 and 4,000 more CBPOs; despite that, however, the administration’s fiscal 2009 funding request would provide for only 527 additional frontline CBP Officers—fewer than two per port.

For his part, Rep. Reyes said that “inadequate staffing and outdated infrastructure at our land ports of entry are detrimental to our national security and have led to long and frustrating delays for those who use them.” Such delays for both travelers and commercial traffic commonly run to several hours and longer at various ports of entry.

Over the next five years, his legislation would boost CBPO staffing by about 30 percent, while significantly beefing up the number of agriculture specialists and support staff—a move that would help ensure that CBPOs are not pulled away from their inspection duties to perform administrative work.

At the same time, the Reyes bill would provide an additional $5 billion for the General Service Administration to help address infrastructure deficiencies at land ports of entry.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments, including nearly 22,000 in CBP.