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Washington, D.C. — An effort by the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to meet its critical mission requirements while effectively cutting corners on staffing has failed and should be abandoned in favor of hiring thousands more officers and returning to specialized Customs, Immigration and Agriculture roles at ports of entry, the leader of the union representing CBP employees told a key Senate subcommittee today.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) outlined a set of solutions to CBP human capital challenges at a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia. The NTEU leader criticized the four-year-old CBP “One Face at the Border” program, which combines the work of inspectors from the three legacy agencies that make up CBP into a single position, and highlighted CBP’s failure to deal with severe staffing shortages and retention problems.

The hearing comes in the wake of an extensive report to Congress by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concerning weaknesses in traveler inspections at the nation’s 326 air, land and sea ports of entry. Congress requested the GAO report after NTEU urged lawmakers to examine problems caused by ‘One Face’ and staffing.

To solve the staffing, training, resource and morale issues outlined in the GAO report, the NTEU leader recommended that CBP:

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Fill vacancies and increase CBP Officer and CBP Agricultural specialist staffing to those levels in CBP’s own staffing model;

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End the “One Face at the Border” initiative and return to specialized inspectional roles for Customs, Immigration and Agriculture functions at the ports of entry;

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Provide Law Enforcement Officer coverage for all CBP Officers and legacy inspectors to solve attrition and retention problems;

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Repeal the DHS personnel flexibility authority; and

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Allow employee input in the shift assignment system.

Kelley charged CBP with attempting to use ‘One Face’ to avoid hiring additional staff. “CBP thought that by consolidating roles it could get by with fewer officers,” she said. “That strategy has clearly failed the nation.”

“This major consolidation of the roles and responsibilities of the inspectional workforce resulted in a huge expansion of the duties of each officer and led to dilution of individual specialties, weakening the quality of inspections,” said Kelley.

Problems caused by the failed ‘One Face’ program are exacerbated by severe staffing shortages at many ports. “GAO investigators, as well as employees and supervisors, made clear that CBP needs thousands more front-line employees not just to do the job the nation has a right to expect, but provide enough manpower to staff ports of entry while critically-necessary training is provided,” she said.

Officers are often compelled to work double-shifts and forced overtime, sometimes resulting in fatigue that can affect decisions, Kelley said. NTEU has called on Congress for an increase of at least 4,000 new CBP Officers.

Moreover, the twin pressures imposed by CBP management to fully perform inspection duties, yet reduce traveler wait times at border crossing points without increasing staffing “creates an extremely challenging work environment” for CBP Officers, she said.

CBP employee morale is among the lowest in government and is attributable to the lack of Law Enforcement Officer status, elimination of employee input into scheduling issues, and pressure on employees to reduce wait times while conducting full inspections. This all contributes to high turnover at CBP, Kelley said.

“The most significant impediment to recruitment and retention of CBP Officers that Congress can address immediately is the lack of Law Enforcement Officer status,” Kelley said. She called on the Committee to support current efforts in the House to grant LEO status to CBP Officers.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments, including the entire 21,000-employee CBP bargaining unit.