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Washington, D.C.— The head of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) today called on Congress to authorize the hiring of an additional 2,000 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officers as well as more agriculture inspection and trade enforcement personnel to adequately address increased agriculture and commercial trade volumes.

“CBP employees at the ports perform agriculture inspections to prevent the entry of animal and plant pests or diseases,” NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley told a Senate committee. “Staffing shortages and lack of mission priority for the critical work performed by CBP Agriculture Specialists and CBP Technicians assigned to the ports is a continuing threat to the U.S. economy.”

Kelley offered that assessment in testimony submitted to a hearing on port security of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

She noted the ongoing hiring of 2,000 CBP Officers at the nation’s land, air and sea ports of entry and supported a proposal by the White House to fund an additional 2,000 CBP Officers beyond that, bringing the total to 25,775, through an increase of $2 each in customs and immigration user fees. These fees, which are woefully inadequate to cover certain costs incurred in the processing of passengers and commercial traffic, have not been raised in some years.

In fiscal 2010, for example, CBP collected $13.7 million in commercial vehicle user fees, but the actual cost of commercial vehicle inspections in that year totaled more than $113 million, resulting in a $100 million shortfall for CBP.

Kelley noted that while the most recent omnibus appropriations bill began to address CBP’s chronic staffing shortages this fiscal year and next, she said, “it is important that the committee authorize funding for these 2,000 additional CBP Officers in fiscal 2015 and beyond.”

On a related matter, the NTEU leader stressed the importance of ending sequestration, which is scheduled to continue through fiscal 2021.

Such a continuation would severely impede CBP’s multiple and critical missions, she said. “Another round of sequestration will be devastating to CBP, requiring furloughs and hiring freezes, eliminating overtime, reducing services, increasing wait times for trade and travel and jeopardizing national security.”

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