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Washington, D.C. — A report in today’s Washington Times of a memo issued by a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) official at El Paso, Texas—one of the nation’s busiest ports of entry—delineating procedures to speed up inspections as lines waiting to enter the country lengthen sharply underscores the critical need for greater staffing at CBP, said the president of the National Treasury Employees Union.

“NTEU has repeatedly testified in Congress on the urgent need to boost staffing and just last week reiterated that call when media reports around the country focused on increasing backlogs at land border crossings,” said NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley.

What is particularly alarming, Kelley said, is that the El Paso directive, which was partially reprinted in the Times, requires inspection of 100 percent of travelers “to the extent that this is operationally feasible,” yet also instructs CBP Officers to vary inspection procedures as wait times grow.

“It looks like management wants to have it both ways—pressuring front-line workers to speed up passenger and vehicle entry into the United States and maximize inspections,” President Kelley said. “This is another example of the Department of Homeland Security failing to do what’s necessary to secure the borders.”

The only way to accomplish the agency’s dual roles of facilitating travel and trade while ensuring the safety and security of our country is to fully staff our nation’s air, land and sea ports of entry with trained CBP personnel. “That, sadly and dangerously, is not now the case,” she added.

The Southwest Border is not the only place where wait times have soared. The NTEU leader last week commended Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.) for conducting public forums to address the sometimes hours-long delays at checkpoints along the borders of the U.S. and Canada. Sen. Sanders pointed to inadequate staffing at CBP as a major reason for the long lines.

President Kelley, who has been sharply critical of the failure of the administration and CBP to seek adequate resources to provide the manpower needed at border entry points and who has repeatedly called in congressional testimony and elsewhere for additional CBP staffing and resources, also took aim at the El Paso directive itself.

“The way to deter terrorists, drug smugglers and other criminals from entering the country is by ensuring there are sufficient personnel on the job. That is a lesson CBP has yet to learn,” Kelley said.

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