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Washington, D.C.—Protecting the integrity of the nation’s ports of entry from those who would use fraudulent documents among the 1.1 million passengers and pedestrians who enter the U.S. every day is a function of adequate staffing and resources at the nation’s 317 ports of entry and appropriate training for the employees of the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) stationed there, the leader of the union representing CBP employees said today.

“It is up to Congress to provide the funding to ensure that ports of entry have enough personnel and up to CBP to provide the necessary training,” said President Colleen M Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU). “For some time now, neither of those obligations has been met.”

The union president offered her assessment of port of entry security efforts in submitted testimony to the Senate Finance Committee as it opened a hearing on immigration and border security, particularly the use of fake identification cards and other documents by some seeking entry into the U.S.

The NTEU leader said that with thousands of available identification documents issued by states and the federal government, catching those who seek to entry the country with false documents is a very difficult job performed under unrelenting pressure. “It is NTEU’s understanding,” Kelley said, “that very little training is offered on state-issued identification documents.” What minimal document training exists at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) focuses predominantly on passports and other international documents.

“CBP Officers (CBPOs) are dedicated professionals who understand their vital role in the security of our country,” Kelley said, “and they are frustrated by a lack of resources and training that make it even tougher to appropriately identify fraudulent documents.”

President Kelley stressed that CBPOs are “further hampered in their ability to do their jobs” by the agency’s ongoing effort to combine the work of three jobs into one. Under its so-called ‘One Face at the Border’ initiative, CBP is combining the work of legacy Customs, Immigration and Agriculture inspectors into a single position—and asking CBPOs to be well-versed on each of the three specialty areas.

Instead, and as NTEU warned from the first day the ‘One Face’ initiative was advanced by CBP in September 2003, the result has been a serious loss of inspectional expertise.

“We have repeatedly pointed out to CBP and to Congress,” President Kelley said, “that the processes, procedures and skills are very different at land, sea and air ports, as are the training and skill sets needed for passenger processing and cargo inspection.”

She added: “Congress, CBP and the American people need to understand that without adequate training for these employees and the preservation of inspection specialization skills, not only will the ‘One Face’ initiative fail miserably, our nation’s security will be at risk.”

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments, including 15,000 in CBP.