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Washington, D.C.—In light of the sharply-increased focus on security at the nation’s ports, Congress needs to move well beyond the administration’s proposal calling for a meager increase of fewer than 100 in the number of frontline security workers at ports across the country, the leader of the union representing thousands of these homeland security employees said today.

“The American public expects its borders and ports to be properly defended,” said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) in testimony submitted to the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. The Senate body is reviewing the proposed fiscal 2007 budget for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“Congress must show the public that it is serious about protecting our homeland by fully funding the staffing needs” of the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at the nation’s 317 ports of entry, she said.

Under the administration’s fiscal 2007 DHS budget proposal, CBP—whose employees are responsible for a wide range of security and significant trade-related duties at land, air and seaports around the nation—would add less than 100 to its frontline workforce.

Kelley cited Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports criticizing CBP for failing to systematically assess the optimal number of staff required to accomplish its mission—and supporting its decision not to do so by stating that it does not expect to receive any additional resources, given the current budget climate. The NTEU leader has called that rationale by CBP “completely unacceptable.”

In addition to calling on Congress to provide sufficient funding for CBP to meet both its homeland security and critical trade facilitation responsibilities, Kelley strongly recommended a congressional review of CBP’s “One Face at the Border” initiative.

This two-year-old program, which combines the work of inspectors from legacy Customs, Immigration and Naturalization and Agriculture into a single position, has resulted in a serious loss of inspectional expertise, Kelley said.

She offered examples of the absurd results generated by the ‘One Face’ program. In one instance, former INS agents expert in identifying counterfeit foreign visas are now at seaports reviewing bills of lading from Chinese container ships, rather than performing the work for which they are trained.

In another example, she said CBP Officers who have been working and gaining expertise at seaports for many years have been transferred to airports—places they haven’t worked in over 20 years. “The processes, procedures and skills are very different from airport to seaport,” she said.

It is apparent, the NTEU president said, that CBP “sees its ‘One Face’ initiative as a means to increase management flexibility without increasing staffing levels,” adding that it comes with a very high cost to the nation in misplaced skills and expertise. The impact is to decrease national security, she said.

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