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Washington, D.C. –The head of the union representing more than 24,000 frontline homeland security employees called on Congress to provide Customs and Border Protection (CBP) with the staffing and resources needed to properly secure, regulate and facilitate trade at our nation’s ports of entry (POEs) and collect the revenue the government needs.

“Customs revenues are the second largest source of federal revenues collected by the U.S. Government after tax revenues,” said Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), in testimony submitted Tuesday to the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security.

“NTEU is deeply concerned with the lack of resources, both in dollars and manpower, devoted to CBP’s trade functions,” she added. “Lack of sufficient focus and resources costs the U.S. Treasury in terms of customs duties and revenue loss and costs American companies in terms of lost business to unlawful imports.”

In addition to its border and port security mission, Kelley noted that CBP has the mission of regulating and facilitating international trade by collecting import duties and ensuring importers fully comply with applicable laws, regulations, quotas, free trade agreement requirements, and intellectual property provisions. Even without sufficient staff and resources, Kelley noted that, in its trade and revenue function in 2010, CBP processed approximately $2 trillion of imports—28 million trade entries a year—at the POEs and collected more than $32 billion in revenue for the U.S. government.

To ensure this function is fulfilled, Kelley called on the subcommittee to authorize a significant increase in the number of frontline CBP Officers, CBP Agriculture Specialists and CBP commercial operations positions. The NTEU leader warned that insufficient staffing and resources are not only limiting the critical revenue function, but also hurting the agency’s ability to retain valuable employees.

“Because of continuing staffing shortages, inequitable compensation, and lack of mission focus, experienced CBP commercial operations professionals at all levels, who long have made the system work, are leaving or have left the agency,” Kelley wrote. “Twenty-five percent of CBP Import Specialists will retire or be eligible to retire within the next few years.”

In addition to staffing, the NTEU leader also called on greater engagement with frontline CBP employees in efforts to prevent terrorists from shipping weapons of mass destruction in one of the millions of cargo containers that arrive in the ports each year.

The 9/11 Commission required that all containers entering high volume U.S. ports be scanned for nuclear and radiological materials by July 2012, but CBP has acknowledged that it will not meet that target date. NTEU will be seeking collaborative engagement with the agency to ensure it fulfills its mission.

“[CBP employees] are proud of their part in keeping our country free from terrorism, our neighborhoods safe from drugs and our economy safe from illegal trade, while ensuring speedy movement of goods into the country,” Kelley wrote. “These men and women are deserving of more resources to perform their jobs better and more efficiently.”

As the nation’s largest independent federal union, NTEU represents some 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments, including CBP.