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Washington, D.C.—Budget cuts under sequestration, both short-term and long, will sharply worsen the effects of understaffing in Customs and Border Protection (CBP), even as active and proposed port expansion programs seek to address the growth in international trade and travel, the leader of the union representing tens of thousands of frontline security employees said today.

That was the message delivered to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in testimony submitted by President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

“If the sequester, which is intended to be permanent, continues into fiscal 2014, the current levels of CBP staffing, as set by Congress in statute, will be unsustainable,” President Kelley said in telling the committee of serious CBP staffing issues in such travel and trade-heavy states as Florida, California and Texas.

She noted that Florida officials have said that insufficient staffing is creating a bottleneck for travelers at a new CBP facility at Miami International Airport. According to the Florida governor, more than 1 million jobs in Florida depend on international trade and investment, and understaffing potentially could damage Florida’s competitiveness.

City officials in El Paso have been sharply critical of lengthening international bridge wait times and have expressed serious concerns about the environmental impacts of long lines of passenger and commercial traffic.

And in California, Kelley said, the expected 2014 completion of the first phase of an upgrade to the Port of San Ysidro would raise the number of booths requiring staffing from 33 to 46—and that further planned construction would increase the total to 63.

“For far too long, CBP at the ports of entry has been underfunded and understaffed,” Kelley told the committee. She warned of serious impacts for the 50 million Americans working for companies engaged in international trade and the multi-billion-dollar loss to the U.S. economy over the next 10 years stemming from border delays.

“NTEU strongly urges Congress to end the sequester,” the NTEU leader said.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments, including 24,000 in CBP.