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Washington, D.C. – Legislation to initiate a hiring surge of Customs and Border Protection Officers would immediately improve operations at 328 U.S. ports of entry by speeding up legitimate travel and trade and hardening defenses against the entry of criminals and illicit drugs, said Tony Reardon, National President of the National Treasury Employees Union.

The Border and Port Security Act, sponsored by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), would authorize the hiring of 500 new CBP Officers and support staff every year until the agency is fully staffed. There is an existing vacancy rate of about 1,200 CBP Officers, which have been funded by Congress but not filled, and the agency’s own workload staffing model calls for adding 2,500 more Officers and 731 more Agriculture Specialists.

“For all the talk about improving border security and backing federal law enforcement, this bill actually delivers it,” Reardon said. “NTEU strongly supports Sen. McCaskill’s bill as a swift, common sense first-step solution to the CBP staffing crisis that harms our economy and threatens our security.”

Despite the high vacancy rate, CBP Officers in fiscal year 2017 encountered more than 216,000 inadmissible individuals and seized more than 2 million pounds of illegal drugs and $96.8 million in illicit currency, all while processing more than 390 million travelers and $2.2 trillion in imported goods. Giving the agency the resources and personnel it needs would only improve those figures, Reardon said.

NTEU represents about 25,000 CBP personnel at the ports, and the staffing shortage is their number one complaint.

“CBP right now is plagued by low morale, excessive overtime shifts, long duty assignments far from home, increasingly dangerous working conditions and intense pressure to do more work with fewer people,” Reardon said. “NTEU will continue to fight to speed up CBP’s notoriously slow hiring process and give our Officers the tools they need to do their jobs efficiently and effectively.”

The Border and Port Security Act would have a major impact on the American economy by opening more lanes at more ports to process more people and shipments in less time. According to the Department of Commerce, border delays result in losses to output, wages, jobs and tax revenue due to decreases in spending by companies, suppliers and consumers. 

CBP estimates that hiring an additional 500 CBP Officers at the ports of entry would increase economic activity by $1 billion and result in an additional 16,600 jobs per year in the U.S. economy.