HOMELAND SECURITY REORGANIZATION'S IMPACT ON LAW ENFORCEMENT

6/17/2002

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES HOUSE GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEE

Chairman Souder, Ranking Member Cummings, distinguished members of the Committee, I would like to thank the Committee for the opportunity to comment on the President's Department of Homeland Security proposal's impact on federal law enforcement.

As President of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), I have the honor of leading a union which represents over 12,000 Customs employees who are stationed at 301 ports of entry across the United States. Customs inspectors and canine enforcement officers make up our nation=s first line of defense in the wars on terrorism and drugs. In addition, Customs personnel are responsible for ensuring compliance with hundreds of import laws and regulations, as well as stemming the flow of illegal contraband such as child pornography, illegal arms, weapons of mass destruction and laundered money.

With a FY2002 budget of approximately $3.1 billion and over 19,000 employees, the U.S. Customs Service continues to be the Nation=s premier border agency. The U.S. Customs Service interdicts more drugs than any other agency and ensures that all goods and persons entering and exiting the United States do so in compliance with over 400 U.S. laws and regulations at 301 points of entry across the country. Customs is also a revenue collection agency, collecting an estimated $25 billion in revenue on over 25 million entries involving over $1.3 trillion in international trade every year.

The President's proposal would consolidate the Customs Service, INS, Border Patrol, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) and the Coast Guard into one department titled Border and Transportation Security under the jurisdiction of a newly created Department of Homeland Security. I find this proposal to be extremely troubling.

One of the keys to operating any government agency is sound organization. It can ensure that problems reach their proper level of decision quickly and efficiently. More importantly, good organization helps assure accountability.

I would have to respectfully disagree with the view that consolidating the Customs Service with INS, Border Patrol, Coast Guard, TSA and APHIS will achieve the goals of sound organization, accountability and enhanced border and port security.

Consolidating these organizations would cause logistical and institutional chaos. It would also take attention away from critical homeland security priorities. Yes, all of these organizations deal with front line border and port security, but in very different capacities. Each of these agency's missions are unique and should remain in their current structure. Ignoring each agency's fields of expertise will lead to losing that expertise. A new cabinet-level agency is no substitute for the additional funding and personnel needed at the U.S. Customs Service as well as other border security agencies.

For example, Customs is charged with preventing contraband from entering the U.S. as well as preventing terrorists from using commercial or private transportation venues of international trade for smuggling explosives or weapons of mass destruction into or out of the United States. Customs personnel use advanced manifest information on goods to improve targeting systems to detect questionable shipments as well as deploying state of the art inspection technology at land borders, airports and seaports. Customs personnel also use advanced computer systems to compare international passenger information against law enforcement databases on a passenger-by-passenger basis to detect possible terrorists or criminals.

Whereas, the Border Patrol's primary mission is the detection and prevention of illegal entry into the United States between ports of entry, the INS is tasked with the deterrence of unlawful entry of persons into the United States as well as facilitating lawful entry of persons entering the United States at ports of entry. Some of the Coast Guard=s missions include maritime search and rescue, international ice patrol operations, polar and domestic waterway icebreaking, bridge administration, aids to navigation, recreational boating safety, and vessel traffic management. APHIS=s missions include protecting America's animal and plant resources by safeguarding resources from exotic invasive pests and diseases, monitoring and managing agricultural pests and diseases existing in the United States, and resolving and managing trade issues related to animal or plant health, and ensuring the humane care and treatment of animals.

The Customs Service is also responsible for collecting over $25 billion in trade revenue each year. The organizational mission of the Department of Homeland Security has nothing to do with revenue collection or trade facilitation, two main missions of the U.S. Customs Service. Adding revenue collection and trade facilitation responsibilities to the Department of Homeland Security's mission would create a logistical mess and make it more difficult for U.S. companies that import and export goods, a fact that has been mentioned by a number of trade groups such as the National Foreign Trade Council and the Electric Industries Alliance.

Another argument which was mentioned in the President's proposal as a reason requiring the most significant restructuring of the U.S. government in over 50 years is the lack of intelligence sharing between agencies. As any expert involved in law enforcement operations will tell you, the routine sharing of tactical intelligence is critical to all law enforcement operations, especially agencies tasked with border security. While some work still needs to be done in the area of cooperation and coordination of intelligence, all three agencies involved with border security functions have been working together as part of Intelligence Collection and Analysis Teams (ICATs). These teams have been created throughout the country to analyze smuggling trends and concealment methods, and to quickly disseminate intelligence to all ports of entry and Border Patrol checkpoints. These ICATs are comprised of Customs Inspectors and Agents, INS agents, INS analysts and, the U.S. Border Patrol as well as local law enforcement in some cases.

However, the President's proposal does not directly address the problem of sharing intelligence between the border security agencies and the FBI and CIA because these two agencies are not directly included in the President's proposal. Several members of Congress have stated that the best way to avert intelligence-sharing failures is to put the head of the proposed department in charge of the operatives who gather the information, including those now at the FBI and the CIA. This is certainly one way to ensure proper intelligence sharing among agencies.

In Customs' case, no one doubts that the level of conveyances, cargo and passengers has increased dramatically over the last five years, but unfortunately its resources have not kept pace. Traffic volume at U.S. land ports-of-entry has steadily increased as our shared borders with Mexico and Canada have become more open as a result of the NAFTA and other initiatives. The steady increase in non-commercial traffic has led to increased congestion and backups at many land ports-of-entry, particularly those along the Southwest border. Nearly 68 percent of non-commercial vehicles that enter the United States entered at land ports-of-entry along the Southwest border. Wait times along the Southwest border often extend to 45 minutes or more during peak hours. Such lengthy delays can be both irritating and costly to businesses and the traveling public. The lack of resources at ports-of-entry is also a problem along the Northern Border as well as seaports. The events of September 11 brought attention to the fact that the Northern Border and the nations' seaports have long been neglected in terms of personnel and resources.

In fact, Customs recent internal review of staffing, known as the Resource Allocation Model or R.A.M. shows that Customs needed over 14,776 new hires just to fulfill its basic mission and that was before September 11. What Customs needs in order to be successful and to continue to carry out its recently expanded mission of homeland security is greater funding.

For instance, with increased funding, modern technologies, such as Vehicle and Cargo Inspection Systems (VACIS), which send gamma rays through the aluminum walls of shipping containers and vehicles to enable Customs inspectors to check for illegal drugs or weapons of mass destruction, could be acquired. However, adequate and consistent funding to purchase, operate and maintain these technologies has not been forthcoming. There have been a number of instances around the country where multi-million dollar VACIS x-ray machines have sat unused because of the lack of funding available for Customs personnel to operate the machines. Other technologies, coupled with proper personnel funding, such as portable contraband detectors (a.k.a. Busters), optical fiber scopes and laser range finders can be invaluable to Customs personnel protecting our borders from terrorists and illegal drugs.

The President's FY2003 budget requests a funding level of $3.18 billion and 19,628 FTEs for the United States Customs Service. This request represents a token increase from last year=s appropriations. NTEU feels that this budget is simply inadequate to meet the needs of Customs personnel, especially in light of the incidents surrounding September 11th.

In 2001, Customs Service employees seized over 1.7 million pounds of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and other illegal narcotics B including over 9.5 million tablets of Ecstasy, triple the amount seized in 1999. Customs also processed over 497 million travelers last year, including 1 million cars and trucks and over $1.3 trillion worth of trade. These numbers continue to grow annually. Over the last decade trade has increased by 137%. It has become very clear that funding must be substantially increased in order to allow Customs to meet the challenges of the future, especially as Customs continues to have significantly higher workloads and increased threats along America's borders.

Yet, despite the increased threats of terrorism, the dramatic increases in trade resulting from NAFTA, and new drug smuggling challenges, the Customs Service has confronted its rapidly increasing workload and homeland security mission with relatively static staffing levels and resources. In the last ten years, there have not been adequate increases in staffing levels for inspectional personnel and import specialists , the employees who process legitimate trade, to successfully conduct their missions.

The recent deployment of over 700 National Guard troops to our borders clearly shows the need for more Customs personnel. Currently, some of the National Guard troops in the border are unarmed, which not only puts the Customs inspectors= lives in danger but that of the National Guard as well. In fact, a number of drug seizure cases have had to be dismissed because of the improper discovery and handling of illegal drugs by National Guard troops. These troops need to be removed from the borders and quickly replaced with highly trained Customs personnel.

Yet, the President has stated that his Department of Homeland Security proposal will not include any additional funding that will enable the Customs Service and its personnel to successfully accomplish their missions of border security and trade facilitation.

The American public expects its borders to be properly defended. The government must show the public that it is serious about protecting the borders by fully funding the agencies tasked with defending the borders and laws of the United States. No organizational structure change will be successful, no matter how good it may look on paper, if the government does not provide proper funding for its border security agencies.

On a final note, the Administration has indicated that it wants new "flexibility" in the legislation that will establish the Department of Homeland Security. While it is unclear as to exactly what is meant by that phrase, I urge this committee not to take away the rights and benefits that are currently available to the employees who may be merged into this new department. Before, during, and after September 11, front line employees have acted heroically to protect our freedom. They do not deserve to lose theirs.

Thank you for the opportunity to share NTEU's thoughts on this very important issue. I look forward to working with the Committee on this and many other issues related to homeland security.