The Impact of Sequestration on Homeland Security: Scare Tactics or Possible Threat?

4/12/2013

Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency

Chairman Duncan, Ranking Member Barber, distinguished members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to provide this testimony. As President of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), I have the honor of leading a union that represents over 24,000 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officers and trade enforcement specialists who are stationed at 329 land, sea and air ports of entry (POEs) across the United States. CBP employees’ mission is to protect the nation’s borders at the ports of entry from all threats while facilitating legitimate travel and trade. CBP trade compliance personnel enforce over 400 U.S. trade and tariff laws and regulations in order to ensure a fair and competitive trade environment pursuant to existing international agreements and treaties, as well as stemming the flow of illegal contraband such as child pornography, illegal arms, weapons of mass destruction and laundered money.

In FY 2012, CBP seized more than 4.2 million pounds of narcotics across the country. In addition, the agency seized more than $100 million in unreported currency through targeted enforcement operations. At ports of entry in FY 2012, CBP officers arrested nearly 7,700 people wanted for serious crimes, including murder, rape, assault and robbery. Officers also stopped nearly 145,000 inadmissible aliens from entering the U.S. through ports of entry. Inadmissibility grounds included immigration violations, health, criminal, and national security related grounds. Additionally, CBP agriculture specialists conducted more than 1.6 million interceptions of prohibited plant materials, meat, and animal byproducts at ports of entry while also stopping nearly 174,000 potentially dangerous pests.

CBP uniformed and non-uniformed personnel at the air, sea and land ports of entry not only ensure a secure border, but also collect significant revenue through trade compliance and enforcement. CBP is a revenue collection agency, processing more than $2.3 trillion in FY 2012 in total trade value. CBP processed 25.3 million cargo containers through the nation's ports of entry in FY 2012, up about 4 percent from the previous year. In addition, CBP conducted nearly 23,000 seizures of goods that violate intellectual property rights, with a total retail value of $1.2 billion, representing a 14 percent increase in value over FY 2011.

CBP personnel at the ports of entry are key to achieving and maintaining a secure border and the greatest current threat to border security is sequestration under the Budget Control Act that went into effect on March 1st.

Under sequestration, CBP’s Salaries and Expenses (S&E) discretionary and mandatory accounts must be reduced by $512 million. This number includes a cut of $75 million in CBP user fee accounts. User fees will continue to be collected from industry to provide travel and trade security, immigration and agriculture inspection services, but CBP will be prohibited from using a portion of these user fees. User fees are not a tax, by law they pay for specific services provided by the government. Sequestration limits the use of these collected fees to pay for CBP inspectional services.

Also, under sequestration, the cut to the CBP S&E account included a reduction of $37.5 million for inspectional overtime at the POEs. Overtime is essential when staffing levels are insufficient to ensure that inspectional duties can be fulfilled, that CBP Officers have sufficient back-up and that wait times are mitigated. In CBP’s own words, “Overtime allows CBP Office of Field Operations to schedule its personnel to cover key shifts with a smaller total personnel number.” The sequester significantly cuts overtime hours and will result in longer wait times at the ports of entry.

On March 26, the President signed a Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year. The CR does not cancel the sequester. Congress did provide some additional funding for the CBP S&E account in the CR, but also required CBP to maintain the current CBP Officer staffing level. Maintaining current staffing floors means CBP cannot use all of the increased funding in the CR to reduce furloughs for current employees since it must continue to fill vacant positions.

Prior to enactment of the CR, the CBP sequester plan required all CBP employees to be furloughed up to 14 days during the remainder of FY 2013 or one day per pay period beginning early to mid-April through September 30, resulting in a 10% pay cut for all CBP employees. The initially-proposed furloughs would have exacerbated an already unsustainable shortage of CBP inspection and enforcement personnel at international air, sea and land ports of entry.

With the additional funding included in the CR, however, there may be a reduction in the number of furlough days that all CBP employees must take before the end of the fiscal year. In light of the new funding bill, CBP is re-evaluating previously planned furloughs, and has postponed implementation of furloughs pending that re-examination.

There is no greater roadblock to legitimate trade and travel efficiency, however, than the lack of sufficient staff at the ports of entry. Understaffed ports lead to long delays in our commercial lanes as cargo waits to enter U.S. commerce.

Those delays result in real losses to the U.S. economy. According to a draft report prepared by the Department of Commerce, border delays in 2008 cost the U.S. economy nearly 26,000 jobs and $6 billion in output, $1.4 billion in wages, and $600 million in tax revenues annually. According to the same report, by 2017, average wait times could increase to nearly 100 minutes, costing the U.S. more than 54,000 jobs and $12 billion in output, $3 billion in wages and $1.2 billion in tax revenues. The cumulative loss in output due to border delays over the next ten years is estimated to be $86 billion.

More than 50 million Americans work for companies that engage in international trade, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury. If Congress is serious about job creation, then Congress should support enhancing U.S. trade and travel by mitigating wait times at the ports and enhancing trade enforcement by increasing CBP security and commercial operations staffing at the air, sea, and land ports of entry.

CBP STAFFING SHORTAGE EFFECTS IN FLORIDA, TEXAS, AND CALIFORNIA

On February 20th, DHS Secretary Napolitano, at the request of Florida’s Governor Rick Scott, toured the Miami International Airport (MIA) with a delegation from Congress and airline and cruise representatives and other industry stakeholders. Governor Scott noted that insufficient staffing at the new state-of-the-art CBP facility at MIA caused a “bottleneck” for passengers trying to exit customs. “As a result, customers—often numbering well over 1,000 a day—and their baggage are misconnected and must be rebooked on later flights, many leaving the next day.”

In a letter to the Secretary, Governor Scott stated, “If this staffing problem is not corrected immediately, it has the potential to damage Florida’s international competiveness. More than 1 million jobs in Florida depend on international trade and investment. The engineering models and recommendations reflected that for optimal operations a minimum of 62 of the 72 lanes must be staffed at peak arrival periods.”

Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart said after the tour, "Tourism is the backbone of Florida's economy, and DHS must do more to adequately staff our ports. Our CBP agents are working diligently to protect us from any security threats, illegal substances, and invasive pests and diseases entering the United States, but the lack of staffing is creating long and disorganized lines for travelers, and discouraging travelers from visiting and using South Florida's ports.”

Another state with ongoing significant CBP personnel staffing shortages is Texas where more than 420,000 jobs depend on trade with Mexico. Texas leads the nation with 29 international ports of entry. The Houston field office manages 19 of these, including the Port of Houston, George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) and airports at Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, Midland, Lubbock, Amarillo and also Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Currently IAH wait times are considerably longer than Houston’s airport competitors – Dallas and Atlanta. And the City of Houston is considering a proposal to allow international commercial flights at Hobby Airport.

In El Paso, city officials have used the word “crisis” to describe the sometimes hours-long wait times at the local ports of entry and are considering legal action over the environmental effect of international bridge wait times and “CBP’s failure to keep those booths open.”

Wait times of up to three hours at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), the nation’s third busiest airport moved ten Members of Congress to demand that CBP transfer CBP Officers from other ports of entry to LAX. Despite continuing staffing shortages at LAX, the Bradley terminal is undergoing a $1.5 billion overhaul that calls for expanding the number of CBP inspection booths to 81.

Also in California, Congress has funded the first phase of a $583 million upgrade of the Port of San Ysidro. When the first phase is completed in September 2014, there will be 46 inspection booths—up from the current 33. An additional 17 booths would be built in the third phase bringing the total number of booths needing CBP Officer staffing from 33 to 63.

As noted in these examples, Congress, local jurisdictions and industry stakeholders continue to act as if CBP can staff whatever is built.

CBP cannot adequately staff existing port facilities under current funding levels provided by Congress. Proposed port expansions, allowing international flights at airports that are currently not served by international flights, and other new construction to address the growth in international trade and travel, is not possible under the Congressionally-mandated sequester. And, if the sequester, which is intended to be permanent, continues into FY 2014, the current levels of CBP staffing, as set by Congress in statute, will be unsustainable.

CBP’S ONGOING POE STAFFING SHORTAGES AND THE FY 2014 BUDGET

The sequester only exacerbates CBP’s ongoing staffing shortage problem. In 2008, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported, "At seven of the eight major ports we visited, officers and managers told us that not having sufficient staff contributes to morale problems, fatigue, lack of backup support and safety issues when officers inspect travelers--increasing the potential that terrorists, inadmissible travelers and illicit goods could enter the country." (See GAO-08-219, page 7.)

"Due to staffing shortages, ports of entry rely on overtime to accomplish their inspection responsibilities. Double shifts can result in officer fatigue…officer fatigue caused by excessive overtime negatively affected inspections at ports of entry. On occasion, officers said they are called upon to work 16-hour shifts, spending long stints in primary passenger processing lanes in order to keep lanes open, in part to minimize traveler wait times. Further evidence of fatigue came from officers who said that CBP officers call in sick due to exhaustion, in part to avoid mandatory overtime, which in turn exacerbates the staffing challenges faced by the ports." (See GAO-08-219, page 33.)

Without adequate personnel at secondary, wait times back up and searches are not done to specifications. This is a significant cargo security issue. A full search of one vehicle for counterfeit currency will take two officers on average a minimum of 45 minutes. Frequently, only one CBP Officer is available for this type of search and the search will then take well over an hour.

Also, when CBP was created, it was given a dual mission of safeguarding our nation’s borders and ports as well as regulating and facilitating international trade. It also collects import duties and enforces U.S. trade laws. Since CBP was established in March 2003, there has been no increase in CBP trade enforcement and compliance personnel. In effect, there has been a CBP trade operations staffing freeze at March 2003 levels and, as a result, CBP’s revenue function has suffered and duty and fee revenue collected has remained flat.

NTEU applauds the Administration’s FY 2014 budget that would end sequestration and provide $221 million to fund 1,600 new CBP Officers and mobile equipment. The budget also proposes to increase the Immigration Inspection User Fee and COBRA user fees by $2. These user fee increases, if enacted, would fund 1,877 additional new CBP Officers. Together the appropriations and user fee increases would fund 3,477 new CBP Officers.

NTEU would ask that Congress also consider increasing the number of CBP Agriculture Specialists and non-uniformed CBP trade operations personnel to address the ever increasing volume of agriculture commodities (along with pests) and imports entering through the U.S. air, sea and land ports of entry.

CONCLUSION

As noted by Members of Congress, industry stakeholders, the traveling public and DHS’s own Advisory Council, for too long, CBP at the POEs has been underfunded and understaffed.

NTEU applauds the Administration’s the FY 2014 budget submission that adds 3477 new CBP Officer hires at the air, sea and land ports of entry—1600 paid for through appropriations and 1877 paid for by an increase in customs and immigration user fees that have not been increased since 2001.

But, by allowing the sequester to go into effect on March 1, Congress continues to exacerbate staffing shortages at the U.S. ports of entry, and the U.S. economy, dependent on international trade and travel, will suffer and U.S. private sector jobs will be lost. Therefore, NTEU strongly urges Congress to end the sequester.

The more than 24,000 CBP employees represented by the NTEU are capable and committed to the varied missions of DHS from border control to the facilitation of legitimate trade and travel. These men and women are deserving of more resources and technology to perform their jobs better and more efficiently.

Thank you for the opportunity to submit this testimony to the Committee on their behalf.