[Senate Hearing 110-304]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 110-304
HUMAN CAPITAL NEEDS OF THE U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION ``ONE
FACE AT THE BORDER'' INITIATIVE
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HEARING
before the
OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE
of the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 13, 2007
__________
Available via http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TED STEVENS, Alaska
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
BARACK OBAMA, Illinois PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri JOHN WARNER, Virginia
JON TESTER, Montana JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire
Michael L. Alexander, Staff Director
Brandon L. Milhorn, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware TED STEVENS, Alaska
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana JOHN WARNER, Virginia
Richard J. Kessler, Staff Director
Lisa Powell, Chief Investigative Counsel
Jodi Lieberman, Professional Staff Member
Jennifer A. Hemingway, Minority Staff Director
Theresa Manthripragada, Minority Professional Staff Member
David Cole, Minority Professional Staff Member
Jessica K. Nagasako, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Akaka................................................ 1
Senator Voinovich............................................ 3
Senator Warner............................................... 12
Senator Levin................................................ 15
WITNESSES
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Paul M. Morris, Executive Director, Admissibility Passenger
Programs, Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border
Protection, Department of Homeland Security.................... 5
Richard M. Stana, Director, Homeland Security and Justice Issues,
U.S. Government Accountability Office.......................... 7
Colleen M. Kelley, National President, National Treasury
Employees Union................................................ 26
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Kelley, Colleen M.:
Testimony.................................................... 26
Prepared statement........................................... 64
Morris, Paul M.:
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 35
Stana, Richard M.:
Testimony.................................................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 49
APPENDIX
Background....................................................... 78
Questions and responses for the Record from:
Mr. Morris................................................... 84
Mr. Stana.................................................... 98
GAO report entitled ``Border Security: Despite Progress,
Weaknesses in Traveler Inspections Exist at Our Nation's Ports
of Entry,'' GAO-08-219, November 2007.......................... 101
HUMAN CAPITAL NEEDS OF THE
U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION
``ONE FACE AT THE BORDER'' INITIATIVE
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2007
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Oversight of Government
Management, the Federal Workforce,
and the District of Columbia,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in
Room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K.
Akaka, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Akaka, Levin, Voinovich, and Warner.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA
Senator Akaka. I call this hearing of the Subcommittee on
Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and
the District of Columbia to order.
Today's hearing, Human Capital Needs of the U.S. Customs
and Border Protection ``One Face at the Border'' Initiative,
will examine the results of a Government Accountability Office
report entitled ``Border Security: Despite Progress, Weaknesses
in Travel Inspections Exist at Our Nation's Ports of Entry.''
The GAO report details troubling shortcomings in inspections by
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at land and air ports of
entry.\1
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\1\ The GAO report appears in the Appendix on page 101.
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Each year CBP processes more than 400 million pedestrian
and passenger entries, as well as 20 million containers with
goods, into the United States. The vast majority of visitors to
the United States have come here legally for tourism, business,
work, studies, or other activities. But the GAO report makes
clear that thousands of people each year are entering the
country illegally through official ports of entry.
I requested that GAO do this study because I was concerned
that CBP was not hiring enough officers to screen travelers at
ports of entry and that CBP officers were not receiving the
training they need to do their jobs properly. This report
reinforces my concern.
GAO investigators who visited border crossings found CBP
officers missing from their inspection booths at some
locations. At other locations officers failed to ask
investigators for their identification or travel documents. GAO
investigators also saw video of CBP officers waving vehicles
through inspection booths without speaking with the passengers.
In short, CBP at times conducts inspections that are unlikely
to detect people and goods that should not enter the country.
Insufficient staffing and training seem to be the central
reasons for these inadequate inspections. CBP simply does not
have anywhere near enough CBP officers working at ports of
entry, and officers are not provided the training they need to
do their jobs effectively. CBP's own staffing model indicates
that the agency needs to hire several thousand additional CBP
officers.
Because of staffing shortfalls, CBP officers are being
forced to work extensive overtime, sometimes 16-hour shifts. It
is not realistic to expect an officer to stay as alert and
focused as needed for 16 straight hours. Long overtime also
leads to CBP officers calling in sick from exhaustion,
worsening the staffing shortages.
CBP has made progress in improving its training programs,
but staffing shortages have forced the agency to cut back on
its training. New officers at land border crossings are
supposed to receive 12 weeks of basic on-the-job training when
they start. Most CBP officers receive less than that. Some
receive as little as 2 weeks of on-the-job training, and more
advanced training courses often are canceled or shortened
because there are not enough officers to cover the inspection
booths.
As a result, officers are being placed in situations
without the training they need to do their jobs.
Unfortunately, but predictably, staffing shortages, forced
overtime, and inadequate training contribute to serious morale
problems in CBP.
Under the circumstances, it is not surprising there is high
turnover among CBP officers. At some ports of entry, CBP is
losing officers faster than it can hire replacements. Attrition
is a major factor in understaffing. This is a vicious cycle.
Understaffing creates problems that lead to turnover, and high
turnover makes it very difficult to address the staff
shortages.
As the GAO report notes, some CBP officers are leaving to
take positions that provide law enforcement officer benefits.
Even though CBP officers receive mandatory law enforcement
training, carry firearms, and make arrests, they do not receive
the same enhanced pension benefits that other Federal law
enforcement officers, including Border Patrol agents, receive.
Fixing this inequity would help mitigate the high turnover of
CBP officers.
We owe the brave men and women charged with keeping
terrorists, illegal drugs, and other dangerous people and items
out of the country much better training and working conditions.
GAO also found weaknesses in the infrastructure of land
border crossings that allow people to bypass inspection booths
entering the country without inspection. The physical
environment at some land border crossings is not conducive to
thorough inspections. In many ports of entry, visitors wait
hours to enter the country because there are not enough
inspection booths.
As the Senator from Hawaii, I fully understand the
importance of facilitating efficient entry into the country for
legitimate travel and trade. Tourism is almost a $12 billion
industry in Hawaii, the largest sector of our economy, and
foreign visitors contribute enormously to Hawaii's and the
Nation's economy.
Approximately $4 billion in capital improvements in the
facilities at land border crossings are needed, but there is
only approximately $250 million in the President's budget for
infrastructure improvements.
Securing our Nation's ports of entry is a critical national
security priority. At the same time, we must never lose focus
on the fact that these ports welcome millions of tourists,
business people, students, immigrants, and refugees who make
this Nation more economically and culturally vibrant. As the
President's new National Strategy for Homeland Security States,
achieving a welcoming America must remain an important goal.
It is time that we invest in the infrastructure to make our
Nation's ports of entry more secure, inviting, and efficient.
One approach would be to examine ways of redesigning the
gateways to this country to optimize security and maximize
processing rates while improving the work environment of our
Customs and Border Protection officers.
I look forward to learning more about CBP's successes and
challenges, in particular, staffing and infrastructure issues.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here today to discuss
these important issues, and before calling on my friend,
Senator Voinovich, for his opening statement, I would like to
say that there is a vote scheduled shortly. Senator Voinovich
will chair the hearing while I vote, and he will recess briefly
after his statement, until I return. We will try it that way.
But we will see how it works.
So at this time, let me call on Senator Voinovich.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH
Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If things work
the way they work in the Senate, we may not have the vote at
that time, so I am going to make my statement rather short.
Hopefully we will get a chance to hear the witnesses before we
have to go and vote.
First of all, I want to thank you very much for holding
this hearing. I think you did a wonderful job in explaining
what the problems are, and I am not going to reiterate them. I
think you have done a terrific job in laying them out for the
witnesses and for the people that are here today.
Second, I think that we should make it very clear that the
budget of this agency is really robust. As you know, we went
ahead and passed the Homeland Security budget. Between the
White House and the Homeland Security Appropriations Committee,
they increased the budget by 23 percent over FY 07. And if you
take the $3 billion that we put in at the end, we are talking
about almost a 47-percent increase in the amount of money for
border security and immigration enforcement over FY 07.
So the issue is not money. What are we doing with the
money? I think we all have to understand that security at the
borders is a cornerstone to our national security. There are
326 land, air, and sea ports, and it entails more than
preventing individuals from crossing these borders illegally.
It includes protecting our economy from illegal goods, which is
a big problem today. That is why Senator Evan Bayh and I have
introduced a bill to deal with counterfeit goods.
CBP holds this responsibility, and the American people are
grateful to the thousands of officers who every day accept this
responsibility. They do a very good job. They are conscientious
workers. Nowhere in government is it more important than at CBP
that you have to have the right people with the right knowledge
and skills at the right place at the right time so that they
are going to be successful. However, as the GAO will discuss in
its testimony, Customs and Border Protection faces significant
challenges in getting the right people with the right skills in
place. Two of the three components that today make up CBP came
to DHS with significant operational and management challenges.
One of the problems when we created the Department of Homeland
Security was not recognizing that a lot of the agencies being
merged were already in trouble. And here we are, same problems
today.
Senator Akaka and I have been pushing legislation that
would require a Chief Management Officer at DHS. A CMO would
have a 6-year term that would concentrate on making the
management changes in the Department of Homeland Security.
Without a strong leader who can develop the proper metrics and
an appropriate strategic plan, we will be here 5 years from
now, and it will be the same story. And, quite frankly, as a
former mayor and governor, I am fed up with it. We must do
better.
For more than 4 years, Customs and Border Protection has
not been able to identify the concrete steps they will take
to--in other words, they have not been able to ensure it has
the skilled workforce in place to meet its mission. Senator
Akaka did a great job of explaining the turnover rate, the
training, and so forth. CBP must find and take immediate steps
to address the needs of its workforce today, not in 1 or 2
years but today.
I think it is ridiculous that we do not have performance
measures for the Traveler Inspection Program that identifies
Customs and Border Protection's effectiveness in apprehending
inadmissible aliens and other violators. It is just absolutely
unacceptable. One of the things that this Subcommittee is
trying to do is get the Department to develop those metrics.
Before this Administration leaves, we want the strategic plan
and we want the metrics. When the next Administration comes in,
we want to be able to say here is where you are in performing
and how you are going forward to get the job done. That is the
only way we can do it, Senator Akaka. If we do not do that,
then we will get a new Administration in, and we will start all
over again.
So I am anxious to hear the witnesses today. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich.
Now you know how passionate he can be, and he has been
working really hard on human capital problems, and really it is
the basis of what we are talking about.
I want to welcome to the Subcommittee today's first panel
of witnesses: Paul Morris, who is the Executive Director of
Admissibility Passenger Programs in the Office of Field
Operations at U.S. Customs and Border Protection; and Richard
Stana, Director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues at the
Government Accountability Office.
I think you know that it is the custom of the Subcommittee
to swear in all witnesses, and I would ask both of you to stand
and raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear that the
testimony you are about to give this Subcommittee is the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God?
Mr. Morris. I do.
Mr. Stana. I do.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much. Let it be noted for the
record that the witnesses answered in the affirmative.
I want the witnesses to know that while your oral
statements are limited to 5 minutes, your entire statements
will be included in the record. So, Mr. Morris, will you please
proceed with your statement?
TESTIMONY OF PAUL M. MORRIS,\1\ EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
ADMISSIBILITY PASSENGER PROGRAMS, OFFICE OF FIELD OPERATIONS,
U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY
Mr. Morris. Good morning, Chairman Akaka and distinguished
Members of the Subcommittee. I am pleased to be here today to
discuss how the Department of Homeland Security, particularly
Customs and Border Protection (CBP)--is building a more secure
and efficient border by continuing to strengthen our workforce
and enhancing our traveler inspection processes. I would like
to begin by expressing my sincere thanks to the men and women
of CBP who work on the front lines every day protecting this
Nation.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Morris appears in the Appendix on
page 35.
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Since its creation in 2003, CBP has made significant
progress in effectively securing our borders and protecting our
country against terrorist threats. I am here today to discuss a
recent report released by the GAO.
First, CBP would like to express its disappointment for the
inappropriate release of an ``Official Use Only'' version of
the report and the misuse of statistics CBP supplied to GAO. We
believe that the information released in the ``Official Use
Only'' document could be detrimental to the effectiveness of
CBP in carrying out our mission, and the misrepresentation of
CBP's statistics discredits the work of our front-line
officers.
CBP is responsible for protecting more than 5,000 miles of
border with Canada, 1,900 miles of border with Mexico, and
operating 326 official ports of entry. Each day, CBP inspects
more than 1.1 million travelers. Though the vast majority of
the people CBP officers interact with are legitimate travelers,
there are those who would seek to do us harm.
To that end, CBP intercepts more than 21,000 fraudulent
documents and interdicts more than 200,000 inadmissible aliens
each year. Despite the assertions made by the GAO, during
fiscal year 2007 alone CBP officers at our land, sea, and air
ports of entry arrested nearly 26,000 individuals, including
murderers, sexual predators, drug smugglers, and individuals
with links to terror.
DHS must be able to capitalize on our border inspection
process. We must be able to verify the identity of all those
who seek to enter. In partnership with the Department of State,
we are working to secure our homeland by strengthening our
ability to identify accurately all persons before they enter
the United States. The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative
(WHTI) establishes these documentation requirements while
continuing to facilitate the flow of legitimate trade and
travel. Full implementation of WHTI will supply our officers
with the technology and proper documentation to make
admissibility decisions in a matter of seconds. This vital
layer of security must be put in place as soon as possible and
not be subject to repeated delays and endless new and ever
shifting requirements. We must advance to a smarter, more
efficient, and more secure border that includes these document
controls.
CBP constantly and continually monitors our activities and
operations in the field. After noting weaknesses in our land
border inspectional procedures, we mandated that all land
border ports of entry increase the number of primary main
queries being performed, with our final strategic goal to
screen all persons arriving at ports. The implementation of
WHTI, facilitative technology, and the requirement to present
secure documents will raise these percentages even further. CBP
has also implemented a new directive which defines policy
regarding land border inspections.
CBP uses a layered approach to monitor and assess
compliance. In the field, we require management to monitor poor
compliance with existing policies and procedures and conduct
audits and assessments. CBP has also implemented a system to
track our effectiveness. CBP conducts compliance examinations
involving random selection of vehicles and air passengers that
ordinarily would not be selected for an intensive examination
through a program called COMPEX. However, we strongly disagree
with the inferences and assumptions made by GAO in their report
which were based upon the COMPEX statistics CBP supplied. GAO
was told that COMPEX, prior to October 1 of this year,
monitored customs law-related violations only and that these
statistics could not be extended to immigration and
agricultural violations. However, GAO chose to disregard our
advisories and published misinformation.
We have no greater asset than our human resources. CBP
continues to increase its workforce, hiring 2,156 new CBP
officers and 340 agriculture specialists in fiscal year 2007.
Included in our 5-year strategic plan, we have an objective of
building and sustaining a high-performed workforce by refining
the recruitment and hiring processes, improving our retention
capabilities, and enhancing deployment and staffing. We have
developed a workload staffing model to better align resource
needs and requests against levels of threat, vulnerabilities,
and workload. However, we are challenged with the continuously
expanding demand for our services as trade and travel to the
United States continues to grow.
We depend on the dedication and training of our front-line
officers to conduct thorough inspections and make sound
judgments. We have developed and implemented a comprehensive
training curriculum. To make the best use of our training, we
train our officers when they need to be trained and for the
functions they are performing. This means that not every
officer completes every training module but does receive the
training needed to do the job performed.
CBP has long recognized the need to improve our facilities
and infrastructure to more effectively meet mission
requirements. Unfortunately, the rapid evolution of CBP's
mission, coupled with years of neglect, has left these vital
assets in dire need of modernization and expansion. Expanded
responsibilities and the deployment of enhanced technology have
stretched our physical resources well beyond their capacity. In
addition, CBP's infrastructure priorities have to compete with
other Federal buildings and courthouses, and we receive only a
small amount of the funds allocated. Although we are working
with GSA to streamline the 7-year construction process, right
now our facilities are stretched to the limit.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I appreciate
this opportunity to testify before you, and I would be happy to
answer any questions you may have.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much for your testimony.
I was just informed that the vote is running out, so I am
going to run and vote, and I am going to then be back in 10
minutes or less. But in the meantime, this Committee will be in
recess.
[Recess.]
Senator Voinovich [presiding]. Mr. Morris, I apologize that
I was not able to hear your testimony, but I do not control the
schedule.
Mr. Stana, we are glad to have you here.
TESTIMONY OF RICHARD M. STANA,\1\ DIRECTOR, HOMELAND SECURITY
AND JUSTICE ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. Stana. Thank you very much. Chairman Akaka, Mr.
Voinovich, Members of the Subcommittee, I am pleased to be here
today to discuss GAO's report on CBP traveler inspections at
our Nation's ports of entry.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Stana appears in the Appendix on
page 49.
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As you know, CBP is the lead Federal agency responsible for
inspecting travelers who enter the United States. In carrying
out this responsibility, over 17,000 CBP officers are charged
with keeping terrorists and other dangerous or inadmissible
people from entering the country while also facilitating the
cross-border movement of millions of travelers and legitimate
cargo. For fiscal year 2007, CBP had a budget of $9.3 billion,
of which $2.5 billion was for border security and trade
facilitation at ports of entry. My prepared statement
summarizes the report we issued to you on November 5. In my
oral statement, I would like to highlight three main points.
First, CBP officers at the ports of entry have had some
success in identifying inadmissible aliens and other violators.
In fiscal year 2006, they successfully turned away over 200,000
travelers who attempted illegal entry at the ports and seized
more than 40,000 phony documents. But despite this success,
weaknesses in inspection procedures resulted in many thousands
of illegal aliens and other violators entering the country.
This problem is not new, and previous attempts to fix it have
not been fully successful. In 2003, we reported on several
weaknesses in the CBP inspection process that permitted
inadmissible aliens to enter the country, and we recommended
improvements. In 2006, CBP identified weaknesses in its
inspection procedures, such as officers waving vehicles into
the country without stopping the vehicle or interviewing the
driver or its passengers.
CBP headquarters called for corrective actions in July
2006, but our subsequent testing showed that significant
weaknesses still existed. In several locations, we found, among
other things, that travelers' nationality and admissibility
were not always verified and inspection booths were not always
staffed. In July 2007, CBP revised its policies and procedures
for traveler inspections at land crossings to address such
weaknesses. The new procedures call on CBP officers to carry
out more rigorous inspections, such as handling the travel
document of each traveler and, when possible, checking the
document against law enforcement databases. They also call on
CBP supervisors to monitor officer compliance with the new
procedures and for CBP headquarters to do compliance testing.
The extent that these actions are successful remains to be
seen.
My second point is that while new policies and procedures
may help strengthen traveler inspections, they alone will not
fully address the causes of the failed inspections. CBP's
staffing model shows it may need up to several thousand new
officers to properly operate its ports of entry. CBP managers
at seven of the eight ports we visited told us that staffing
shortfalls adversely affected their ability to carry out
traveler inspections in a number of ways, including not having
staff to carry out anti-terrorism programs and requiring
extensive overtime to cover routine operations, which in turn
can cause morale problems, fatigue, and a lack of back-up
support. Officer attrition is a contributing factor. In some
locations, it is sometimes difficult to hire enough staff to
replace officers who leave, let alone fill open slots. Staffing
shortfalls can also affect CBP's ability to provide both
classroom and on-the-job training to officers. Port officials
sometimes need to make the tough choice between allowing staff
to go to training and improve their skills or require staff to
forego training because they are needed to do inspections.
Moreover, when training is provided, CBP does not measure the
extent to which the courses are delivered to the officers who
need it most, nor does it require new officers to demonstrate
proficiency and required skills after they take the courses.
My last point is that it is very important for CBP to know
how effective it is in keeping dangerous people out of the
country, where it would like to be, and what progress it is
making on closing any gaps in meeting the goals. We examined
CBP's performance measures for its Traveler Inspection Program,
and while it has developed data that shows the number of
persons who were apprehended, it has not yet created a
performance measure to indicate its success in identifying
inadmissible travelers from the millions of border crossers who
pass through the ports of entry each year.
In closing, having a sufficient number of well-trained and
well-supervised CBP officers is important for the safety and
well-being of our Nation. Alert CBP officers have interdicted
dangerous travelers, such as the Millennium Bomber, but more
needs to be done to ensure that this can be done consistently.
Our work underscores the need for CBP to address weaknesses in
its policies, procedures, and supervisory controls; to find
ways to adequately staff its ports of entry, including
developing and implementing strategies for retaining staff; and
to improve classroom and on-the-job training programs for its
officers. None of these actions alone can fix the problems we
saw, but a coordinated and well-implemented effort could
mitigate the risk and consequences of failed traveler
inspections.
Before I finish, I would like to address two points raised
in Mr. Morris' opening statement.
First, with respect to the leaking of a FOUO report, we did
not leak a FOUO report. We issued a classified version which
was released to the Committee on October 5 and embargoed for 30
days, and an unclassified version which was released on
November 5. We did not leak the contents of the classified
report, although I do note with some confusion that the 21,000
figure appears in Mr. Morris' official statement when that was
supposed to be classified.
Second, I want to point out with respect to COMPEX, we
worked very carefully with CBP, the statisticians on our
observations. Mr. Morris is correct that COMPEX speaks to what
was seized. Who brought it into the country COMPEX is silent
on. When we spoke to the statisticians, they told us it was
both inadmissible aliens and other violators, which is the
language we used in the report. CBP had an opportunity to
correct that for the record at an exit conference and at two
official comment periods and failed to do so. But if there is a
way we could have clarified that for the record, we certainly
apologize, and we would make that clearer, if asked.
Thank you very much, and I look forward to answering any
questions the Committee may have.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you very much.
Mr. Morris, I agree with the GAO that CBP needs to develop
retention strategies for its officers and agriculture
specialists and develop strategies to retain those staff. I
recall at a hearing a couple years ago that there were some
real problems with agriculture specialists, and maybe you can
enlighten me on where you stand in terms of those folks.
I am dismayed that this process will not be complete until
2009. In other words, how do you retain these people? In this
time frame, too many talented agents will continue to leave
CBP. In connection with this long-term goal, CBP needs short-
term actions it can take to help slow attrition.
Has CBP identified short-term initiatives it can implement
to address attrition needs? And if not, will you commit to a
parallel path of long- and near-term actions that can be taken
and report those back to the Subcommittee by the end of the
year? Basically, what I am saying is this: CBP has a retention
problem and a long-term goal of solving it by September 2009.
What do we do in the meantime to try and make sure that you do
not have this continued turnover rate that you have been
experiencing in the past?
Mr. Morris. Thank you, Senator. I think that the Chairman
did capture the issues that we have to deal with on a day-to-
day basis very well, and it is a vicious circle, that as we
lose officers, it compounds the staffing issues that we have.
And in some cases, at some ports of entry where it is more
difficult to recruit officers, that can be much worse than in
other places.
We recognize that retention and attrition are very
significant issues for the agency. Attrition has always been
one that the border agencies have had to grapple with. We have
looked at some targeted recruiting functions at particular
areas of concern where we have the gravest concern with our
staffing levels. We do want to continue to provide a
comprehensive training package to our officers.
In the surveys that we have seen regarding their
satisfaction with their job, one of the items that was
repeatedly brought up was the training that is provided to
them.
Senator Voinovich. Do you have the tools to hire people?
One of the things that we have been working on the last 7 or 8
years is to put agencies in the position where they can make
the Federal Government an employer of choice. Are there things
in personnel management that make it difficult for you to bring
people on board? Is it a reputation that the agency is not the
best place to work that discourages people? Just what is it
that is causing you not to be able to bring these people on?
Mr. Morris. Well, I am hopeful----
Senator Voinovich. Wages? I mean, what is it?
Mr. Morris. I am hopeful that it is not the reputation of
the agency. We are striving to become the premier law
enforcement agency with respect to border security. There has
been a lot of emphasis placed on our training for our officers.
We do provide that through our academy with an extensive
training package that provides them with the essential basic
tools for when they return to the port.
Senator Voinovich. Is the starting salary relative to other
enforcement agencies competitive?
Mr. Morris. Well, starting salary is competitive with other
Federal agency starting salaries for similar positions.
Typically, they start at GS-5 level. Journeyman level brings
them up to--after a period of 2 or 3 years, it would bring them
up to about GS-11 level. They can then progress into
management.
But as you can imagine, a GS-5 perhaps on their own in a
metropolis like Los Angeles or New York, they are going to have
some difficulty making ends meet.
Senator Voinovich. What does a GS-5 pay? What is the range?
Mr. Morris. I am sorry, Senator. I do not know that off the
top of my head.
Senator Voinovich. So you are saying that like with the FBI
and some agencies, if they are in big cities, the locality pay,
in your opinion, is not adequate to keep those people on board?
Mr. Morris. In the initial years, it is certainly difficult
for them to make ends meet and satisfy their family
requirements and other things on that level of pay.
We also have an issue with attrition due to loss to other
Federal agencies where the benefits packages are better. For
instance, those that provide law enforcement coverage for their
positions, such as criminal investigators or special agents, if
they get additional pay and a better retirement package, there
is not much that is going to keep them around if----
Senator Voinovich. Is that in Homeland Security, or are you
competing with agencies outside of Homeland Security?
Mr. Morris. Within and outside the Department, sir.
Senator Voinovich. Mr. Chairman, one of the things that we
had asked the Department to do was to harmonize the pay within
the Department so that we would not have the government
competing with itself. The other was to look at the pay
compared to other natural security agencies to see how they
compared so you would not have this movement based on better
benefits.
So you are telling me today that there are agencies,
national security agencies within Homeland Security that have
better benefits than what you provide.
Mr. Morris. It is primarily the difference between the
Customs and Border Protection officer that does not have law
enforcement coverage and other investigative positions that do
have that coverage. That law enforcement coverage provides them
with additional ways of payment such as administratively
uncontrollable overtime and law enforcement retirement for
which they qualify for after 20 years of service.
Senator Voinovich. Do you have any kind of documentation or
has GAO seen any documentation about the reasons why people
leave and where they go?
Mr. Stana. We know that about 25 percent of them go to
other DHS components. It may be ICE; it may be Border Patrol.
To understand why people leave, it is instructive to look at
the OPM survey data that we had in the appendix to our report.
A large majority, 88 percent, say they know the work is
important; 83 percent said they like the kind of work they do;
75 percent say that they like the work environment. So those
are not really the issues.
But if you look at the downside, 21 percent said they are
not rewarded for high-quality work; 18 percent said poor
performers are not dealt with adequately; 9 percent said pay
raises depend on performance. And then there are other
statistics like only a third say they have the sufficient
resources to do their job; 30 percent say that CBP is able to
recruit people with the right skills.
When you take those kinds of statistics together, it paints
the picture of a less than happy staff, a morale issue that has
to be dealt with. I also might add that 20 percent of the
workforce is eligible for retirement in the next 4 years, and
that could have a devastating effect because typically the
people who are the most senior are the ones who may be legacy
Customs and legacy INS who understand the ins and outs of
immigration law and the customs law. And these are the ones
that the younger staff turn to when they are confused or they
need guidance on how to handle certain situations.
Senator Voinovich. Do you have the authority right now--and
I will finish up with this. Do you have the authority to bring
back annuitants?
Mr. Morris. We have used rehired annuitants to a very
limited extent, primarily because of pretty limited interest in
coming back to work in the ports of entry.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you.
Senator Akaka [presiding]. Thank you very much, Senator
Voinovich.
Let me call on Senator Warner.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR WARNER
Senator Warner. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
First, I would like to thank you for your leadership in
requesting this report. I have looked it over, and I think it
is very well done, very well balanced. I have had a long
association with the Government Accountability Office over the
many years that I have been here, and I have a high regard for
their work product.
Mr. Morris, I commend you for saying you want to try and
establish in your area of responsibility the best possible
enforcement that America can get, and I, like your people, say
I have got a lot of problems ahead of me, but I am going to
continue to strive to achieve that. And I hope that the people
under your jurisdiction take notice of this hearing today and
the statement that you made on their behalf.
I would simply draw your attention, Mr. Morris, to one
provision in this report that was given to me about what the
GAO found, and they said, ``However, the CBP has not
established an internal control to ensure field office managers
share their assessments with the CBP headquarters to help
ensure that the new procedures are consistently implemented
across all ports of entry and reduce the risk of failed
traveler inspections.''
Mr. Morris. Certainly, Senator. Customs and Border
Protection has really a layered internal control mechanism in
place, and I think that we are far ahead of other agencies in
ensuring that we do have compliance in the field. We still have
some work to do, certainly, but we do have many mechanisms in
place, and if I can outline those for you very quickly.
First of all, we have a self-inspection program, and
basically that requires that every port of entry, all 326,
every year look at a wide variety of the various
responsibilities that they have and the policies and procedures
that are in place at their ports of entry. It requires them to
respond to a series of work sheets. In those responses, they
have to note where there is any kind of deviation from the
existing policy or procedure. They have to propose some kind of
corrective action that is going to be taken. And all of that
information from those 326 ports is then filtered up to the
headquarters level where we consolidate them, we look at the
issues that exist across the board, or in particular areas; and
then from the headquarters level we update our directives, we
send out new directives to try to bring policy and procedure in
line on a national basis.
Our Management Inspection Division also conducts field
reviews. Typically, these are at the request of headquarters
management to take a look at a particular aspect of what we do
at the ports of entry. We have recently asked them to take a
look at our ability to interdict fraudulent documents and our
processing of those documents that we seize, as just an
example.
We also place in all of our directives basically layers of
responsibility for implementation of those directives----
Senator Warner. Let me just interrupt you.
Mr. Morris. Certainly.
Senator Warner. Clearly, you have got a lot going on, but
Senator Akaka and I--and I see Senator Levin--we all three have
served many years on the Armed Services Committee. And when the
people down on the front in the actual combat situations--and I
am not likening it to combat, but it is an extremely important
part of how our overall security functions. For example, this
says ``to ensure that field office managers share their
assessment with the headquarters.''
We have always put into the military situation provisions
by which that type of information can very quickly, on a real-
time basis, get to the headquarters and receive their
attention. Somehow your description, I am left with the
impression that an awful lot of bureaucracy is there to go
through to get an idea from the front lines of your service
right up to the top people.
Can you look at a way to try and expedite that?
Mr. Morris. Certainly, Senator, and we do agree with GAO's
recommendation in this area. We do agree that we need to
provide for a better flow of information from the field to
headquarters, and we are in the process of developing that.
Senator Warner. Did you have any amplification, Mr. Stana,
on that provision?
Mr. Stana. No. I think the steps that they outlined in
their July 2007 plan seem to be reasonable, not only to bring
that kind of information up to the top quickly, as you point
out, but they are also going to do some Red Teaming. And if
that is done well----
Senator Warner. That is excellent. Now, explain what ``Red
Teaming'' is. That is well known in the military, but it is not
so well known in other areas.
Mr. Stana. Red Teaming is the idea where you get some of
your own staff to secretly test the controls. You might send
some people from Washington out to try to get through a port of
entry to see if the inspection is successful or if the
inspection has failed. And they have a program plan to do just
that, and I think the results of that, in conjunction with
getting information up from the bottom quickly, would go a long
way toward addressing the problem.
Senator Warner. I could not have provided a better answer
to the question than that. We use it a great deal.
I thank the Chairman and colleagues. Good luck to you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Senator Warner.
Mr. Morris, as you know, I am a strong proponent of
improving training opportunities for Federal employees.
Training can be a key to improving government efficiency by
maximizing employees' contributions, and it can help morale, as
was mentioned by Mr. Stana.
I am concerned that CBP is providing too little training
and that the training that CBP officers receive does not
provide them with the concrete skills and knowledge that they
need. Particularly, I am concerned that they do not receive
enough cross-training to master all of the functions that were
folded into CBP with the creation of the Department of Homeland
Security.
Mr. Morris, how is CBP tracking and evaluating CBP officer
training at the many different ports of entry to ensure that
CBP officers receive sufficient and high-quality training?
Mr. Morris. Senator, first let me explain that all of our
officers before they are placed in a port of entry do go
through 16 weeks of intensive training at the Federal Law
Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia. Upon their
arrival in the port of entry, we do have a post-academy
training that is established for them. We do recognize that we
need to make some modifications in that post-academy training,
and that is primarily because the original training package
that we had put together, which consisted of 37 different
modules, was constructed in order to provide that cross-
training that you talk about to bring customs inspectors,
immigration inspectors, and agriculture inspectors under a
single management chain of command and to provide them with all
the basic information they need for this very broad mission
that we have, counterterrorism plus all of these legacy
missions.
We recognize that 4 years after the transition to DHS and
the formation of Customs and Border Protection, we need to move
beyond that cross-training. We now need to have function-
specific training. So, for instance, if an officer arrives at a
port of entry and they are going to be assigned to a cargo
environment, we want to provide them with as-needed, just-in-
time training on the cargo environment. If later they move on
to a new position working passport secondary, we want to
provide them with that training package. What we do not want to
try to do is force those 37 training modules on every officer
upon their actual arrival in the port of entry.
It simply is something that we cannot do because of the
magnitude of our mission, the very diverse issues that we have
to deal with on a day-to-day basis. So we really need to focus
it on what the need is for the particular officers.
Do we have a mechanism that can establish exactly what
training is necessary for each particular officer? We are
working on refining that. We could not come up with a report
that would state whether or not any given officer was trained
in all of the programs that were necessary for perhaps primary
inspection. But we do track the training that is delivered to
every officer. I can tell you officer by officer what they have
been provided with, but we need to take that next step and tie
the training to the function that they are now performing so
that we can better assess whether or not they are prepared for
the job that they are currently doing.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Morris, the GAO report states that CBP
officers are receiving as little as 2 weeks of on-the-job
training. You just mentioned that while they are in a job, they
do attend some of these modules that are prepared for them. But
I am concerned that officers are being placed in these
situations without the proper training, and this can be
dangerous for the officers and increases the risk of failed
inspections.
Is there someone in charge of CBP officer training agency-
wide? Someone needs to be accountable, and Senator Voinovich
did mention the CMO that we have been talking about. Is there a
CBP Office of Training agency-wide? Who is in charge of
training?
Mr. Morris. CBP does have an Office of Training and
Development. They are responsible for the oversight of the CBP
Officer Academy in Glynco, Georgia. They work with the Office
of Field Operations, which is the office directly over the
ports of entry, to ensure that there is post-academy that is
provided to our officers also.
And if I could just clarify one statement, Senator, and
that is that I think the 2 weeks that was mentioned was
somewhat anecdotal. At various stages of post-academy training,
an officer could have only received 2 weeks of training and
would not feel prepared for the full gamut of jobs that they
have to perform.
We do track the post-academy training. We have training
officers in the field that are supposed to ensure that our
officers go from beginning to completion on post-academy
training. But there will be times when we have to delay
training because we do not have the luxury of closing down a
port of entry or in some cases even closing a couple of lanes
at a port of entry in order to accommodate training.
Trade, travel, facilitation of legitimate travelers into
the United States must continue, regardless of the
administrative functions that we have otherwise.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Stana, I would like to hear your
thoughts on CBP officer training as well, particularly whether
CBP is ensuring that officers receive the right training and
whether the effectiveness of the training is evaluated.
Mr. Stana. Well, the point is correct that oftentimes port
directors have to make a decision on whether to have somebody
go to training or to stay and staff a post. But at none of the
locations we went to--none--was all 12 weeks of on-the-job
training delivered. None. It was as little as 2 weeks, as you
pointed out. Sometimes the average was 6 to 10 weeks, but none
was 12 weeks.
We also point out that in tracking the training and making
sure that the training is useful, the Border Patrol would be a
useful place for CBP to seek advice. The Border Patrol has 30
specific functions that they have laid out for the Border
Patrol agents, and they test against each one of those 30
following training to make sure that the Border Patrol agents
learned what they were supposed to learn. They test for
proficiency. And I think that would be a good thing for the CBP
officers to do when training courses are completed.
I do not know if I could be as strong as to say that is
best practice governmentwide, but it would certainly go a long
way to picking up some of the training shortfalls.
The last point I would make is that until you deal with the
staffing question, the training issue is always going to be
looming out there. Some of these ports are 30 to 40 percent
understaffed, and until you deal with that, CBP officers are
really not going to have time to get away and be trained
properly so that they know how to do your job at the post they
are assigned.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Senator Levin.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEVIN
Senator Levin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me join you
in welcoming our witnesses.
I was somewhat confused by some of the statistics that was
given here in the GAO report. On page 5, there is an estimate
that CBP officers turned away 200,000 aliens who attempted to
enter the country illegally. Then it says a little later, on
that page, that ``CBP estimates about 21,000 inadmissible
aliens''----
Mr. Stana. Sir, you might be reading from a classified
version of the report.
Senator Levin. It is not classified. It says ``Official Use
Only.''
Mr. Stana. OK. We consider that as classified, but go
ahead.
Senator Levin. This is classified? What am I doing with it
in a public place without----
Mr. Morris. ``Official Use Only'' generally simply means it
is not for dissemination to the public.
Senator Levin. Does that mean it is classified?
Mr. Morris. Yes, sir.
Mr. Stana. They only have administrative classifications at
Homeland Security, and there are only a couple that they deal
with. One is OUO. The other might be----
Senator Levin. Well, I will tell you, you better tell staff
to keep this in a safe and not let me walk around with it and
take it home if these are classified figures. As Chairman of
the Armed Services Committee, when we say something is
classified, I cannot even have it here.
Is that what the meaning of ``Official Use Only'' is?
Somebody is shaking his head behind you there.
Mr. Morris. I am not a classification expert myself,
Senator, but as I say, it basically means it is for government
use only, not for public dissemination.
Mr. Stana. We do not classify or unclassify at GAO. We take
the classification that is given to us at the Department, and
the Department told us that when it is ``Official Use Only,''
we are not to disseminate it to the general public. It can be
talked about in a closed session or among government people
with a need to know.
Senator Levin. All right. Well, let me ask you this in an--
let me put it to you this way: Take a look at the numbers. Do
you have the thing with you?
Mr. Stana. I know the numbers.
Senator Levin. There seems to be a major discrepancy
between the numbers, OK? In terms of the percent--I will not go
into what the percent is--that were caught, that percent, and
then you have a total--and when you look at the numbers, they
are totally different than the percentages.
Mr. Stana. Yes, and that gets to the issue of the
estimating program that the Department uses to identify how
many inadmissible travelers--well, actually, more accurately--
and Mr. Morris pointed this out--it estimates how many people
are caught with serious contraband. It might be drugs, it might
be weapons, but that is the number there. What that number does
not say is who brought the drugs or the weapons in. It could be
an inadmissible alien. It could be a citizen who is a violator
and should not be bringing stuff into the country.
Senator Levin. How do they know how many people got in who
are inadmissible? How do they arrive at that statistic?
Mr. Morris. Senator, again, we have not yet arrived at that
statistic. The statistic that was provided was specific to
customs violators. However, effective October 1 of this year,
we have modified that same system so that we will now collect
information on inadmissibles and agriculture violators as well.
Senator Levin. Without getting into the numbers, it says
here in fiscal year 2006, CBP estimates that it caught about
[blank] percent of these travelers who attempted to enter
illegally by vehicle and [blank] percent at major land ports of
entry, 44 percent who attempted to enter illegally through
major airports.
It says CBP estimates that about [blank] inadmissible
aliens and other violators entered the country. How, in 2006,
were you able to estimate the number of inadmissible aliens and
other violators who entered the country? How do you know that?
Mr. Morris. The fact is that we do not at this point know
that.
Senator Levin. But then where did that number come from
that I was not supposed to divulge publicly?
Mr. Stana. Well, I can tell you where the number came from
because it is in our report. This program randomly selects
260,000 land crossers and 240,000 air crossers into the country
for further inspection. If the inspector at the booth or at the
desk at an airport decides that the person is eligible to enter
the country, those individuals may be tagged through a random
selection process to go into the secondary area where a more
detailed inspection is done.
Senator Levin. If they are eligible.
Mr. Stana. If they are selected by the random----
Senator Levin. No, but I do not mean that. If they are
eligible to enter the country.
Mr. Stana. Yes. The inspector at the booth did not find
anything that was wrong, and they would have admitted them
except for this random selection for further inspection.
Upon further inspection, what the statistics show is they
often find--or at times find drugs, contraband; they might find
other things that are Class II violations. It might be phony
documents. It might be something like that. And that is where
those figures came from. X percent of the time they are saying
that upon referral to secondary they are successful in finding
these kinds of people at the airport; at Y percent of the time
they are successful in finding these kinds of people at land
ports.
Now, the key here is the people entering the ports may be
an alien or they may be a citizen, and that is the figure that
they are trying to refine in the next iteration that they are
just starting this fiscal year. But some of those people are
inadmissible aliens, and some of those people are other
violators, which is the language we used. And if it is
confusing, we apologize.
Senator Levin. My time is up. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much.
Mr. Stana and Mr. Morris, we are going to go into a second
round here. I would like to hear both of your thoughts on this
question. As legacy customs, immigration, and agriculture
inspectors retire, CBP is losing their specialized knowledge
and skills. I am concerned that newer officers are not being
trained adequately to replace that specialization.
Is CBP losing expertise as legacy officers leave the
agency? Mr. Morris.
Mr. Morris. Well, certainly any drain of qualified, very
experienced officers concerns us. But I believe that the
current training and recruitment that we are going through will
replace those officers with officers of the same level of
expertise as the years go by for them as well.
As we grow into an agency with very vast responsibilities
at the ports of entry and as our officers learn to enforce the
laws that regulate various customs issues and immigration and
agricultural as well as all of the other Federal laws that we
handle at the ports of entry, they will gain that expertise.
They will naturally fall into areas where they want to provide
some emphasis or want to specialize.
In addition, we do have advanced training that we provide
to officers that tend to go down these roads. We have some
advanced secondary training that we provide to officers that
will be working in passport control secondary so that they can
better process individuals for asylum, for fraudulent
documents, for expedited removal, and the other tools that we
have there.
We have counterterrorism response training that we provide
to our counterterrorism response teams. We also have training
that teaches them how to detect deception and elicit response
from individuals.
We have training that we provide as far as just basic
admissibility so that the officers working passport primary can
focus on the issues that are presented to them with each
individual that arrives there at the port of entry.
So, yes, it will be a shame to lose some of these officers
that have that historical knowledge, but the laws change
frequently, we continually have to update our knowledge base
and continually update our training. And our CBP officers, I
believe, are very well qualified to carry out the job.
Senator Akaka. Thank you.
Mr. Stana. Mr. Akaka, you hit on a major pain point at the
ports of entry. What is working with ``One Face at the
Border''? Well, what is working is that the individual at the
primary area, at the first booth, has a wider range of
knowledge on agricultural issues, immigration issues, customs
issues, and can decide at that higher level whether the
individual in front of them merits further inspection.
What else is working with ``One Face at the Border'' is you
do not have a confusing dual management system at the ports
where you have people with one uniform sitting on one side of
the room and another uniform sitting on another side of the
room making decisions that could essentially be made by one
service. So that is where it has improved.
What is not working so well yet, and particularly in the
immigration area, is that many of the officers who were trained
under ``One Face at the Border'' have not received the detailed
training, or at least have not comprehended the detailed
immigration knowledge needed to make some of these very
detailed and intricate decisions regarding things like
expedited removal, humanitarian paroles, asylum, the whole
gamut of immigration law. It is much more complicated than you
might think. And the port officers that we spoke with at the
eight locations we visited told us that, as the people either
leave or retire--there is a hole in the organization that is
left behind. And whatever can be done to regain that
specialization, in the secondary area primarily, would be very
welcome by those port directors.
Senator Akaka. Yes. Senator Voinovich alluded to that, too,
about the retirees. And I hope you will really look at that,
and I would like to think of what we call emeritus types who
can come back and give the kind of information that you do not
read about in books. And so I think that is something that we
really need to look at.
Mr. Morris, I am deeply troubled by the poor morale--and
this was mentioned by Mr. Stana--of CBP officers. CBP fared
poorly on the most recent Office of Personnel Management
Federal Human Capital Survey. These results are disturbing as
poor morale and high attrition make it even more difficult to
address CBP's staffing shortfall.
What steps are you taking to improve CBP officer morale?
Mr. Morris. Officer morale is a difficult area to address,
and we recognize that it is really a combination of many things
that can affect that. It is in many cases simply the nature of
the job, the very difficult circumstances that we place the
officers in on a day-to-day basis--for instance, on the
Southwest border during the summer and on the Northern border
during the wintertime. And beyond that, the infrastructure is
not there to really support effective and efficient inspections
as well. And when we do not provide our officers with that
infrastructure, with a facility that is conducive to conducting
an effective inspection, it makes their job that much more
difficult.
And as we continue to have some difficulties in recruiting
and retaining staff, we continue to have to go to overtime as a
tool in order to make up for the difference. That working of
overtime affects the quality of life for many of these
individuals, and I think the workforce of today is different
than it was 20 or 30 years ago when they wanted the overtime,
they wanted the long hours for the extra pay. But there does
seem to be a shift in their focus perhaps.
As far as how we are addressing it, as I said before, we
would like to become the premier law enforcement agency with
respect to border security in the world. And we have a
professionalism program trying to instill some of that pride
and just self-worth in our officers about what they are doing.
I do not know that the GAO report went into this at all, but my
personal feeling is that our officers are very proud of what
they do. They think they have a very significant role in
protecting this Nation, and we need them desperately at those
ports of entry on a day-to-day basis conducting those thorough
inspections. But as you pointed out so very aptly in your
statement, Senator, it is a vicious circle in many cases.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Stana, what are your thoughts on
improving officer morale?
Mr. Stana. Well, look, there are no easy answers here. I
think some of the answers are in the data. People enjoy what
they are doing. They understand the significance and the
importance to national security and immigration management. On
the other hand, they are not satisfied totally with pay. They
are not satisfied with working conditions.
Mr. Morris and others have talked about trying to address
the law enforcement retirement and law enforcement pay. Some of
the officers' answers suggested implementing, a pay for
performance (PFP), but we did not get into that.
But one of the messages that the officers left with us is
that they would like more of a say in how things are run, and
this gets--I do not know if you call it ``total quality
management'' or--it is the kind of management that we have seen
the auto companies pick up on and use to good effect. And I do
not know to what extent--you might ask the second panel--to
what extent the agency is partnered with the union to try to
get more of a voice from the bottom on what could be improved,
what is not working well. Sometimes it could be something as
simple as, well, you need to put the bollards over there, or we
need equipment in the booth for inspections that is configured
this way, not that way.
But the more people feel they have a role and a say in
their work, the better off I think we all would be.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much. Senator Voinovich.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Unfortunately, Environment and Public Works is working on
the climate change legislation, and I am going to have to
excuse myself from this hearing, and I regret that I am not
going to have an opportunity to hear Colleen Kelley's
testimony.
Mr. Stana, you did bring up a subject that I would be very
interested to hear Ms. Kelley's comments about, and that is the
issue of empowering the people that are there to come back with
recommendations on how they think they could possibly get the
job done. One thing that I have been very supportive of is
total quality management, that is going to the people who do
the jobs and empowering them to come back with their best
recommendations on how to get the job done.
It is frustrating here that only under the guise of
outsourcing the government develops the most efficient
organizations. I would like to see MEOs without competition
established throughout the Federal Government so the people
that are there could come back and identify better ways to do
their job. For example, in some areas we have tiger teams that
come together, and they have a problem, they sit down, they
spend 6 months on it, talk to their customers, come back, and
they do a pretty good job.
So I am interested in knowing Mr. Morris, how much
involvement have you--how often have you engaged the union and
your people to come back and say how do they think things can
be better done in their respective responsibilities?
Mr. Morris. Well, when new initiatives are surfacing and we
have to make operational changes at the ports of entry, we do
bring in the union and advise them on those changes, seek their
feedback. In some cases, when we are rolling out new programs
to the field--and this depends largely on the nature of the
initiative, but we will have roundtables that include the
supervisors and managers there at the ports of entry to get
their feedback on how this should be implemented. We will
typically have training teams on-site to ensure that the
implementation goes well.
Senator Voinovich. Mr. Morris, unfortunately, I am going to
have to excuse myself.
Ms. Kelley, I want you to know that I am going to read your
testimony and also get your oral testimony today.
I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, that after we have heard
from Ms. Kelley, maybe we ought to ask Mr. Morris, or whoever
else, to sit down and have them come back with a recommendation
on how possibly we could correct the situation, assuming that
the union feels that they could do a lot better if they had
more input into the recommendations on how to make you a
better, more efficient organization. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich.
Senator Levin.
Senator Levin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Your report indicates a significant number of fraudulent
documents. I will not go into the number.
Mr. Stana. That is unclassified, sir. [Laughter.]
Senator Levin. OK. How many were there?
Mr. Stana. Forty thousand--well, I am sure that is rounded.
Senator Levin. I do not think you ought to use the word
``classified.''
Mr. Stana. Let us just say ``sensitive.''
Senator Levin. Because these are not classified documents.
I mean, we have a legal opinion on this question. This is very
different from classified documents. I would use some other
terms.
In any event, 40,000 fraudulent documents. What do you do
with those? Do you hold the person who offers the fraudulent--
not you. Let me ask Mr. Morris. Do you hold the people who
offer the fraudulent documents and investigate the source of
those documents? Is that the ordinary practice?
Mr. Morris. It can really follow a number of different
avenues. Typically, an individual that is presenting a
fraudulent document is either going to be an alien attempting
to unlawfully immigrate to the United States, or it could be a
United States citizen as well, trying to obscure their identity
because they have an outstanding warrant or something like
that.
After we determine their citizenship and the nature of the
violation, that would determine what we do with that
individual, whether we present them for prosecution before the
U.S. Attorney's Office or if we process them administratively.
For most aliens, we typically remove them expeditiously.
That is one of the authorities that we have under the
Immigration and Nationality Act, whereby essentially we quickly
formally remove them at the port-of-entry level, we put them on
the next flight out of the United States, or we put them back
across the border. The actual document is sent to our
Fraudulent Document Analysis Unit, where all of those documents
from throughout the United States are collected. We gather the
data. We seek trends in the presentation of these documents.
And we try to pursue those document vendors that are making
those documents available for the individuals presenting.
Senator Levin. What percentage of the 40,000 fraudulent
documents in a year, I guess, would you say that you held the
individual for investigation rather than summarily removing the
individual? Most of them or less than most?
Mr. Morris. Well, the vast majority of fraudulent documents
that we receive are actually valid documents presented by other
than the true bearer, and in those cases an individual is
simply using someone else's card or passport to attempt entry
into the United States.
Senator Levin. Is the person held in most cases or removed
in most cases?
Mr. Morris. If an alien, typically they would simply be
removed. Unless we can draw some nexus to a criminal
organization or something else that would warrant their
detention so that we could use them as a material witness,
something along those lines, typically they would be removed.
Senator Levin. But what about investigating the source of
the illegal document? If they are just summarily removed, you
lose that opportunity, don't you?
Mr. Morris. Well, to a certain extent. I mean, we do
collect a sworn statement from each of these individuals as
they are being processed for return. We do attempt to identify
the source of the documents. But typically these are
organizations that are operating outside of the United States.
Investigation is difficult unless we can use our assets such as
Immigration and Customs and Enforcement in a foreign country to
cooperate----
Senator Levin. No, I am talking about getting information
from the alien as to where they got the document.
Mr. Morris. That would be done during the sworn statement
portion of processing.
Senator Levin. Would you say in most cases they willingly
give you the source or not?
Mr. Morris. In most cases, not.
Senator Levin. Not, and so you still let them go. Even
though they attempted to enter the United States with an
illegal document, they are just removed on the ground that if
you held them you would not be likely to get more information
about the source of the document?
Mr. Morris. Correct. There is typically not more that we
are going to be able to glean from those individuals.
Senator Levin. Even if you hold them.
Mr. Morris. Correct.
Senator Levin. Even if you detained them.
Mr. Morris. Correct.
Senator Levin. And you have tested that?
Mr. Morris. I personally have not tested it, no, Senator.
But I can tell you that the types of organizations----
Senator Levin. Obviously, you have not done it personally.
When I say ``you,'' I am talking about your agency. Has your
agency tested that theory that if you hold people who offer
fraudulent documents that you are not going to be able to get
the source if you detain the people? Let us know for the
record, would you, if you do not know the answer?
Mr. Morris. Yes, sir. My apology for my previous comment,
Senator.
Senator Levin. That is OK.
Mr. Morris. No, we have not tested it, but our experience
has shown that the types of organizations that are providing
these documents are difficult to track, they are difficult to
identify. In many cases, they are actually a rental agency that
is providing these documents through a vendor standing near the
port of entry that provides one that looks like the individual,
and that card is then collected at the other side.
Senator Levin. Do you know whether the agency has tested
the detention approach for people who try to enter the country
fraudulently to see if they can't, by holding someone a few
days, determine the source of that document? Have you tested
that approach?
Mr. Morris. And we have not tested that, Senator.
Senator Levin. I think it would be useful to at least
consider testing the approach. I mean, we are flooded with
illegal, fraudulent documents. It might be useful to tell the
person, well, we are going to try to talk to you and see if
you--give you a lie detector test, whatever it is. I mean, it
is a crime, isn't it, to enter the country with a fraudulent
document?
Mr. Morris. It is, Senator. It typically does not rise to
the level where we will be able to obtain prosecution. And it
is important to note that----
Senator Levin. I am not talking about prosecution. I am
talking about trying to figure out the source.
Mr. Morris. I understand, but----
Senator Levin. And I know it is overseas, but it is useful.
Some countries actually have police forces that work with us. I
just would ask you to take back to the head of the agency this
question: What about trying to go after sources of fraudulent
documents by detaining the people who use them here in a
legitimate effort to investigate to try to find out from that
person what the source of that document is? And if that is not
being used, why not? I mean, every other crime that is
committed in this country, presumably, if someone is offering
fraudulent documents to the police department or the IRS or to
the Treasury Department or the FBI, there is an investigation.
We have an immigration problem here, illegal immigration. We
are flooded with fraudulent documents. Why not hold these folks
for at least a reasonable period of time in an effort to find
out the source of the documents? And if you are not going to
use that approach and are not willing to test it, could you at
least--not you. Could the agency at least let this Subcommittee
know why not? Could you do that?
Mr. Morris. I would be happy to do that, Senator.
Senator Levin. One last question, if I could, Mr. Chairman,
and I know I am over my time. On the reverse inspection
question, we have been proposing that in order to speed up the
flow of commercial material across our borders, both
directions, that there be reverse inspections so that the
inspections take place in, for instance, Canada--where I live,
it would be across from Detroit. What is the status of that
effort?
Mr. Morris. We continue to have discussions with the
Canadian Government. There are some significant issues and
concerns that must be addressed, for instance, operating on
Canadian soil and what the authority of our CBP officers would
be.
Senator Levin. But that has been true for years, hasn't it?
Mr. Morris. It has. It continues to be.
Senator Levin. Is there any hope it is going to be
resolved?
Mr. Morris. It is a difficult subject to really overcome
the issues and challenges there, Senator.
Senator Levin. Can you tell us just for the record, if you
would, when the last efforts have been made to negotiate this
with the Canadians? Just for the record. Not now. I am over my
time. Could you let us know?
Mr. Morris. Certainly, sir.
Senator Levin. Thanks. Thank you both.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Thank you very much, Senator
Levin.
Mr. Morris, most land border crossings were built at a time
when there was a lower volume of travel and less recognition of
the need for security. According to CBP estimates, the land
ports of entry need almost $4 billion in upgrades. This does
not include the additional billions that it would take to
improve infrastructure near ports of entry, such as widening
bridges or highways that form choke points before land border
crossings. It would take billions more to put the
infrastructure in place to allow for exit screening through US-
VISIT at land ports.
You testified that CBP infrastructure must compete with
other GSA building projects. What can be done to better
recognize, evaluate, and prioritize the pressing need for
infrastructure improvements at ports of entry?
Mr. Morris. Mr. Chairman, CBP and GSA recognize the, I
would say, urgent need for new infrastructure at ports of entry
to carry out our mission, and we have partnered with GSA to try
to reduce the costs associated with the design and construction
of our ports and try to reduce the amount of time that is
necessary in order to complete our ports of entry.
As far as the prioritization of how funding is spent, I
think we are going to simply need to continue to focus on
making sure that our needs are heard and that they are given
the proper priority. However, very often we do compete with
other Federal buildings, such as courthouses, which very often
carry much more weight in getting the construction completed.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Stana, I would like to hear your view on
this issue as well. GAO's report indicates that weaknesses in
physical infrastructure at ports of entry can result in failed
traveler inspections. What are some of the more troubling
problems you observed in the infrastructure of land border
crossings?
Mr. Stana. Well, first let me say that the fact that almost
60 percent of our ports are actually owned by GSA magnifies the
kinds of issues that Mr. Morris talked about. There are only
about a third that are owned by CBP, so they are somewhat
confined and restricted on what they can do on their own. And
then another 14 percent, I believe, are owned by private
individuals--or private corporations, like the Detroit-Windsor
Tunnel and the Ambassador Bridge in Mr. Levin's area. And this
creates problems when you want things to be done. You have to
get approvals and you have to get in their priority system as
well.
The kinds of problems that we saw include lanes that are
not secured, making it easier to run through a port without
going into the secondary area if you are instructed to do so;
making sure that all of the technology is in the right place.
Now there are license plate readers there, and they have portal
monitors for radiation detection and so on.
This gets to a larger issue, I think, that you raised in
your opening statement, Mr. Akaka, and that is, is it really
time for a 21st Century port configuration? If you go to a port
of entry, what you have now is akin to buying an old car from
the 1960s and putting GPS on it and retrofitting power windows
and satellite radio and all that kind of stuff, when a new car
incorporates that and it is much more easy to use and it works
better.
If we are going to spend $4 billion upgrading the ports, we
ought to make sure that we consider all of the things that are
going to make the job easier. Is the computer screen in the
right location in the booth to make it easy to query the text
databases, the law enforcement databases? Are the license plate
readers in a position that gives the officer enough advance
warning that a person requires further inspection--should the
portal monitors be placed several hundred yards away? Why would
you put them right at the port where an explosive devise could
have a severe consequence?
So maybe it is time for CBP, along with engineers and local
governments where these ports are located, perhaps the union,
to get together and consider how these ports ought to be
configured to take us into the next era where we have to
consider security and terrorism much more than we had to when
these ports were designed, and yet still allowing the
relatively free flow of people and legitimate cargo.
Senator Akaka. Thank you for that forward look.
Mr. Morris, CBP is under tremendous strain to complete its
visitor/traveler inspection and antiterrorism functions. I am
concerned that agricultural inspection is being sacrificed due
to CBP's staffing shortage. How are you ensuring that there is
enough focus on agricultural inspection?
Mr. Morris. The CBP agriculture specialists play a very
important role at our ports of entry, and they are fully a part
of the rest of Customs and Border Protection operation at a
port.
In our training for our officers at the CBP Officer
Academy, they get the cross-training in the agriculture
mission, and they are made aware of the great importance of
performing that mission at the ports of entry to protect the
economic interests and the agricultural interests of this
country.
In order to ensure that the agricultural mission is
thoroughly addressed at the ports of entry, we frequently put
out musters for our officers, so, in other words, we are
providing them with a briefing at the beginning of their shift
that tells them to look for specific pests or specific items
that are prohibited from entry. And we make sure that within
each of the ports of entry our management oversees that joining
of the two workforces.
And I should say that I believe that our agricultural
enforcement is much better now than it was previously, and it
is better now because each CBP officer on primary inspection is
a workforce multiplier for those ag specialists. They have the
basic information that they need to identify when there may be
an issue with an agricultural product, and they refer it to
secondary, where the ag specialist then focuses on it.
So I think we have really improved this transition.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Morris, in March 2003, CBP initiated its
``One Face at the Border'' program that unified and integrated
legacy inspectors from three agencies into two new positions:
CBP officer and CBP agriculture specialist. CBP envisioned the
results would be more effective traveler inspections and
enhanced security at ports of entry.
What is your assessment of the ``One Face at the Border''
program? And what are the lessons learned from the effort?
Mr. Morris. Well, I believe as many have pointed out, any
transition of this magnitude takes a long time. I have heard
estimates anywhere between 5 and 10 years before a transition
such as this is complete. But all that said, I believe that we
have made outstanding progress in heading towards that one face
at the border and a truly unified workforce with common
missions and a common primary mission being counterterrorism.
We have seen the better interdiction and identification and
apprehension of individuals with links to terrorism. We have
seen a better sharing of information from the top to the bottom
as far as intelligence information that is useful to our
officers in the field. And we have overall continued to grow in
the apprehension of individuals that are bringing in any number
of prohibited goods, as well as continuing to apprehend those
that are attempting to unlawfully immigrate to the United
States.
Yes, we still have work to do, but I think we have made an
outstanding first 4 years at it.
Senator Akaka. Well, I want to thank both of you very much
for your testimony as well as your responses to the
Subcommittee. It will be helpful, and as you pointed out, we
have much to do, both as Administration people and people of
Congress. And so I want to thank you again for all you have
done and will be doing for our country.
Mr. Stana. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Morris. Thank you, Chairman.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Now may I call forward Colleen
Kelley, National President of the National Treasury Employees
Union. Welcome, Ms. Kelley. It is the custom of the
Subcommittee to swear in all witnesses. Please stand and raise
your right hand. Do you swear that the testimony you are about
to give the Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, so help you, God?
Ms. Kelley. I do.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much.
Let it be noted in the record that the witness answered in
the affirmative.
As with the previous panel, I want you to know that while
your oral statement is limited to 5 minutes, your entire
written statement will be included in the record. Will you
please proceed with your statement, Ms. Kelley?
TESTIMONY OF COLLEEN KELLEY,\1\ NATIONAL PRESIDENT, NATIONAL
TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION
Ms. Kelley. Thank you very much, Chairman Akaka. I
appreciate the opportunity to testify on the human capital
challenges posed by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's
``One Face at the Border'' Initiative. NTEU represents Customs
and Border Protection officers, agriculture specialists, and
trade enforcement employees at the Homeland Security
Department.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Kelley appears in the Appendix on
page 64.
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Shortly after DHS was created, CBP announced the ``One Face
at the Border'' initiative that, as we have heard, combined
three different inspector occupations: Customs, immigration,
and agriculture. This major consolidation of the roles and
responsibilities of the inspectional workforce of the ports of
entry has resulted in a huge expansion of the duties of each
officer, and it has led to the dilution of the customs,
immigration, and agriculture inspection specializations,
weakening the quality of inspections.
CBP saw its ``One Face at the Border'' initiative as a
means to increase management flexibility without increasing
staffing levels. Their position was ``there will be no extra
cost to taxpayers. CBP plans to manage this initiative within
existing resources. The ability to combine these three
inspectional disciplines and to cross-train front-line
employees will allow CBP to more easily handle projected
workload increases and stay within present budgeted levels.''
This has not been the case. The knowledge and the skills
required to perform the expanded inspectional tasks under the
``One Face at the Border'' initiative have dramatically
increased the workload of the CBP officer. CBP officers have
twin goals: Antiterrorism and facilitating legitimate trade and
travel.
On the one hand, CBP officers are to fully perform their
inspectional duties, yet at all times they are made aware by
management of wait times. In land port booths, wait times are
clearly displayed. At airports, all international arrivals are
expected to be cleared within 45 minutes. CBP's emphasis on
reducing wait times without increasing staff at the ports of
entry creates an extremely challenging work environment for the
CBP officer.
GAO testified today that CBP's own staffing model shows
that several thousand additional CBP officers and agriculture
specialists are needed at our ports of entry. And GAO testimony
issued on October 3, 2007, stated, ``As of mid-August 2007, CBP
had 2,116 agriculture specialists on staff, compared with 3,154
specialists needed, according to its own staffing model.''
NTEU has called on Congress for an increase of at least
4,000 new CBP officers and agriculture specialists for CBP to
achieve its dual mission.
Staffing shortages are exacerbated by challenges in
retaining staff, as we have heard today. This contributes to an
increasing number of CBP officer vacancies, which are currently
estimated at 1,000 vacancies. According to GAO, ``CBP's onboard
staffing level is below its budgeted level--the gap between the
budgeted staffing level and the number of officers onboard is
attributable in part to high attrition, with ports of entry
losing officers faster than they can hire replacements. Through
March 2007, CBP data shows that, on average, 52 CBP officers
left the agency each 2-week pay period in fiscal year 2007.
That is up from only 34 officers each 2-week pay period in
fiscal year 2005.''
The most significant impediment to recruitment and
retention of CBP officers that Congress can address immediately
is the lack of law enforcement officer status, which we heard
about earlier. The newly issued GAO report states, ``CBP
officers are leaving the agency to take positions at other DHS
components and other Federal agencies to obtain law enforcement
officer benefits not authorized to them at CBP.''
For this reason, legislation has been introduced in both
the House and Senate to provide CBP officers with law
enforcement officer benefits. In addition, House appropriators
have included in their fiscal year 2008 DHS appropriations bill
a provision that would grant law enforcement officer status to
CBP officers prospectively. NTEU is currently working with the
House and the Senate to modify this provision so that some LEO
retirement benefit is provided to all CBP officers. NTEU urges
this Subcommittee to support our efforts to improve and to pass
this legislation.
I have to mention that in Mr. Morris' testimony on the
prior panel, he testified that CBP is striving to be the
premier law enforcement agency, and I agree with that goal. But
I can tell you that will never happen without providing law
enforcement officer status to these CBO officers.
Widely reported morale problems at DHS also affect
recruitment and retention, and we heard about that somewhat on
the earlier panel. It also gets in the way of the ability of
the agency to accomplish its mission. The proposed new DHS pay
and personnel systems and CBP's unilateral elimination of
employee input into routine workplace decisionmaking, such as
work shift schedules, have had a serious negative impact on
morale and also need to be addressed.
I have to mention also that in response to Mr. Morris'
answer to a question that you asked about morale at CBP and
what they intended to do about it, it is very clear to me that
CBP has no plan to address this. The first time the employees
answered the survey and made clear that the employee morale was
so low, 29 out of 30, the Department of Homeland Security was
very dismissive of those results. They said to the press and to
Congress and to everyone else that: ``It is a new department,
we merged 22 agencies, of course, morale is low.'' They were
very dismissive of employees' responses.
The next year, when again employees had the same response,
they decided that Secretary Chertoff should now convene some
groups of executives and managers to talk about the issue. That
is not how the problem will be solved. It will be solved by
working with NTEU and with the front-line employees to identify
the issues that are impacting this morale issue. And it is
about staffing, about law enforcement officer status. It is
about employee involvement in decisionmaking, and it is about
valuing and respecting the front-line officers and the input
that they have into how the work can be done better. None of
that is done today.
In conclusion, I would say that there are six
recommendations NTEU has for CBP on their human capital
challenges. One is to fill the vacancies and increase the CBP
officer and agriculture specialists staffing to the levels in
CBP's own staffing model.
Second, end the ``One Face at the Border'' initiative.
Third, re-establish the specialization of prior
inspectional functions.
Fourth, provide LEO coverage to all CBP officers with
retroactive coverage.
Five, repeal Homeland Security's personnel flexibility
authority.
And, six, allow employee input in a shift assignment
system.
And I would just like to add as part of my statement a
response to Senator Voinovich's question about how much NTEU
and employee involvement there is with CBP. As I signaled to
Senator Voinovich when he asked the question, the answer is
zero. There is zero involvement. And there is a reason for
that. At least there was a triggering reason.
When this Administration came into office, one of the first
acts they did was to rescind an Executive order on partnership.
An Executive order had been in place since 1993 that required
Federal agencies to work in partnership with the unions who
represent front-line Federal employees and those employees.
Within 2 months of the President taking office, this
Administration rescinded that Executive order, and as a result,
every agency, including the U.S. Customs Service at the time
and now Customs and Border Protection, does not work with NTEU
or with employees in partnership in any way, shape, or form.
The notice and the discussions with NTEU that Mr. Morris
referenced I take issue with. He said when there are changes at
the ports, they notify NTEU. That is a legal obligation because
we are the exclusive representative and they have a collective
bargaining obligation. They interpret that as narrowly as
possible, give us notice when they see fit, give us the minimal
facts that they can, and their intent always is to unilaterally
move and to act on whatever their decisions are without NTEU's
involvement or the involvement of the front-line employees.
So to Senator Voinovich's question, there is no NTEU or
employee involvement on shift assignments, on training, on port
operations, on retention, on morale, on nothing. There is zero
NTEU or employee input.
With that, I am happy to answer any questions that you have
for me today, Senator. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Ms. Kelley.
I was very troubled by the GAO report's finding that CBP
officers receive as little as 2 weeks of on-the-job training.
Are CBP officers being placed in situations that they are not
prepared to handle?
Ms. Kelley. Unfortunately, they are at times. They do the
best they can. They take their jobs very seriously. They do
have the formal training from the academy. But the front-line,
on-the-job training at the port--actually getting to see the
work done by an experienced officer, to have that 12 weeks, as
was described earlier, provided to them is a critical piece of
how well they will do the job. How fast they will be able to
really understand all of the nuances and also see these
experienced officers react, not only to textbook knowledge, but
also to gut reactions that they have built and acquired over
the years, are really a very key part to doing this job.
Senator Akaka. Ms. Kelley, CBP officers routinely seize
narcotics and arrest drug smugglers. They also need to be
prepared to apprehend suspected terrorists. Given these job
duties, are you concerned that insufficient training creates a
safety hazard for the CBP officers that you represent?
Ms. Kelley. I think it does at times create a safety risk,
and also it does not allow these officers to do the first-class
quality job that they are trying to do for our country. It does
not give them the opportunity to do that. It does not give them
the tools and the resources to be able to do it. And at times
it does make the environment unsafe.
Senator Akaka. You testified that combining the former
customs inspectors, INS immigration inspectors, and USDA
agriculture inspectors into generalist CBP officers has
resulted in job responsibility overload and a dilution of
specialization, weakening the inspection process. How could
cross-training be improved to reduce the problems that you
identified?
Ms. Kelley. Cross-training is a piece of it from a
standpoint of an awareness, I would say. But to think that
these officers can be cross-trained to be experts in all three
areas of law is misguided. Each one of them have their own sets
of law, rule, and regulation--the customs law, rule, and
regulation, the immigration law, rule, and regulation, as well
as the agriculture law, rule, and regulation. So cross-training
surely serves a purpose from an awareness standpoint to then
get those travelers or that cargo into secondary where the
experts, those who have the specialized skills, can then
continue to do that inspection and that work. And so cross-
training is a piece of it, but it is not the sole answer.
The specialization loss is a very real one, and it is one
that needs to be addressed, and it needs to be addressed by
staffing and a recognition that those secondary lanes need to
be staffed so that when someone who has an awareness from the
cross-training that they have received sends someone there,
that there is staffing there to do an adequate inspection. Too
many times today that is not the case.
Senator Akaka. CBP officers at border crossings work long
hours, breathing fumes from thousands of cars. Often they work
while standing in high temperatures, particularly along the
Southern border. To some degree, these are realities of the
job.
What can be done to improve border crossings to make them
more secure, efficient, and comfortable work environments for
CBP officers?
Ms. Kelley. I think that there are 326 answers to that
question since there are 326 ports of entry, because each one
really is a different situation. They are all laid out
differently, whether it is because of real estate or because of
traffic. But each one is different, and that is why the input
of the front-line officers who are doing this work is so key.
They would have ideas about how to either redirect the traffic
or insert fans or whatever equipment can be put into certain
ports that would eliminate or at least reduce the fumes that
they are subjected to. It may be that the staffing in those
booths needs rotating more frequently on the Southwest border
because of the fumes than it does in some of the inland borders
with less traffic.
So I really think there are 326 answers to that question,
and the way to get the answer is not to have the port director
and the manager sit down and discuss it. It is to work with
NTEU and the front-line officers. They have a lot of really
good ideas about how to do the work better, about how to do the
work safer, and about how to make the ports of entry more
effective for America's taxpayers.
Senator Akaka. Speaking about morale and attrition, as you
know, CBP officers do not receive the enhanced pension benefits
that Federal law enforcement officers receive. What effect does
this treatment have on CBP officers' morale and attrition?
Ms. Kelley. It is a huge issue, Mr. Chairman. Everywhere I
go, officers ask me what the chances are that this wrong will
be made right and that they will be given the law enforcement
officer status that they so deserve.
It is a very big morale issue, and it is an issue that
really feeds into the retention that CBP acknowledges. And I
will say that I am glad to hear that CBP is acknowledging--
maybe because of the GAO report, but acknowledging they have a
retention problem, because for years NTEU has been raising this
with them, and they have never acknowledged that they had a
problem that was different than any other Federal agency.
The idea that GAO can pinpoint that 25 percent of the
officers say LEO is important to them is one that I think is a
statistic that should not be lost on anyone, and hopefully
Congress will take appropriate action to give the long overdue
law enforcement officer status to these officers that they
deserve.
Senator Akaka. Ms. Kelley, your written testimony notes the
decrease in secondary inspections. GAO's report also observes
that CBP's antiterrorism and other traveler inspection programs
are not fully carried out due to understaffing.
Do you believe that CBP cuts back on secondary inspections
to deal with short staffing?
Ms. Kelley. I do at times. I believe they make decisions
every day about what work will be done and what work will not
be done because of the staffing problem that is now
acknowledged. There are 1,000 vacancies that are funded. There
is no reason in my mind that they are not filled, and efforts
to get additional funding for them for the 4,000 positions we
think are needed. But absolutely, I think every day--I have
been to ports where if a flight is coming in and it has to
clear in 45 minutes and they are at minimal staffing, everyone
is pulled to clear that flight, from cargo, from secondary,
from everywhere. It is an operational decision that they make
because they do not have the staffing that they need.
Senator Akaka. Whenever there are reports or news of poor
traveler inspections, front-line CBP officers often receive the
blame. I understand that many ports of entry do not have enough
inspection booths, forcing travelers to wait in long lines. You
testified that CBP's emphasis on reducing wait times creates a
challenging work environment for CBP officers.
Are the officers you represent being pressured to conduct
inspections quickly at the expense of being thorough?
Ms. Kelley. I believe so. Many of them, if asked a question
in an environment where they could answer it, would tell you
yes, depending on the day. They very often feel they are not
allowed to take the time that in their professional judgment is
needed to ask all the questions and to have the conversation
with the passenger that they think is needed to ensure they are
making the right decision on entry or not.
When you have the pressure of wait times, whether it is on
a bridge or at the airport, and management says move the line,
you have to move the line in a shorter time, and that means you
cannot spend the 2 or 3 minutes that you would to notice
behaviors, to ask questions, to look at documents. You have
heard the testimony of how many different documents there are
that can be used to enter the country today, and in many cases,
officers report they have 1 minute to spend, if not less than 1
minute, with each passenger, that they are making a conscious
decision about whether to let into the country or not. So it is
a very real factor.
Senator Akaka. Are these time goals enforced? For example,
do CBP officers' performance evaluations reflect how quickly
they inspect travelers? You mentioned 1 minute. Is that
prevalent?
Ms. Kelley. Again, it depends on the day and the port, but
it is not unusual that officers are visited by a supervisor and
they are told to speed up the line, which means take less time
with each passenger that is coming through.
As far as the airports, a while ago I asked CBP, I said,
``I keep hearing about this 45 minutes. Is there some rule that
it has to be cleared in 45 minutes?'' And they assured me there
was no such rule.
What I then found out was while there might not be a rule,
if a flight goes over 45 minutes, a report is initially
triggered back to CBP headquarters, who, of course, is calling
the port saying, ``Why is it taking you more than 45 minutes?''
So while there is nothing that says you have to clear the
flight, if you do not, you have to explain why you did not. And
most ports and port directors do not want to call that
attention to themselves, so they move the flight.
Senator Akaka. Ms. Kelley, you testified that CBP no longer
gives officers input into their schedules. Could you say a bit
more about how scheduling used to work, how it changed, and why
this is a concern for CBP officers?
Ms. Kelley. The right of CBP to establish schedules, what
hours a port will be covered--and more and more ports, of
course, are on 24/7 coverage. But it is the right of management
to determine what hours they need coverage, how many employees
they need to do the work, and what the qualifications are of
those employees. That has always been a management right.
What used to happen then was once the shifts were
established, employees would exercise their right to bid--we
called it a ``bid process''--to where they would say they would
like to work 4 to 12 or midnight to 8 or 8 to 4, whatever the
shift was, and they had the right to say that because it was
good for morale, it helped them to balance their family issues,
whether they had working spouses or transportation issues or
elder issues, or whatever it was.
A few years ago, CBP decided that input would no longer be
allowed and that managers would just assign employees to
shifts. There used to be a process that allowed employees to
swap shifts, and that still ensured the coverage and everything
that management mandated and had a right to mandate. It is very
difficult in most ports today to swap shifts.
So management has taken away that right--I would say not
for a business reason. It is about control. They just want to
be able to dictate to the employees. And they do not want to
have to go through the work of working with the employees,
which would really be a huge increase in their morale if a
process like that were put back in place, for all the obvious
reasons.
I would say whether you work as a CBP officer or at any job
anywhere, the idea that you would be able to express a
preference for what shift works better for you, and then even
if you do not get the shift that you wanted, at least there is
a clear, transparent process that you say at least it was a
fair process, and then maybe the next time I would get my
preferred shift. And that is not how it operates today.
Senator Akaka. Well, I noted your comments on the need for
labor-management partnerships. I agree with you that this is
important, and I want to thank you for your support of my bill
to reinstate those partnerships.
Ms. Kelley. In fact, I was remiss in my opening, Mr.
Chairman, in not thanking you for introducing that bill,
because you do clearly recognize the value that it brings not
just to the employees but to the Department and to all of our
citizens who are depending on the work of the Department of
Homeland Security. So I thank you for your leadership in
introducing the bill, and we are going to help you do
everything possible to make it a reality.
Senator Akaka. Well, I want to thank all of our witnesses
again for the time you spent preparing and presenting this
valuable information to this Subcommittee. We appreciate the
hard work that you do to improve Customs and Border Protection.
Today's hearing highlights the need to really focus on
making CBP an attractive place to work. CBP must address its
staffing, training, and morale problems. This is not merely a
matter of being a responsible employer. The human capital
problems at CBP undermine thorough inspections and create a
serious homeland security risk.
One small step that I hope we will take soon is providing
law enforcement benefits to CBP officers. Furthermore, I
believe that it is time that we look closely at the
infrastructure at land border crossings. We must invest the
resources to modernize our ports of entry, to permit thorough
and efficient inspections, in an atmosphere that is inviting to
visitors and a more attractive work environment for CBP
officers.
This Subcommittee will continue its attention to CBP
inspections at our Nation's ports of entry in the future. The
hearing record will be open for 1 week for additional
statements or questions other Members may have, and, again, my
thanks to all of you for making this valuable hearing.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:06 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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