[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13350]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      PROTECTING AMERICA'S BORDERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Conaway) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of a simple yet important 
piece of border security legislation that I hope to see signed into law 
shortly. This legislation will help to secure our borders, save 
taxpayer dollars, and help the men and women who have served our Nation 
honorably to continue to serve and protect America in much-needed, 
technologically advanced positions.
  My legislation makes a simple fix that would allow the Customs and 
Border Patrol Commissioner to waive the polygraph requirement for soon-
to-be veterans who seek employment as UAV pilots within the Department 
of Homeland Security who come from the Department of Defense with 
current security clearances. The DOD typically invests a significant 
amount of training and career development resources in these men and 
women, and to lose their talent due to a lapse in interdepartmental 
communication is a detriment to our country.
  Under the current system, when soon-to-be veterans who are unmanned 
aerial vehicle, or UAV, pilots wish to apply for a UAV position at the 
DHS, they are placed on a wait list until more money and time is used 
to determine if these veterans meet DHS security guidelines despite 
having already passed similar security background checks performed by 
the Department of Defense. This creates a near impossible bottleneck 
where veterans can be stuck for months or years in waiting on redundant 
procedures, forcing most to drop their applications and go elsewhere to 
find employment.
  The result of this bureaucratic inefficiency is that veterans who 
have valuable skills that can help protect our Nation and in whom we 
have invested millions of dollars in training are lost to other jobs. 
This leaves DHS Border Protection positions unfilled and our borders 
more vulnerable. The country's security, veterans, and taxpayers all 
lose in this equation.
  This legislation works to solve three key problems by creating job 
opportunities for veterans, securing the borders, and saving taxpayer 
dollars. It is just plain common sense, and I urge the full 
consideration and adoption of this measure.

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