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HUMAN CAPITAL NEEDS OF THE U.S. CUSTOMS

AND BORDER PROTECTION ‘‘ONE FACE AT

THE BORDER’’ INITIATIVE

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

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

BARACK OBAMA, Illinois 

CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

JOHN WARNER, Virginia 

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 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

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

JESSICA K. NAGASAKO, Chief Clerk 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

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

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1The GAO report appears in the Appendix on page 101. 

HUMAN CAPITAL NEEDS OF THE 

U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION 

‘‘ONE FACE AT THE BORDER’’ INITIATIVE 

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

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 

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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 

3

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 SenVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:12 Mar 07, 2008 Jkt 038990 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\38990.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
4

ator 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 HomeVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:12 Mar 07, 2008 Jkt 038990 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\38990.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
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1The prepared statement of Mr. Morris appears in the Appendix on page 35. 

land 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. 

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. 

6

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 lawrelated 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 

7

1The prepared statement of Mr. Stana appears in the Appendix on page 49. 

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. 

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, 

8

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 wellsupervised 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 

9

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. 

10

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? 

11

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. 

12

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 

13

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. 

14

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 crosstraining 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 

15

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. 

16

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. 

17

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 

18

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 

19

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 dayto-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 

20

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 onsite 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 

21

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? 

22

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 frauduVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:12 Mar 07, 2008 Jkt 038990 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\38990.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
23

lently 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. 

24

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 

25

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. 

26

1The prepared statement of Ms. Kelley appears in the Appendix on page 64. 

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. 

27

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 crosstrain 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 FedVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:12 Mar 07, 2008 Jkt 038990 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\38990.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
28

eral 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 frontline 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. 

29

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 

30

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. 

31

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 

32

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 realVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:12 Mar 07, 2008 Jkt 038990 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\38990.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
33

ly 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.] 

(35)

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