During a House Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) spoke about the little amount of training that is given to soldiers stationed at the southern border.
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00:00of districts in Congress. I don't know about Mr. Newhouse, but he's not here, so he doesn't count
00:05today. The floor is yours for five minutes. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman and Madam
00:10Ranking Member. Commissioner Flores, thank you for being here, and thank you for your service
00:15to our country. I am blessed to represent the beautiful community of El Paso, Texas,
00:22and I'm a native, born and raised there, raised my children there, and my constituents recognize
00:29the importance of our land ports of entry. I think frequently Congress does not. You know,
00:35we get a lot of visitors from across the country who parachute in, they visit the border, take their
00:41selfies, leave. When I have folks visit the border, I always include our land ports of entry because
00:49they are key to our commerce, to our national economy, but what I have heard long before I
00:56was in Congress, from my neighbors, friends, etc., who work for CBP, is how understaffed our OFO personnel
01:06are, and it's been a chronic issue. It precedes my time in Congress, as I mentioned, and the staffing
01:14model, I think, needs to be reconfigured, and we need to think about different things in a new
01:21staffing model, including, for example, the El Paso sector, where one land port of entry is probably
01:30about 45 minutes away from another land port of entry, and when you're shifting personnel, we've got
01:36to take that timing into consideration. I was so proud to have supported the bipartisan infrastructure law,
01:44which has funding for a port modernization, the Bridge of the Americas, in the central part of my community,
01:52and as we increase POV traffic there, I, again, come back to thinking about staffing, and, again,
02:01Congress frequently focuses on Border Patrol and the border when it comes to CBP. I would like to hear
02:08from you how do we address our chronic understaffing with OFO. Congresswoman, thank you for the question.
02:15So our workload staffing model is something we've developed now over several years, and it's been
02:21validated. I think to your point in regards to taking into consideration the time and distance of
02:26some of our locations is an important aspect and something that we're trying to ensure that it is
02:32incorporated into the workload staffing model. Current workload staffing model for OFO, at least the last
02:37numbers I saw, I believe, had them 5,000 people short based on current workload the last time we did
02:44the assessment. So it's a validation tool for us on what the workload is. So agreed that operationally,
02:51like the Border Patrol, Office of Field Operations is also short of the men and women performing the job
02:57at the ports of entry. And as you're well aware, in regards to the economics of what happens at a ports
03:04of entry in regards to daily travel, commuter travel, commercial trucks coming across the border,
03:09right? There's high value in what that is coming across the border. We continue to make process
03:14improvements as we, with your support and the committee support in regards to what additional
03:19staffing looks like, we continue to make operational improvements to help alleviate some of the stress
03:24of ports of entry in regards to technologies and way forward. Simplified entry was a great example of
03:31what we did in regards to being able to expedite traffic. As we look at trusted travel and trusted trader
03:36programs, we have FAST and we have Global Entry, right? We have Century and those type of programs that
03:43account, today, account for about 16 million people registered into those type of programs. So trying to
03:49expedite crossings across the border as we wait for additional staffing, hopefully, and funding for that to be able to
03:56fulfill some, fill some of those spots that we have, both in the passenger environment and in the cargo
04:01environment, along all our ports of entry in the U.S. Commissioner, would you commit to working with me
04:07on assuring that we have enough OFO personnel at our land ports of entry? Will do, yes. Okay, perfect.
04:16I'd also like to work with you on trusted traveler because I, that is a high source of complaints from members of my
04:25community, including very well-respected members of the business community to, you know, all sorts of folks from all walks of life.
04:36That program, when, when, when that privilege is revoked, it's like a black box. People can't get answers. So I'd like to work with you on that as well. I'm running out of time. I have one final question that is really
04:49important to me. We've seen the administration use, uh, members of our active duty military on the U.S.-Mexico border. How much training and how long is the training for border patrol, just very quickly, before they engage in border operations?
05:08So the academy itself, I believe it's about six months.
05:11Um, and, and they get all sorts of really in-depth training. How much training do our active duty military get before they're put on border enforcement? Do you know?
05:24So you, I'd, I'd have to, uh, leave that up to DOD, but I know based on my experience and over my career, we've had DOD at the border ever since I can remember.
05:33Well, aside from, from the joint task force, I'm talking about the recent operations, that where we're literally putting military personnel on the border to act as enforcement personnel.
05:45Do you know how much training they get?
05:47So we do some cross training with, uh, DOD personnel when they come on board in regards to relationship of what we're doing. And then they obviously, DOD does their, their own training before.
05:56And do you know how-
05:57But I don't, I don't know how much training DOD is doing.
05:59It's literally only hours, a few hours. And so that I, I need to publicly express again, my profound concern and alarm, uh, at the administration's decision to use military assets, military installations, and now active duty military for border enforcement.
06:18Um, so thank you so much. Again, look forward to working with you on Trusted Traveler and on ensuring that we have an adequate number of OFO personnel at our land ports.
06:27Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
06:31The gentleman from the, uh, Great River State, uh, which I guess is, uh, translated out of the Algonquin language for Mississippi.