Heed plea for more CBP officers

This week the Sentinel featured a front-page story on Orlando International Airport’s transition to facial-recognition screening for passengers on inbound and outbound international flights. The new system will process those passengers faster than conventional screening. Members of the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, which oversees OIA, showed foresight by investing $4 million in the system.

Over the long term, however, a challenge remains for the airport: a steadily rising volume of international passengers, but a static force of federal Customs and Border Protection officers to handle them. The number of international passengers at OIA, about 6 million a year, has almost doubled since 2009, but the number of CBP officers at the airport is virtually the same — a widening imbalance that adds to delays and congestion.

The same challenge is facing other international airports in Florida, as well as seaports in the state, where cargo from overseas arrives. CBP staffing has not kept pace with the increasing volume of passengers or cargo. The longer the wait for either upon arrival, the worse for the state’s economy.

Passengers who get stuck too long at an airport are less inclined to make return trips. Cargo delays cost businesses money, and encourage shippers to redirect goods to ports in other states. Billions of dollars in economic activity, and thousands of jobs, are at stake.

Last week a bipartisan group of members of Congress from Florida — including the state’s two senators, Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Marco Rubio — dispatched a compelling appeal in a letter to their colleagues chairing the Senate and House committees in charge of the CBP budget, urging them to include enough funding for the agency to add another 500 officers. Central Florida representatives signing the letter included Democrats Stephanie Murphy of Winter Park and Val Demings of Orlando, and Republican Dennis Ross of Lakeland.

Earlier this year, Congress did include an extra $7.6 million in the federal budget to add 328 CBP officers. But the agency has said it needs to hire more than 2,500 additional officers to operate at full capacity. The extra 500 officers sought by the Florida members would be a solid down payment toward that goal. Hiring them would increase annual U.S. economic activity by $1 billion and create 16,600 jobs — estimates the members attribute to CBP. That’s a great return on investment for taxpayers.

The Florida members also made another strong argument in their letter for ramping up CBP staffing: reducing the flow of opioids and other illicit drugs entering the country. “As traffickers become more sophisticated,” they wrote, “and as proliferation and usage of harder-to-track drugs increases, shortages in CBP staffing at ports of entry only hampers our efforts.”

Security is another obvious rationale for adding CBP officers. Overworked officers leave airports and seaports more vulnerable to terrorists or other criminals. A single security breach could endanger the lives of thousands of passengers and employees. If it were to happen in Florida, it could do permanent damage to the state’s reputation with international travelers.

The Greater Orlando Aviation Authority appealed last year to Florida’s members of Congress to help ease the shortage of CBP officers at OIA. To their credit, those members listened, and widened their focus to airports and seaports throughout the state.

Now we hope the House and Senate committee chairs will be just as responsive.

Customs and Border Protection staffing has not kept pace with international passengers and cargo.

Adding more would strengthen the economy and promote security.