mr. cintron if i could. first for mr. owen's staffing level, i would just ask at the international service centers, would you talk to us about the staffing levels, how have they changed over the last five years at each of the last international service centers that in the last year, we have increased the cbp officers by 20% in direct response to this threat. prior to that i would say the staffing levels were pretty much stagnant for the last four or five years, but we have added 20% additional staff. >> was much made of our need to tighten our borders for a variety of reasons. human traffics, dogs, and other illicit activities. we focus a lot on border patrol agents. think we have 20,000 or more positions ta that are allocated, and i'm not sure that we have that number to fill. i'm not sure we're able to hire that many people. very have hundreds of positions. correct me if i'm wrong. i heard for a number of years that customs and border patrol could use some additional people. we focus on the borders between border crossi

mr. cintron if i could. first for mr.owen's staffing level, i would just ask at the international service centers, would you talk to us about the staffing levels, how have they changed over the last five years at each of the last international service centers that in the last year, we have increased the cdp officers by 20% in direct response to this threat. prur to that i would say the staffing levels were pretty much stagnant for the last four or five years, but we have added 20% additional staff. >> was much made of our need to tighten our borders for a variety of reasons. human traffics, dogs, and other illicit activities. we focus a lot on border patrol agents. think we have 20,000 or more allocated. i'm not sure we're able to hire that many people. very have hundreds of positions. correct me if i'm wrong. i heard for a number of years that customs and border patrol could use some additional people. we focus on the borders between border crossings. we also need to focus on staffing -- proper staffing at the border cro

mr. cintron. mr. owen. >> chairman portman, ranking member carper, distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear today to discuss the role of u.s. customs and border protection in combatting the flow of dangerous, illicit drugs into our country. as the unified board security agency of the united states, cbp plays a critical role in our nation's efforts to keep dangerous drugs from entering our communities. cbp interdicts drugs and other dangerous items at our ports of entry, including multiple mail and express courier facilities by leveraging advanced electronic data, augments systems and by using various types of detection technology, all as part of our multilayered risk-based approach to enhance the security of our borders. since i last appeared before this committee in april of 2016, cbp, working collaboratively with the postal service and our law enforcement partners, has made strong progress in enhancing our enforcement capabilities and our effectiveness in th

mr. cintron. mr. sterling. >> chairman portman, ranking member carper, thank you for the opportunity to appear today to discuss the role of u.s. customs and border protection in combating the flow of dangerous elicit drugs into the country. as the unified border security agency of the united states, cbp plays a critical role in the nation's efforts to keep dangerous drugs from entering our communities. cbp interdicts drugs, by leveraging advanced electronic data, automated targeting systems and intelligence driven starts and various types of detection technology, are as part of our risk are based approach. since i last appeared before the full commit committee in april of 2016. cbp, working with the postal service and law enforcement partners has head strong progress and enhancing enforcement okayables and effectiveness international mail and express courier environments but more must be done. recent bilateral agreements regarding advanced electronic data between the u.s. postal service and foreign po

mr. cintron. >> good morning, chairman portman, ranking member carper and members of the subcommittee. thank you, chairman portman for calling this hearing. i'm robert cintron, the vice president and network operations for the united states postal service. i oversee the postal service's national distribution network, including its operations at the international service centers, known as iscs. last may i testified before this subcommittee on our effort to combat opioids in the mail, highlighting the collection and receipt of advanced electronic data known at aed. together with our federal agency partners we're committed to aggressively and increasing aed for packages coming into the united states in order to improve the targeting and the elicit drugs and other contraband. in the past three years, the postal service has gone from receiving almost no aed on inpound shipments to receiving more than 40% as of december 2017. we are now testing data that will allow to us target more package volume from china. this data results in a significant increase in the amount of aed the postal service