Marco Rubio, Bill Nelson and 13 Florida lawmakers asked Congress to pay for 500 new customs officers to help with staffing shortages at state airports.

In a letter to House and Senate leaders of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, U.S. Sen. Rubio and U.S. Sen. Nelson joined with U.S. Rep. Val Demings, D-Orlando, U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Winter Park, and U.S. Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Lakeland, to call for another 500 customs officers to be hired in 2019 on top of the additional 328 being hired this year.

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol estimates that an additional 2,516 customs officers at airports and seaports, who are separate from Border Patrol agents, need to be hired to operate at full capacity nationwide.

Officials at Florida airports have long raised concerns over the shortage, according to the lawmakers’ statement, “which they say often causes frustratingly long wait times for international travelers arriving in the state — discouraging some from ever returning.”

“The Joint Economic Committee has found that while the volume of commerce crossing our borders has more than tripled in the past 25 years, CBP staffing has not kept pace with demand,” they wrote.

Customs and Border Patrol estimates “show that hiring an additional 500 CBP officers at ports of entry would increase annual economic activity by $1 billion and result in an additional 16,600 jobs per year.”

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