U.S. customs agency is so short-staffed, it’s sending officers from airports to the Mexican border

While lawmakers this week argued over the merits of President Trump's $18 billion border wall and a potential government shutdown, the federal officers tasked with stopping drugs and terrorists from entering the country faced a different threat: exhaustion.

An acute staffing shortage of customs officers at the border has gotten so dire that the government this month began pulling screeners from U.S. airports and reassigning them to southern Arizona on an emergency basis.