Sen. Lankford Leads Oklahoma's Congressional Delegation On Border Security Issues

Federal legislation that one Oklahoma lawmaker calls 'an important first step to empowering border patrol agents to focus on defending the homeland' is a step closer to becoming law Thursday.

For not, by definition, being a border state, Oklahoma’s congressional delegation certainly punches above its weight on border issues.

Leading the way has been Senator James Lankford (R-OK), ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Border Management subcommittee. But Freshman Congressman Josh Brecheen sits on the House Homeland Security Committee and has also become passionate about border security.

"Oh, absolutely," Rep. Brecheen (R-OK2) said in an interview Thursday. Brecheen's particular passion at the moment is following up on a 2020 Government Accountability Office report indicating the Department of Homeland Security was relying on contractors -- perhaps too much -- to perform critical functions.

"This is Homeland Security," Brecheen said, astonished, "and we’ve got people that are guarding Homeland Security facilities that are subcontractors."

Under Brecheen's bill, the “DHS Border Services Contracts Review Act,” the agency would have to reassess the use of contractors at the Southern Border.

"It’s going to force the Customs and Border Patrol to come back with a report about where we can glean efficiencies," the lawmakers said.

The conservative view that less government is more and that privatization spurs economic growth still holds, Brecheen says, but only to a point.

"I’m all about letting contracting work be done," he said, "but when you’re talking about something that, as the GAO report said, is inherently governmental, and we lose the potential to keep control in our mission, that’s a different deal."

The bill passed out of committee Wednesday.

"I mean," Brecheen said, "this is all designed to make sure that we, with the finite resources the taxpayer gives to the federal government, that we treat them with scrutiny."