www.thecentersquare.com – By Liam Hibbert | The Center Square contributor – (The Center Square – ) 2025-02-21 18:45:00
(The Center Square) – A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has introduced a bill to use image technicians to ebb the flow of drugs smuggled into the United States from the southern border.
The Border Enforcement, Security and Trade Facilitation Act of 2025 comes amid increased conversation around border security in President Donald Trump’s second term, and in response to high-profile drug busts on the southern border. It would create technician jobs in border security for five years, but with no clear plan for the future.
The bill is sponsored by U.S. Sens. Mark Kelly, D-Arizona; James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, and John Cornyn, R-Texas.
“Customs and Border Protection needs more trained personnel to stop illegal drugs, weapons and human smuggling from entering our country,” Kelly said in a statement this week. “By adding image technicians to identify threats at ports of entry, we’re giving law enforcement another essential tool to secure the border while keeping trade flowing.”
It is unclear exactly what impact the technology would have on smuggling of drugs or other illicit goods. The bill also left out the program’s cost. Kelly’s press office did not respond to a request for comment from The Center Square on either of these issues.
Nearly 1,000 pounds of fentanyl – the drug that has become the center point of the substance abuse issue in the U.S. in recent years – was seized along the southwestern border in January 2025. It was the month’s lowest tally since 2022.
“Adding more personnel at ports of entry will immediately provide our country with another layer of security to prevent traffickers from smuggling weapons or drugs across the border,” said Lankford. “Border law enforcement has repeatedly asked for more support to analyze cargo images in real time, so this bill also gives them tools they need to catch criminals and secure our border.”
The program would run for five years, starting from when the bill is passed. No details have yet come out about next steps for the program or the image technicians it would employ.
SUMMARY: Icy roads are causing significant chaos in Oklahoma, leading to multiple accidents, including three snow plows being hit by other drivers. A particularly dangerous incident involved a semi-truck striking a snow plow on the Turner Turnpike, with video showing the truck crashing into a barrier. Law enforcement advises drivers to remain in their vehicles and call 911 if involved in an accident. Despite the cold weather persisting for days, road crews continue to work around the clock, emphasizing the importance of slowing down and maintaining a safe distance from snow removal equipment. Updates can be tracked via the Drive Oklahoma app.
Icy roads lead to crashes and close-calls
Stay informed about Oklahoma news and weather! Follow KFOR News 4 on our website and social channels.
SUMMARY: Oklahoma City FAA employees affected by recent federal layoffs express feelings of betrayal and concern. Many, including those still in probationary periods, received shocking termination emails late Friday night. Former employees, who believed they were performing well and had received positive feedback, were taken aback by the abrupt decision, which they felt lacked thoughtfulness and could compromise national airspace safety. Union representatives criticized the layoffs as rash and stressed that they would add to the workload of an already strained workforce. The overall sentiment among laid-off employees is one of disappointment and frustration, especially given the perceived negative public perception of federal workers.
Former FAA employees in Oklahoma City, now among those laid off as part of the federal government’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) job cuts, say they feel betrayed and abandoned, and that they are not faceless bureaucrats, but everyday people—your friends, your neighbors—who are now without a paycheck.
Stay informed about Oklahoma news and weather! Follow KFOR News 4 on our website and social channels.
Markwayne Mullin Has Made Trump Administration Nominees His Social Media Brand
by Em Luetkemeyer, Oklahoma Watch February 21, 2025
Sen. Markwayne Mullin has been ceaselessly tweeting the last few weeks, providing real-time updates on nominees confirmed to President Donald Trump’s administration.
“It gives me something to do,” Mullin told NOTUS on Thursday, before the Senate confirmed Kash Patel and after he’d posted a video about Patel’s nomination on Instagram.
“I’m not kidding … It gives me a purpose, a drive, but I’m more personally connected than I’d say most people are,” Mullin said.
Mullin was elected to the Senate in 2022, making this the first time he’s gone through the process of confirming nominees at the start of a new administration. He’s voted yes on every Trump pick to come through so far, and he’s gone out of his way — and beyond what most senators do — to cheer the nominees across the finish line.
He’s been consistent in that role: talking with other senators about them, boosting them in media interviews, inviting them to his office and posting a promotional video or picture.
Mullin’s X posts read like Senate cloakroom scheduling announcements, detailing when the Senate would vote on them.
Sen. John Cornyn told NOTUS he’s seen Mullin’s frequent posts.
“If I want to know what the schedule is, I can check out my Twitter feed, but obviously we all kind of do our own thing when it comes to social media. And [Mullin]’s found a niche that he seems to enjoy, and I think it can prove to be useful,” Cornyn said.
In Mullin’s telling, his relationships with many of the major nominees, like Tulsi Gabbard — who he calls his “sister” — and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who he said he got to know while traveling on behalf of the Trump campaign — go back further than their relationships with many other senators. It’s given him a head start in advocating for them, he said, when some of his colleagues are only sitting down to talk to them for the first time after they’re announced as up for their jobs.
Mullin told NOTUS on Thursday there are “very few” nominees he didn’t know “way before this.”
He said conversations he had on the 2024 campaign trail have been formative for his approach to confirmation season in the Senate.
“President Trump never wanted to put the cart before the horse, so he never talked about cabinet positions at all, but us on the plane did,” Mullin said to NOTUS. “Just a group of us talking just about it. ‘Who do you think would be good at this one?’ It was a constant conversation. And I’m not saying everybody we discussed, obviously, got in, but a lot of them we just — like I said, it’s been an intriguing nomination process my first time to go through it.”
Mullin told NOTUS that the Teamsters union leader, Sean O’Brien, came to him with the idea of nominating Lori Chavez-DeRemer as secretary of labor — a step in reconciling with O’Brien, whom he challenged to a fight at a Senate hearing in 2023. The senator said he and O’Brien separately pitched her to the president, and Trump apparently liked the idea so much he nominated her.
The White House and the Teamsters union did not respond to a request for comment.
Several of Trump’s nominees have faced steep odds, and Mullin has stuck his neck out for them. Mullin advocated for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth when many senators were agonizing over whether his past conduct was disqualifying — or trying to figure out who Hegseth was in the first place. Mullin even pushed back during Hegseth’s hearing, accusing some of his colleagues of voting while drunk and cheating on their partners.
As of now, he’s not showing any signs of stopping until every nominee is through.
“He’s been very active in cabinet nominees, and that’s good,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville told NOTUS. “He’s helped President Trump, as we all have tried to, and he’s done a good job as well as everybody else in our conference.”
This article first appeared on Oklahoma Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
