Stephanie Talton is the Deputy Assistant Commissioner (DAC) for the Office of Congressional Affairs (OCA) at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and has been the acting Assistant Commissioner since November 2019. In this role, Ms. Talton is responsible for leading OCA, which is the main conduit between Congress and CBP. OCA liaises with Congress, to include the Committees with jurisdictional and appropriations oversight of CBP, addressing the needs of the Hill to perform these functions, while advocating for legislation and preparing CBP executives for engagements with the Hill.
Prior to her position as DAC of OCA, Ms. Talton spent three years as the Chief of Staff for the Office of Trade, managing the day-to-day operations of the Office of the Executive Assistant Commissioner, including overseeing communications, executive secretariat, and congressional functions. Ms. Talton started her CBP career in September 2005, as a Congressional liaison, working on a number of issues including appropriations, border security, travel facilitation and cargo security. Ms. Talton spent five years in OCA as the branch chief for the Field Operations and Intelligence branch, overseeing Congressional strategy and outreach on all issues related to passenger processing and admissibility, cargo security, interdiction efforts at the ports, facilities, targeting and intelligence.
Ms. Talton has a BA in political science from the Johns Hopkins University and an MA in governmental administration from the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Arlington, Virginia, with her husband and two sons.
