Texas – In recent years, Texas has been working hard to make its southern border more secure, and it’s showing results: fewer immigrants are coming to Texas, while California and Arizona are seeing an increase in migrants. This was possible because Texas got a lot of help from other states led by Republicans, including sending troops. It’s a big challenge and costs a lot of money to keep the border secure. Now, a politician from Texas wants the government to pay back the state for the money spent on this.
U.S. Representative Roger Williams, a Republican who once worked as the Secretary of State of Texas under Governor Rick Perry, has proposed a new bill. He wants the federal government to give Texas the money it spent on border security back.
He called this proposed law the Operation Lone Star Reimbursement Act, named after a border security project started by Governor Greg Abbott called Operation Lone Star.
The law, which is only three pages long, says that the government should pay Texas back for the money the state spent on this project between 2020 and 2023. According to Williams, Texas taxpayers spent over $800 million in 2020 and 2021, and the costs went up to more than $2.9 billion for 2022 and 2023. He also mentioned that Texas has set aside another $4.6 billion for border security for the next two years, from 2024 to 2025.
“Since [President Joe] Biden refuses to do his job and safeguard the American people, Texas has been forced to step up to protect our homes and communities, and we must be reimbursed,” Williams said. “Texas has spent billions to help maintain the safety and security of all citizens across the United States and fight back against deadly human trafficking, sex trafficking, drug and cartel activity, and seemingly endless unlawful entries that are draining Texas’ resources.”
The law points out that the U.S. government should mainly take care of guarding the country’s borders, including the areas between official entry points. However, due to the federal government not taking enough action, Texas has had to spend its own money to keep its southern border secure. Texas did this to protect everyone in the country from dangers like human and sex trafficking, drug spread, illegal weapons and goods movement, criminal groups, and unauthorized entries.
The state of Texas has set aside over $11.6 billion in four years for protecting the border. This money went into things like building the first state-funded border wall and a marine barrier system. The amount Texas is spending on Operation Lone Star (OLS) for border security is huge, even more than some state budgets and what the federal government, during Trump’s time, gave for border safety in Texas.
While the federal government has spent billions to secure borders in other countries and Democratic leaders in states and cities have asked for money to help with the surge of illegal migrants, Texas has been paying for Operation Lone Star all by itself without any payback from the federal government.
State Representative Greg Bonnen, a Republican from Friendswood who leads the Texas House Appropriations Committee and worked on the budget to fully support OLS, mentioned that the federal government’s contribution to Texas for border security in the four years of Trump’s presidency was $1.6 billion.
“For the four years of the Biden presidency, Texas is appropriating $11.6 billion,” he said at a recent border event with Abbott.
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About $3.1 billion is being used to make the border stronger and better, like building more of Texas’ own border wall. Around $200 million is for moving illegal foreigners to places that say they are safe for them, like Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver, and Los Angeles. The rest of the money supports the work of the Texas Military Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety, according to Bonnen.
The bill from Williams is an answer to Governor Abbott’s call for the federal government to pay back the people of Texas. Abbott has often said that Texans shouldn’t have to do what the federal government is supposed to do, but they will keep doing it if the federal government doesn’t step in. Since the start of OLS in March 2021, officers have caught over 500,000 illegal foreigners and made over 39,500 arrests for crimes, with more than 35,600 charges for serious crimes, the governor’s office reports.
Moreover, OLS officers have taken more than 467 million deadly doses of fentanyl, which is enough to kill everyone in the United States and Canada.
Abbott believes that all the people caught or arrested and every bit of drugs found would have ended up in communities across Texas and the whole country if it weren’t for President Biden’s policies on borders.
Texas has also moved over 100,000 illegal foreigners who were let go in Texas by the Biden administration to six cities that call themselves sanctuaries since April 2022.
The governor points out that all these moves are voluntary. The illegal foreigners get to pick which city they want to go to. The most popular choice is New York City, followed by Chicago, Denver, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. So far, Texas has sent over 37,900 illegal foreigners to New York City, more than 31,500 to Chicago, more than 16,300 to Denver, more than 12,500 to Washington, D.C., more than 3,400 to Philadelphia, and more than 1,500 to Los Angeles.
