A Republican spending bill working its way through Congress would include billions of dollars to reimburse states on the U.S.-Mexico border for immigration enforcement expenses. U.S. House lawmakers passed the measure this week; it now advances to the Senate.
It’s long been a priority for Texas Republicans, said Jasper Scherer, politics reporter for the Texas Tribune.
“This is $12 billion that’s set to come back to those border states, the bulk of it being for Texas. And this is kind of a long-sought goal, initially pushed by Gov. (Greg) Abbott,” Scherer said.
U.S. Senator John Cornyn and Rep. Chip Roy, both Republicans, are among Texas lawmakers on the Hill advocating for the funding.
“They’ve kind of been spearheading the effort to include that money in the final spending package, and that ended up happening, which was kind of in flux for a while,” Scherer said. “So it kind of ended some suspense over whether Texas would actually see this money.”
The push stems from Republican criticisms over former President Joe Biden’s handling of border security. Gov. Abbott issued a disaster declaration in 2021 and launched Operation Lone Star to station Texas National Guard troops and Texas Department of Public Safety officers at the southern border.
“It’s specifically Operation Lone Star that Abbott launched back in 2021, citing the need to plug in the gaps that he saw in the Biden administration’s immigration enforcement,” Scherer said. “So that’s kind of the underpinning logic of this, is reimbursing Texas for what Republicans think should have been federal spending in the first place.”
Hear more stories from the week in Texas Politics in the audio player above.
