Abbott Asks Congress for $11 Billion for Border Spending

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is asking Congress to reimburse Texas for $11.1 billion it spent on border security operations and wall construction during former President Joe Biden’s term.

In a letter distributed to U.S. congressional leaders and the Texas congressional delegation on Thursday, Abbott argued that Texas was forced to launch Operation Lone Star, a joint program between the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Military Department, to make up for the federal government’s inaction on the issue.

Abbott provided an itemized list of Texas’s border security costs with the letter. About 75% of the spending was in just two categories.

Texas spent $4.7 billion on “border wall and other border barrier funding, local border security grants to counties and cities, processing criminal trespass arrests, and the relocation of migrants out of small Texas towns,” according to the letter. Border wall construction made up the bulk of that spending, at about $2.9 billion.

It also includes spending on 2,681 bus trips and flights to send 121,507 migrants out of Texas, something the state was “compelled” to do in order to “alleviate the dangerous over-crowding in small towns due to the Biden Administration releasing illegal immigrants,” per the letter.

The other largest category was personnel costs, “for the deployment of National Guard soldiers to build border barriers, guard the border and construct barriers, and apprehend migrants who entered illegally,” per the letter. That carried a price tag of $3.6 billion over the past four years.

Prior to Biden’s presidency, Abbott estimated that Texas spent about $400 million per year to supplement federal border enforcement efforts. He touted Operation Lone Star as the cause of a sharp decrease in illegal immigration in Texas, but other border states with Democratic governors saw similar decreases.

In 2022, Texas Republicans in Congress tried to get reimbursed for Operation Lone Star, but Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate and killed it, the Dallas Morning News reported. Now, Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the presidency.

President Donald Trump may be more receptive to reimbursement. He signed a slew of executive orders aimed at curbing unlawful migration into the U.S. and expanding military and law enforcement presence at the U.S.-Mexico border. He also openly praised Abbott for several minutes during his inauguration on Monday.  At least one state lawmaker is supplementing Abbott’s campaign in the Texas House. State Rep. Cole Hefner, R-Mount Pleasant, on Thursday filed a concurrent resolution that “demands” that Congress reimburse Texas for those costs.