Last week Governor Greg Abbot announced his plans for Texas to build its own wall at the Mexico border, and as questions regarding finance capacity started arising, he turned to crowdfunding.
“When I do make the announcement later on this week, I will also be providing a link that you can click on and go to for everybody in the United States — really everybody in the entire world — who wants to help Texas build the border wall, there will be a place on there where they can contribute,” Abbott said during a podcast interview.
Abbott also announced a new approved budget of $1 billion for border security, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick issued a statement supporting Abbot.
“Although we know this is a federal responsibility, I made sure that the new state budget increased our already substantial commitment to border security to $1.2 billion, and as Lt. Governor and co-chair of the Legislative Budget Board, I have told Gov. Abbott he has my 100% support to move forward. I will do whatever it takes to ensure Texas has the funding to continue to build the border wall” read Patrick’s statement.
However, the budget allocation both Abbot and Patrick refer to, actually goes to the Texas Department of Public Safety and was approved for border security, not wall construction.
According to the Texas Tribune, Democratic state Rep. Mary González of El Paso, who sits on the Texas House’s budget writing appropriations committee, said the Legislature did not allocate money in its $250 billion budget for a border wall. She said immigration enforcement is not a state job, but a federal one.
During the interview, Abbot said his crowdfunding scheme will operate with “great transparency” but similar efforts to collectively pay for the wall through donations, have previously proven the exact opposite.
Former adviser to Donald Trump, Steve Bannon along with four other people who were involved in the crowdfunding scam “We Build the Wall” were charged with allegedly defrauding donors, only to be pardoned by Trump before leaving office.
After being arrested and appearing before court pleading not guilty, Bannon exited the courthouse and waved at his supporters “This entire fiasco is to stop people who want to build the wall” Bannon said.
