Money spent on border will go back to Texas
By: Lauren Villagran
USA today
..... Tucked into the budget reconciliation bill is a Texas-sized golden nugget: $13.5 billion that could pay back what the state spent on border security during the Biden administration.
.....
The bill - which passed Congress on July 3 [2025] and was signed into law by President Donald Trump the following day - doesn't mention Texas by name. But Texas Governor Greg Abbot lobbied hard for the line item's inclusion, and Republican Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn fought for the reimbursement.
..... "Under Operation Long Star, Texas allocated more than $11 billion of Texas taxpayer money for border security and earlier this year [2025] I requested Congress reimburse Texas for these costs in full," Abbott said in a may [2025] statement, after an initial version of the bill passed in the House of Representatives.
..... The new "State Border Border Security Reinforcement Fund" earmarks $10 billion for grants states that paid for border barriers or other security measures beginning January 20 2021 - President Joe Biden's inauguration day.
..... Notably, during the Biden administration, no other state spent more than Texas on border security measures.
.....
Under Operation Lone Star, the state deployed thousands of Texas National Guard troops to the border, placed controversial buoy barriers in the Rio Grande and paid to bus more than 100,000 migrants to Democrat-led cities around the country.
..... The reinforcement provisions "just says 'states can apply.' but what state incurred expenses? Texas and Arizona," said Adam Isacson, director of defense oversight for the Washington Office on Latin America.
..... Early during the Biden administration, Arizona Governor Doug Ducay, a Republican, sought to build a makeshift border barriers out of old shipping containers. But legal challenges forced his administration to remove the barrier, and his Democratic successor, Governor Katie Hobbs, had previously asked the Biden administration to reimburse the state for border security funding totaling $513 million.
..... The budget reconciliation bill includes an additional $3.5 billion under a fund whose acronym spells BIDEN: "bridging Immigration-related Deficits Experienced Nationwide." That money can be disbursed to states that aid the federal government in its immigration crackdown.
..... Abbott couldn't immediate be reach for comment July 3. [2025]