Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill tripling the state’s border security spending for 2021 and 2022 and bringing it to a record high.
On Friday, Abbott signed House Bill 9, which will spend $1.88 billion on border security over the next two years. This comes on top of another $1.05 billion signed earlier this year — itself over $200 million more than the previous budget — bringing Texas’s total border-security spending to nearly $3 billion.
This represents a significant increase from previous years. In Texas’s 2008-09 budget, only $110 million was allocated to border security, and funding never surpassed $800 million.
Among H.B. 9’s other allocations, it devotes $750 million to construct additional border barrier — in addition to $250 million that Abbott allocated in June and the $54 million that the governor raised through crowdfunding. The bill also allocates over $450 million to increase the deployment numbers of Texas National Guard and other law-enforcement personal at the border. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice will also receive funds to help detain illegal migrants.
Speaking at the bill’s signing ceremony, Governor Abbott stated, “This funding will provide our agency partners with even more support to address the influx of unlawful migrants and prevent dangerous people and contraband from entering our state.”
Abbott went on to note, “It is the federal government’s job to secure our border, but the Biden administration has failed to do its job, so Texas is stepping up to do what the federal government is supposed to do.” He blamed “the Biden administration’s open border policies” for the need for such legislation, as they “opened the floodgates to illegal immigration, to crime, to human trafficking, to drug smuggling.”
Texas Taking on Federal Government’s Role
Since the Biden administration began in January, Texas has been slowly, but steadily, taking over the federal government’s abdicated duty of securing the southern border. According to the left-wing Migration Policy Institute, the state is currently “challenging federal immigration policy on more fronts at one time than ever before.”
Among other recent policy shifts, Abbott authorized Texas National Guard troops to enforce Texas law, something that includes arresting illegal migrants who break state law. Additionally, under a new state law that went into effect on September 1, it is easier for state officials to prosecute human smugglers.
Nonetheless, there is much more that Texas can do to secure the southern border. Abbott would be wise to nullify the various unconstitutional court-imposed restrictions on states’ ability to enforce immigration law. Article VI of the Constitution, which states that only laws “made in pursuance” of the Constitution are valid, provides a solid legal basis for such actions.
Border Surge Continues
Abbott’s signing of H.B. 9 couldn’t come at a more relevant time. The United States is currently grappling with the influx of 15,000 Haitian migrants at Del Rio, Texas, a crisis caused by the Biden administration’s extreme open-borders policies. Not only will the Department of Homeland Security release many of these migrants into the United States, but the federal government’s weak response is likely to encourage another 20,000 Haitians to enter illegally.
Meanwhile, border apprehensions remain at record levels, with over 200,000 migrant apprehensions in August. Many of these migrants are also being released into the country, a practice that Biden revived shortly after taking office.
On the refugee front, the Biden administration has already admitted more than 48,000 Afghans into the United States, with plans to admit tens of thousands more. Many of these migrants are unvetted and pose health and national-security risks. None of this has deterred Biden, who plans to admit 10 times as many refugees in Fiscal Year 2022 as have been admitted this year.
Not only do many of Biden’s actions violate federal law, but Article IV, Section 4, of the Constitution requires the federal government to “protect each [state] against Invasion.” As both The John Birch Society and other organizations have pointed out, the current and planned illegal migration surge clearly meets the definition of an invasion.
It is encouraging to see Texas and other states begin to stand up to the Biden administration’s subversive mass-migration agenda. However, they would be wise to take even stronger actions to secure the border and enforce the Constitution.
To urge your state legislators to enforce the Constitution by nullifying unconstitutional federal laws and edicts, visit The John Birch Society’s legislative alert here. Additionally, to urge your U.S. representative and senators to oppose radical mass migration legislation, visit the JBS’s alert here.
