Texas could sell 100 miles of border to feds, Abbott says

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_{Editor's note: This story has been updated with information from Gov. Greg Abbott’s office clarifying a comment he made about how DPS will assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.}

WASHINGTON — More than 100 miles of Texas’ borderlands could be leased or sold to the federal government as part of the state’s partnership with President Donald Trump to harden the border, Gov. Greg Abbott said in an interview with The Texas Tribune on Thursday.

Abbott is in Washington this week to lobby Congress for $11 billion to compensate Texas for money spent on his Operation Lone Star initiative, which he said was needed to fill gaps in the Biden administration’s immigration enforcement. The three-term Texas governor said he was ready to hand over to the federal government more than 50 miles of constructed border wall, nearly 20 miles of planned border walls, 100 miles of easements to build more walls, over 2,000 military beds for National Guardsmen and 4,000 jail cells to detain migrants.

The exchange of real estate and working border infrastructure built under Operation Lone Star differentiates this request from past appeals Texas has made to the federal government for border enforcement, Abbott said.

“This is not really a reimbursement,” said Abbott during a 10-minute interview at his Washington hotel. “This is a payment for real estate assets and improvements provided by the state of Texas as payment for services rendered by the state of Texas that benefits everybody in the United States of America.”

Texas contains more of the southern border than any other state, stretching over 1,200 miles. Texas officials have long boasted having very little federally controlled land relative to its size.

Abbott met with Texas Republicans and House Speaker Mike Johnson this week to make his case, as well as White House officials. Abbott also met with Trump last week.

It remains to be seen if Congress will allocate the funds or if Trump will support the move. Slashing federal spending is among Republicans’ highest priorities this year. Abbott didn’t say if his meetings with Johnson or Trump yielded support, but he described them as “very appreciative of everything that Texas did, and they thank us for Texas holding the line during the four years of open border policies under [President] Joe Biden.”

Texas Republicans expressed unity and optimism about getting the reimbursement passed. Sen. John Cornyn has been one of the leading voices in the effort in Congress and said the Texas delegation can use its large numbers to push the priority to the forefront of Congress’ attention. Texas sends more Republicans than any other state.

Cornyn added Abbott’s request is “a unique situation” because the money is for “expenses that were incurred by the state that should not have been incurred by the state, but for the failure of the federal government.”

House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington, R-Lubbock, presented a draft budget resolution Wednesday, which would include $300 billion for border security and defense spending. Arrington supports the payment to Texas, calling it “the right and responsible thing” to do. But he acknowledged he would need to make sure whatever mechanism to send out the money is fiscally responsible. That would mean collaborating with members outside of the Texas delegation.

U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, one of the most hawkish conservatives on reining in spending, was supportive of the reimbursement, saying Texas invested in infrastructure the federal government should have built.

“$11 billion came out of the pockets of Texans. That's money that could be used for roads, for schools, for DPS, who should have been in Austin and Dallas and Dallas and San Antonio and Houston and not down on the border,” Roy said. “They were doing the job the federal government was supposed to do.”

U.S. Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock, serves on the House Appropriations Committee and said he was confident all Republicans on the committee would support the effort. He said it would be an easier sell because the infrastructure is already in place.

Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in 2021, saying it was in response to Biden abdicating his responsibility to secure the border by rescinding several border-related executive orders from the Trump administration. Under the initiative, Abbott installed new border barriers and sent the state’s National Guard to the border, as well as bused over 100,000 migrants to cities around the country.

Trump has vowed to take a far more hardline approach to border enforcement, including through declaring a national emergency at the border, initiating mass deportations and using military personnel to support border agents. Nearly 1,500 National Guardsmen from around the country have been deployed to the border, joining 5,000 Texas Air and Army National Guard members who are already there.

When asked if the new tack of the administration would portend the sunset of Operation Lone Star, Abbott said it would lead “at least to a recalibration of it.”

“Under Biden, there was zero resistance about people coming across the border. Now under Trump, there is maximum resistance coming across the border,” Abbott said. “National Guard can work in tandem with Border Patrol, with ICE to make sure we are able to maintain that resistance.”

Abbott signed an agreement with the Trump administration earlier this month authorizing Texas National Guard soldiers to make immigration arrests as long as they work in tandem with federal agents. Abbott clarified Thursday that the agreement means they have the same authority as any ICE or Border Patrol agents, including “apprehending, arresting, jailing, and going through the deportation process.” He added Department of Public Safety officers were also working with ICE, embedding with ICE agents in their operations in Texas.

“Whatever action that ICE would be going through for the deportation process, the National Guard members who are doing that have those capabilities,” Abbott said. "We have many Texas Department of Public Safety officers and Texas Rangers doing the same thing."

His office later clarified that DPS agents were not directly arresting migrants but were partaking in ICE operations by creating security perimeters, investigating and using drones to locate migrants that ICE is targeting.

Abbott said he would support whatever further actions Trump would take to enforce the border. He didn’t voice opposition when asked about the prospect of Trump invoking the Insurrection Act, which would open the way for the president to deploy active duty military on the border.

“The president needs to do what he needs to do,” Abbott said, adding that Trump and Congress are currently focused on funding for additional personnel. “But the President, obviously, he was elected, primarily to secure the border, and he needs to take whatever actions are needed to make sure he's able to accomplish that goal.”

Abbott aligned himself with former ICE Director Tom Homan, whom Trump appointed to be his “border czar,” particularly on which migrants enforcement efforts should prioritize: those “who pose a public safety threat, those who pose a national security threat.”

But many migrants without criminal records have reportedly been deported. The White House has recently said that all migrants who crossed into the country illegally should be treated as criminals and deported. Abbott said he agrees with Homan, who said migrants without criminal records could be arrested when searching for migrants who do.

Democrats have been fiercely critical of Operation Lone Star. U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, called Abbott’s request a “reimbursement for a complete and utter failure.” Gonzalez said Operation Lone Star has been ineffective in curbing migrants and that the governor was engaging “political grandstanding” at the expense of tax dollars that could go to veterans or public schools.

“Nothing to be proud of, Mr. Abbott,” Gonzalez said.

Abbott did not meet with Democrats in the Texas delegation during his visit to Washington. U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, said she was skeptical Texas would get the repayment.

“I would never pay a bill without auditing it,” Garcia said. “I doubt that the President will do anything about it, because, as we've said before, it takes $88 billion to deport 1 million people. He's looking for money. The last thing he wants to do is send Texas $11 billion for something we didn't ask him to do.”

Abbott shot back at the criticism during his interview, saying border crossings dropped sharply due to his efforts under Operation Lone Star. He cited the sharpest decline in the number of border encounters happening in Dec. 2023, refuting Democrats’ assertion that Biden was responsible for a steep drop off in crossings after issuing a border hardening executive order last June.

“What the Democrats are saying is completely untrue. They have to fabricate this to try to protect Joe Biden,” Abbott said. “It didn't begin to decline when Joe Biden took this action in June, it began to decline the year before that, and it began to decline because of the success that Texas was having on the border.”

The sharpest decline in border crossings was from December of 2023 to January of 2024, from over 300,000 encounters to about 176,000. Crossings continued to decline into June 2024, hovering around 100,000 encounters a month after then, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Abbott acknowledged the details of how the state would receive the requested $11 billion are still under discussion, whether it be through a lease agreement or a single deposit.

“But once we get all the other big pictures items done, that's going to be a piece of cake,” he said.