$12 billion added to congressional spending bill to reimburse states like Texas for border spending

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Billion of dollars of funding to reimburse Texas and other states for border security spending has been added to the Republican spending megabill.

House members on Wednesday set aside $12 billion to reimburse states for efforts to enforce immigration laws since the day of former President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021.

Texas has spent an estimated $11.1 billion on Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star program, which used state funds to militarize the southern border. The Texas governor had criticized the Biden administration for not enforcing immigration laws and issued a disaster declaration at the border in 2021.

Abbott and Texas Republicans in Congress have been ramping up requests for reimbursement of the state in recent months. The governor discussed his request with President Donald Trump in February.

If passed by the House and Senate, the bill would require the Homeland Security Secretary to develop a grant application process for the states to get reimbursed. Texas has the largest claim of any state to such reimbursements.

The megabill includes reforms to Medicaid, cuts to SNAP benefits, extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and other key Republican policy efforts. The House is expected to vote on the bill within the next day, according to Republican leadership.

The border funding addition in the budget reconciliation bill was a last minute addition to the package. Multiple Texas Republicans — including Reps. Chip Roy of Austin and Keith Self McKinney— have been critical of the megabill and have not formally announced that they will vote to support the legislation.

Roy and Self have said that they want to see more spending cuts and changes in the bill before they are willing to pass. It is unclear so far if the 42 pages worth of changes to the bill released late Wednesday will be enough to push the members, and other holdouts, to support the bill.

Members who spoke to the Tribune, including Roy, about their push for reimbursement said they didn’t think refunding Texas goes against their party’s push for lower government spending.

“We already spent it when it was the federal government's job,” Roy said in an interview with The Texas Tribune in late April. “We should get paid back.”

Sen. John Cornyn told The Texas Tribune earlier this month that he was not willing to vote for a budget reconciliation bill without Operation Lone Star reimbursement. The senator said anything less than full compensation, in his opinion $11.1 billion, was unacceptable.

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