Rep. Roger Williams introduces bill to reimburse Texas for Operation Lone Star

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Rep. Roger Williams, R-Willow Park, introduced a bill Tuesday that would require the federal government to reimburse Texas for the state’s border security operation during the Biden administration.

“It is time Texans are repaid for footing the bill for Biden’s failures at the border,” Williams said in a news release.

The bill comes less than three weeks after Gov. Greg Abbott began pushing for more than $11 billion in reimbursement for the state. Abbott met with President Donald Trump last week and is expected to return to Washington this week to advocate with members of Congress for the reimbursement.

Williams' bill would require Abbott to submit a report detailing expenses related to border security from 2021 to 2025. The Secretary of Homeland Security would then determine which expenses are eligible and submit a report to Congress before the Treasury Department reimburses the state.

The state spent $11.1 billion on border security during the Biden administration, according to Williams' bill and a funding breakdown from Abbott’s office. The result of the state’s efforts – known as Operation Lone Star – include 50 miles of border wall, more than 47,000 criminal arrests, and apprehensions of over half a million undocumented immigrants.

Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, which began in March 2021, used state funds to militarize the southern border, construct border barriers and take other actions to reduce illegal crossings. The governor issued a disaster declaration in border counties where he criticized the Biden administration’s border policies, writing in the declaration that the administration was causing a “humanitarian crisis” in Texas border communities.

“The burden that our State has borne is a direct result of a refusal by the federal government to

do its job,” Abbott wrote in a Jan. 23 letter to congressional leaders. “The work that Texas has done through Operation Lone Star has protected and will continue to benefit the entire country.”

Seven Texas Republicans in the House of Representatives co-sponsored Wiliams’ bill. Sen. John Cornyn has spoken out in support of Abbot’s push for reimbursement, calling the proposed move “fair and right and just.”

“While every state became a border state during the last administration, there are costs that Texas had to shoulder that our neighbors have not,” Cornyn said on the Senate floor Tuesday.

In February 2024, Williams introduced a similar bill to reimburse Texas for border security operations that garnered only two co-sponsors. That bill requested a reimbursement of less than $4 billion of funds used from 2020 through 2023 and an additional $4.6 billion in expected costs through 2025.