$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 have been added to the Republican spending megabill.

The House early Thursday approved the bill, which includes $12 billion to reimburse states for efforts to enforce immigration laws since the day of former President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021. The bill now goes to the Senate.

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.

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 new rules for Medicaid that will reduce spending, cuts to SNAP benefits, extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and other key Republican policy efforts.

The border funding addition in the budget reconciliation bill was a late Wednesday night addition to the package. Some Texas Republicans — including Reps. Chip Roy of Austin and Keith Self of McKinney— had been critical of the megabill saying they wanted more spending cuts and other changes. Throughout a tense week of negotiations they left open the possibility that they would vote no even if that meant that the bill would not pass. In the end, despite all Democrats and two Republicans voting against the legislation, Roy and Self joined the rest of the Republican caucus and voted for 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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