Texas likely to ease border security spending under Trump, Gov. Greg Abbott says

TYLER – Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday that President-elect Donald Trump’s victory will likely change the state’s approach to border security, including a reduction in his multibillion-dollar Operation Lone Star.

“President Trump will provide a more secure border than any president in the history of the United States of America,” Abbott said during a news conference.

That will give Texas the opportunity to consider other purposes for the money, he said, adding, “It could be for education, it could be for property tax cuts and sending it back to the people in the state of Texas.”

Abbott also supported much of Trump’s plan to ramp up deportations of migrants in the country without authorization. But he stopped short of embracing Trump’s call for the largest mass deportation in American history, choosing instead to stress the need to deport criminals in the country illegally.

He said Trump would “first find all the criminals who are here” and “who cross the border illegally and committed a crime in the United States.” Trump also would single out those with a “criminal background before they came into the United States,” he said.

“The last thing they should be doing is roaming the streets, like what Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have allowed them to do,” Abbott said. “If you are a danger to people in Tyler, or people in Dallas or wherever you may be in our country, you should be off the streets, behind bars and sent back to the country from which you came.”

Abbott didn’t provide a clear answer on whether he supported Trump’s promise to find and deport immigrants who are in the country without authorization but are otherwise obeying the law.

“President Trump has made perfectly clear that this is a process, and you have to have a priority list,” Abbott said. “His priority list is that you begin with the criminals. He said after he gets done with that, he’ll look elsewhere.”

Some estimates say there are nearly 2 million unauthorized immigrants in Texas, and more than 11 million nationwide.

Immigrant advocates fear large-scale deportations would cause devastating disruptions, such as separating families and returning migrants to their original country after long absences.

Amerika Garcia Grewal, an Eagle Pass resident who runs a border vigil to honor those who died trying to cross the Rio Grande, said she also fears the economic impact on migrant communities “and the U.S. citizens and the U.S. residents who are connected to them.”

“So much of our economy depends … on immigrant labor – agriculture, construction, health care,” she said. “Costs will go up for everyone, and we’ll have a huge shortage of service providers.”

Abbott has been an outspoken critic of the border security and immigration policies of President Biden, prompting Texas to develop its own initiatives, including building portions of a border wall.

Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in March 2021, saying a lax federal response to illegal immigration required Texas to deploy National Guard soldiers and state troopers to the border with Mexico.

The operation focused on arresting undocumented immigrants on state charges such as trespassing and on making border crossings more difficult by installing razor wire and other physical barriers along the Rio Grande.

Abbott shifted almost $1 billion from several state agencies to fund the operation in its first year. Later allocations from the Legislature pushed funding for the initiative to $11 billion — and Abbott recently asked lawmakers for another $2.9 billion to run the program through 2027.

Abbott said he’s confident Trump will effectively handle border issues.

“I’ve had private talks with the president, and he’s going to be stronger and better at securing the border than he was in his first term, which was very strong and effective,” Abbott said.

Even though he’s optimistic about Trump policies, Abbott would not commit to rolling back Operation Lone Star until he saw results.

“We’re going to be waiting to see,” Abbott said. “It’s going to be a process for President Trump to be able to get his border and immigration reforms in place. We have to be a stopgap effort, as it takes him time to get that in place.”