Texas GOP leaders submit $2.8 billion tab to feds for border security
State Rep. Dennis Bonnen on Wednesday led a group of Texas Republican lawmakers in unveiling a $2.8 billion “invoice” they are submitting to the federal government to reimburse the state for costs related to illegal immigration.
“I would like nothing more than to put dollars currently devoted to border security and criminal alien incarceration toward our state’s top priorities of public safety and education of our children,” said Bonnen, an Angleton Republican who authored the centerpiece of an $800 million border security package the Legislature approved in 2015. “This would be possible if the Obama administration rightfully reimburses Texas and if the Trump administration follows on their promises to secure the border.”
Bonnen said that if Obama does not pay, the lawmakers will be asking the federal government for the reimbursement after Trump takes office next week.
In 2014, after a surge of immigrant families and unaccompanied children from Central America began arriving in the Rio Grande Valley, he and other Texas Republicans asked the federal government for $669 million in reimbursement for costs incurred since January 2013. Federal officials did not pay.
Read more: http://www.mystatesman.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/texas-gop-leaders-submit-billion-tab-feds-for-border-security/7gPzfU4yvyW8azuCobZbWO/
