Houston Chronicle by Jeremy Blackman and Benjamin Wermund 6/11/2021
A bill to revive former President Donald Trump’s flagging effort was quashed in the House, never discussed in the Senate and left out of Gov. Greg Abbott’s policy priorities for the legislative session.
“With well over 100,000 illegal immigrants crossing the open Texas border last month, I don’t understand how this isn’t a top priority,” Rep. Bryan Slaton, a freshman Republican from Royse City, lamented to a conservative news outlet in April, saying House leaders had refused to give his border wall bill a hearing.
Now the proposal is front and center for the party, with Abbott vowing on Thursday to pick up where Trump left off, even if the logistics remain elusive. The governor said he would provide a full plan next week.
Abbott said in a radio interview Friday he envisions at least some of the money would be crowdsourced, a strategy used during the Trump years that became mired in allegations of fraud.
The Legislature has already approved a record $1.1 billion in funding for border security over the next two fiscal years to cover the costs of state trooper patrols.
The only available state dollars are about $11 billion in the rainy day fund, or nearly $16 billion in federal stimulus that is set to be allocated this fall in a special legislative session. The federal funds, however, have a number of strings attached to them and it’s unclear whether the House and Senate would agree to use those dollars for the wall.
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