High spending at Texas border
Migrant encounters at the Texas border are at historic lows not seen since the 1960s, but the state still plans to give its its Operation Lone Star $1.7 billion per year in 2026 and 2027 for border security — far more money than when border crossings were higher.
Meanwhile, Texas has stopped building its partially completed border wall after sinking $3 billion into the project.
From 2018 to 2021, Texas spent roughly $400 million every year on border security. There were approximately 40,000 migrant encounters at the Texas border per month at the end of 2020, the end of President Donald Trump’s first term.
During the Biden administration, migrant encounters at the Texas border spiked to nearly 150,000 per month, according to the Texas Tribune.
Operation Lone Star cost over $11 billion from 2021 to 2025, an average of $2.8 billion per year. Gov. Greg Abbott blamed Biden’s immigration policies for the expense, writing in a letter that “The burden that our State has borne is a direct result of a refusal by the federal government to do its job.”
However, Biden is no longer in office. Under the Trump administration, there were just 8,400 encounters along the entire U.S.-Mexico border this April, a “near-historic low” according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Yet Texas continues to spend billions on Operation Lone Star. The state’s planned spending of $1.7 billion per year for border security is more than quadruple the amount the state was spending in 2020, when border crossings were higher than they are now. Abbott wanted to spend $3.3 billion per year, but the Legislature cut his request in half.
There is no conclusive evidence showing that Texas’ spending is contributing to a lower number of border crossings. Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a professor at George Mason University who has researched the border and U.S.-Mexico relations, told the Texas Tribune it’s “impossible” to know if Operation Lone Star is the reason illegal immigration is down. There are so many variables, like Mexico’s own immigration enforcement or economic conditions in other countries like Honduras.
In fact, a 2023 Wall Street Journal investigation found illegal border crossings were rising fastest in the counties targeted by Operation Lone Star.
The new state budget contains no funding to finish building Texas’ border wall, which has already cost taxpayers $3 billion. The wall is only 8% complete and “is full of gaps that migrants and smugglers can easily walk around,” according to the Texas Tribune.
As border crossings continue to decrease, Texas can safely decrease its spending on Operation Lone Star and save taxpayers billions of dollars.
(The #WasteOfTheDay is from forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com via RealClearWire.)
