Abbott celebrates historic federal reimbursement for OLS border security efforts
Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday celebrated Texas receiving the first reimbursement from the federal government for money Texas taxpayers spent on border security efforts through Operation Lone Star.
Joining Abbott in Austin were members of an Operation Lone Star Task Force and Texas’ first Border Czar Mike Banks. Banks helped reduce illegal crossings in Texas before he was tapped by President Donald Trump’s as his second administration’s first Border Patrol chief. He retired after also helping bring down illegal border crossings to historic lows, The Center Square reported.
Abbott launched OLS in March 2021 as the border crisis unfolded under the Biden administration. It’s now in its fifth year, with OLS efforts focusing on terrorist threats.
OLS officers worked day and night for four years to ensure “that Texas would be made safe and secure from Joe Biden’s open border policies,” Abbott said at a press conference in Austin. “People cannot forget the reckless endangerment posed not just to Texas but to the United States of America by Joe Biden’s open border policies” that allowed thousands of people to illegally enter the country a day who were “unvetted, not knowing how many of them would turn into murderers, rapists and other criminals,” he said.
He also said OLS officers helped “do everything we could in an unprecedented fashion” that no state had done before. This included deploying thousands of National Guard troops, working with multiple states, constructing Texas’ own border wall, building concertina wire and marine barriers, expanding technological capabilities to stop illegal crossings and drug interdiction. It also included creating new brush teams, canine and equestrian units and a range of interdiction efforts through targeted traffic enforcement, The Center Square reported.
From March 2021 through February 2026, OLS officers apprehended 538,141 illegal foreign nationals, including those referred to Border Patrol. They also deterred 157,112 illegal entries, according to OLS data obtained by The Center Square.
Abbott thanked Republican members of Texas’ congressional delegation for spearheading the effort to reimburse Texas. He said law enforcement, and the legislature supporting them, did what they did as Texas “incurred the cost that we had to incur to save the United States of America.”
Texas has received $7.5 billion from the Department of Homeland Security and is applying for additional money through a grant offered through the Department of Justice.
“This is a great first start,” Abbott said, “but we’re not yet finished until Texas gets back every dollar that we can to reimburse all of us for the cost that we incurred.”
Texas Republicans leading the reimbursement effort were U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and U.S. Rep. August Pfluger.
Reimbursement was included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which for the first time in U.S. history reimburses states for border security costs. It includes $11 billion for states through DHS grants and $3.5 billion for states through DOJ grants.
Texas received the lion’s share of the DHS funds, $7.5 billion. How much it gets from DOJ funds remains to be seen.
“Texas taxpayers shouldn’t have had to cover the costs of the Biden administration’s border crisis, and I am proud to have worked alongside Congressman Pfluger and my colleagues in the Texas delegation to ensure that the State would rightfully be repaid,” Cornyn said. “I am glad to see these dollars finally make their way to the Lone Star State, and I urge the Department of Justice to continue its disbursements of the remaining funds to Texas communities, which must be made whole for their role in trying to secure the border.”
The first reimbursement comes 20 months after Abbott asked Congress to reimburse Texas for more than $11.1 billion spent on border security efforts, The Center Square reported.
During the Biden administration, the Texas Legislature allocated more than $11.6 billion to border security efforts, the most in the state’s history. That’s more than multiple state fiscal year budgets and more than what the Trump administration allocated to federal border security efforts in Texas, The Center Square reported.
Last year, Texas Senate and House budget proposals allocated more than $6 billion to border security efforts over a two-year period, The Center Square reported.
Although illegal crossings at the southwest border have dropped by more than 95% under the second Trump administration, crime is ongoing and cartel networks are embedded throughout Texas and nationwide. OLS 2.0 is targeting them and criminal actors designated as foreign terrorist organizations, including Tren de Aragua.
OLS Task Force members argue it’s imperative that the state legislature keep funding border security efforts, including for investigations, prosecutions, transportation and jails for the record number of people arrested through OLS, The Center Square reported.
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