The $7.5 Billion Lesson Texas Cannot Forget

Last week, the Department of Homeland Security approved a $7.5 billion reimbursement to Texas for costs incurred securing the southern border during the Biden border crisis.

House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (TX-19), who worked to secure the reimbursement after Texas spent more than $11 billion on its border security mission, called it a victory for Texans “who were double taxed to foot the bill for Biden’s dereliction of duty.”

President Trump, Gov. Greg Abbott, congressional leaders, and the Department of Homeland Security deserve credit for making this reimbursement possible.

Yet this moment matters beyond who ultimately pays the bill.

The last several years taught Texas an important lesson: protecting the Lone Star State is our responsibility, and we can’t assume Washington will always do its part.

The federal government has constitutional responsibilities at our international borders. When federal policies under the Biden administration left Texas vulnerable to a historic crisis, Gov. Abbott responded by launching Operation Lone Star, committing state personnel, infrastructure, and billions of taxpayer dollars to border security.

Protecting the people is one of the government's most fundamental responsibilities. Texas was right to develop the capabilities necessary to protect its territory and its people, and the state should not relinquish those capabilities simply because it now has a willing partner in Washington.

That is the real opportunity presented by this reimbursement.

Some have already raised the possibility of using the state's strengthened fiscal position to provide additional property tax relief, and there will undoubtedly be other proposals for how best to use these funds. Those decisions ultimately belong to the Texas Legislature.

The goal is to ensure that when Texas spends taxpayer dollars on homeland defense, it builds something durable.

Operation Lone Star began as a response to an immediate border crisis. Five years later, Texas has built personnel, infrastructure, intelligence capabilities, interagency relationships, and operational experience that did not exist at the same scale before it.

We should not let that disappear.

That does not mean Texas needs a blank check. We believe in limited government, but limited government still must do its job. And there are few jobs more basic than protecting the people. We can build the homeland defense Texas needs while still demanding that every dollar be spent wisely and that taxpayers get something lasting in return.

That means moving from emergency response toward a durable homeland defense framework.

Texas should know, before the next crisis arrives, who is responsible for coordinating a statewide response. State agencies and local law enforcement should have established channels for sharing intelligence.

Our fusion centers should be able to connect border threats to criminal activity occurring hundreds of miles inside Texas. Sheriffs and other local partners should understand where they fit within the larger homeland security mission. The state should maintain the technology, infrastructure, and operational capabilities necessary to identify threats before they reach Texas.

Our definition of homeland defense must extend beyond illegal immigration.

The same border exploited to smuggle people can be used to move drugs, weapons, illicit money, and contraband. Transnational criminal organizations can threaten Texas agriculture, critical infrastructure, and commerce.

Hostile actors can exploit vulnerabilities that have little to do with an individual illegally crossing the Rio Grande.

A serious homeland defense framework must therefore be capable of seeing the entire threat environment rather than responding to each problem in isolation.

Texas should hope that every administration in Washington takes its responsibility to secure the nation's borders and protect the American people seriously.

But hope is not a homeland defense strategy.

Presidents change; administrations change; federal priorities change; the threats facing Texas do not change with them.

This $7.5 billion should be spent responsibly, and lawmakers will face legitimate competing priorities. As Texas determines what comes next, homeland defense deserves to be part of that discussion, not because the state should recreate the emergency spending of the last several years, but because some of what Texas built should outlast the emergency that required it.

Fiscal responsibility and homeland security are not competing principles.

Texas learned an expensive lesson. We should not pay to learn it twice.

Texas should welcome a federal government willing to stand beside us. We should never build a homeland defense strategy that depends upon one.

Selene Rodriguez is a campaign director for the Secure and Sovereign Nation campaign at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

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