Texas will receive $7.5 billion from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to reimburse the state for money it spent securing the Texas-Mexico border, Governor Greg Abbott announced this month.
Abbott said he learned of the funding in a conversation with DHS Secretary Mullin. “I spoke with Secretary Mullin yesterday, who confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security will be sending Texas $7.5 billion as part of the federal funding to reimburse Texas,” Abbott said. “Texas held the line when Washington would not. Texas taxpayers spent billions to stop illegal crossings, catch criminals, and seize deadly drugs.”
The state spent heavily on Operation Lone Star, which deployed thousands of Texas Department of Public Safety troopers along with Texas National Guard soldiers and airmen to patrol the border during what the governor’s office describes as the Biden Border Crisis. During that period, roughly two-thirds of illegal border crossings nationwide occurred along the Texas-Mexico border.
“This reimbursement is a victory for those taxpayers,” Abbott said. “I thank President Trump and Secretary Mullin for this action.”
Comptroller Calls It a Step Toward ‘Making Texas Whole’
Texas Comptroller Don Huffines said the payment marks a significant step toward compensating the state for years of unreimbursed spending on border enforcement.
“Texas taxpayers were forced to pay the bill because the Biden administration, in cahoots with a cartel-controlled Mexican government, refused to enforce the law and opened our border.”
Huffines said the reimbursement, paired with continued growth in state sales tax revenue, could give lawmakers more room to act on property tax relief. “This money is coming back where it belongs,” he said. “Combined with continued growth in sales tax revenue, it puts the Legislature in a far stronger position to deliver meaningful property tax relief next session.”
Funding Traces to Trump-Era Legislation
The money comes from DHS’s State Border Security Reimbursement Fund, a program created in 2025 and funded through President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.
Under the legislation, eligible states and local governments can seek federal grants to cover costs tied to constructing border barriers, fencing or buoys along the southern border, as well as expenses from interdicting illegal drugs and apprehending people who entered the country unlawfully and committed crimes, including the cost of transferring or referring those individuals to DHS.
Texas’s border security buildup has roots going back more than a decade, to when then-Governor Rick Perry ordered a surge of National Guard troops and DPS troopers to the border during the Obama administration.
Abbott said he is now pursuing an additional $3 billion in reimbursement from the U.S. Department of Justice for state spending on border security.
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