Dems demand US Treasury probe on Texas shifting Covid funds to border security

WASHINGTON — Texas Democrats in Congress have requested the U.S. Treasury to examine whether or not Gov. Greg Abbott has misused up to $1 billion in pandemic aid funds to pay for the state’s controversial border security effort.

“Governor Abbott must not be allowed to use federal coronavirus relief funds to further his political theater at the expense of Texas families,” they wrote Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, noting that “the funding in question was intended to help Texans rebuild from the pandemic.”

A Treasury official mentioned Tuesday the division has acquired and is reviewing the letter from Reps. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio and Veronica Escobar of El Paso and 7 others.

Abbott’s workplace has denied misuse of federal Covid-19 funds, a $15.8 billion windfall from Congress final 12 months meant to assist states deal with the pandemic.

With few strings hooked up, Abbott has been ready to beef up border spending by tapping well being and jail budgets, then backfilling with the federal aid funds.

“Between legislative sessions, in the event of a disaster, there are mechanisms to re-allocate state dollars if necessary to respond to the disaster—and we have had to use $4 billion of state dollars for Operation Lone Star to do the federal government’s job,” mentioned Abbott spokeswoman Renae Eze. “Rather than attacking Texas for responding to their border disaster that they have created and escalated in the last year, President Biden and Democrats in Congress need to stop playing politics and do their jobs to secure our border.”

On April 29 the governor, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Speaker Dade Phelan, Senate Finance Committee Chairwoman Joan Huffman and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Greg Bonnen signed a letter shifting $495 million from six state businesses to pay for ongoing border operations.

All however $30 million pays for 10,000 Texas National Guard and Texas State Guard deployed to as a part of Operation Lone Star, Abbott’s immigration dragnet on the border. Funding would in any other case have run out the following day. The relaxation goes to different state businesses concerned with the border effort.

The letter glosses over the true supply of the funds, saying solely that the switch from the Texas departments of Health and Human Services, Criminal Justice, and Juvenile Justice and different businesses is “fully funded with other sources.”

Politics

Texas border effort will get $495 million increase after GOP leaders faucet federal COVID-19 support, shift funds

Texas is scrambling to provide you with practically a half-billion {dollars} to pay the rising tab for its choice to submit National Guard troopers on the southern border. The price of Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security effort is now on monitor to exceed $5 billion for the present two-year cycle, up from $800 million final cycle. It contains deploying hundreds of state police and Guard troopers, and constructing a Texas-Mexico border barrier.

The governor has used the maneuver earlier than.

In June, he shifted $250 million from the jail finances to proceed constructing the Trump border wall.

The working tally is now roughly $1 billion.

So far the Biden administration hasn’t objected, although Democrats squealed at the usage of Covid-19 funds for a wall that President Joe Biden had halted.

In March 2021 he signed the large American Rescue Plan, a Covid-19 aid bundle that, amongst many different issues, put aside $350 billion in emergency funds for states and native governments.

The solely strings hooked up: prohibitions on utilizing the cash to offset tax cuts or make a pension fund deposit.

“We are now concerned that this relief funding will be misappropriated to support the failed Operation Lone Star program,” says the letter from Castro and Escobar, dated Monday and co-signed by Reps. Colin Allred of Dallas, Marc Veasey of Fort Worth, Lloyd Doggett of Austin, and 4 colleagues from Houston: Sheila Jackson Lee, Al Green, Sylvia Garcia and Lizzie Fletcher.

“As you have stated in your agency’s Final Rule for the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds,” they wrote Yellen, “the funding should be used to replace lost public sector revenue due to the pandemic, respond to the far-reaching public health and negative economic impacts of the pandemic, provide premium pay for essential workers, and invest in water, sewer, and broadband infrastructure. Instead, Governor Abbott is taking this funding away from integral public sector resources and allocating it to Operation Lone Star, which the Texas Legislature has already funded with almost $2 billion toward border security over the next two years.”

In early April, Sarah Hicks, director of coverage and finances in Abbott’s workplace, defined the mechanism to the state Senate Committee on Border Security: The state might cowl an anticipated shortfall of up to $600 million on the border by tapping wage budgets at state well being, regulation enforcement and jail businesses, with the businesses made complete utilizing federal aid funds.

Of the $15.8 billion, $2 billion has gone to the Department of State Health Services, $378 million went to the Health and Human Services Commission, and $360 million went to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

On Friday, Abbott touted 242,000 apprehensions of migrants, greater than 12,000 felony costs and seizures of weapons, cash and unlawful medication.

“If President Biden and Democrats spent half as much energy fighting to secure our nation’s borders as they do fighting leaders like Governor Abbott who are trying to stem the historic flow of illegal immigrants, human trafficking, cartel profiteering, and enough fentanyl to kill every American, we might be able to end the humanitarian crisis of their own making,” mentioned Eze, Abbott’s aide.