Texas Senate passes bill to add more than $1.5 billion for border-wall construction – Houston Public Media

The Texas Senate on Tuesday handed regulation that price range more than $1.5 billion for construction of state-built border partitions and different obstacles at the southern border. The Senate bill would additionally supply an extra $40 million to the Texas Department of Public Safety and, if handed, would add to the $5.1 billion in border-security investment that lawmakers appropriated previous this 12 months.

Gov. Greg Abbott ordered lawmakers to cope with further investment and different border and immigration regulation throughout the present particular consultation of the Texas Legislature, the 3rd this 12 months.

Debate got here an afternoon after the Senate Finance Committee heard from the Texas Facilities Commission, the state company overseeing construction of the border wall, that the state is spending between $25 million and $30 million for each mile of the wall. To date, the state has handiest constructed about 12 miles of wall after Abbott initiated the state venture more than two years in the past.

Republicans have been unfazed on the prices, on the other hand, and cited the report stage of unauthorized crossings into Texas below the Biden management as justification for the spending.

State Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, authored the bill and mentioned the allocation was once vital regardless of the border investment that has already been put aside within the two-year price range. She mentioned the $5.1 billion got here after price range workshops that started a couple of 12 months in the past. Since that point, she added, the Texas Facilities Commission has sped up its land acquisition vital to proceed construction.

“They’ve done a lot better in acquiring these landowner agreements, the dam sort of broke, and they had an opportunity to speed up the process,” she mentioned. Huffman conceded {that a} wall is not failsafe, however that one thing wishes to be performed to cope with the “crisis” on the border.

“Is this a perfect solution? No, it’s just a tool. The experts tell us that walls work. Again, they’re not perfect [but] they act as a deterrent,” she mentioned.

After the vote, Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick admonished the Biden management whilst taking credit for the state’s effort to assemble its personal barrier.

“In January of 2019, I was the first person to suggest that Texas should build the wall to secure our southern border, and now, the Texas Senate has passed SB 6, which appropriates $1.54 billion to continue building the border wall in addition to the over $5 billion appropriated in our budget to continue funding Operation Lone Star,” he mentioned.

Opponents of state-based border enforcement level to the truth that Texas has spent billions of greenbacks in taxpayer cash on such efforts, however the selection of crossings continues to swell. And asylum seekers may also be in the back of the wall however north of the Rio Grande and nonetheless be in a position to search asylum, as lots of the unauthorized immigrants crossing the border have performed.

“Most of us who live on the border do not want militarization and from experience, we scoff at physical walls,” state Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, mentioned throughout last remarks. “For we know too well that for every wall, there is a taller ladder, an underground tunnel, and a wrecking ball.”

The bill now heads to the Texas House, which has already handed its personal border safety investment bill. House Bill 6 allots about the same quantity and has been referred to a Senate committee for additional attention. Either model may just head to Abbott’s table for his signature. The present particular consultation ends subsequent week.

Colony Ridge … Again.

Earlier Tuesday, a panel of lawmakers heard testimony a couple of building in southeast Texas referred to as Colony Ridge. It marked the second one time in two weeks the developer of the group advised lawmakers it wasn’t the haven for gangs and undocumented immigrants that some far-right media and representatives alleged it was once. And for the second one time in two weeks, his claims have been subsidized up by means of native and state regulation enforcement.

The Texas Senate Committee on Local Government convened to pay attention invited testimony concerning the building in Liberty County that lawmakers set of their points of interest after an article printed in May from by means of the Center for Immigration Studies, a far-right group that advocates for restricted immigration.

The tale led Patrick to take an aerial excursion of the improvement and unlock a statement that mentioned, partially: “Some reports claim Colony Ridge may have become a magnet for people from around the world who are not U.S. citizens. With the Biden administration allowing millions of people to cross the Texas border, many ask if this community is going to become its own enclave with a population bigger than a mid-size city inside the state of Texas.”

Gov. Abbott additionally tasked lawmakers with investigating the group throughout the present particular consultation of the Legislature, although regulation affecting the group has no longer been filed.

John Harris, the CEO of the Colony Ridge, advised state senators that the eye Colony Ridge has garnered prior to now months got here as a wonder.

“We’ve heard a lot of outlandish stories and as I think a lot of people are coming to realize, most of them weren’t true,” he mentioned.

Harris mentioned the improvement was once created after he and his companions noticed a industry alternative to purchase and expand land and promote it. In the method, he added, he was once in a position to be offering housing alternatives to individuals who were handed over.

“We did really well with it because there are a lot of people that have kind of been cut out of the opportunities that most of us have in this country,” he mentioned. “And we were shocked at how fast this happened.”

Like he did throughout a House committee listening to on Oct. 19, Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw advised lawmakers that the realm hasn’t observed more crime than different neighborhoods of similar measurement, together with particular parts of Travis County that come with Austin.

“We’ve been in operations in Austin, working with our partners in APD, so we can compare apples and apples,” he mentioned. “And of course, there is a dramatic difference: the crime was substantially lower in the Colony Ridge area.”

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, mentioned the problem was once initiated by means of the state’s GOP management in keeping with social media posts by means of far-right teams and lawmakers.

“Let’s be clear here – there’s nothing out of the ordinary about Colony Ridge. It is a community with lower crime rates than surrounding areas that is being dog-piled on by the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General’s Office because of a MAGA conspiracy theory,” he mentioned. “Republicans would rather take up a witch-hunt against this community than make Texans’ lives better in all these special sessions.”

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