The government’s most basic duty is to keep its citizens safe. President Joe Biden woefully neglected to fulfill this obligation, allowing our borders to be overrun by millions of unvetted illegal immigrants, criminal aliens and cartels smuggling deadly synthetic opioids.

Far from Washington, border states like Texas were left to suffer the consequences. Texas spent billions of dollars on Operation Lone Star in an attempt to abate this catastrophe. 

We all owe Gov. Greg Abbott a debt of gratitude for doing what the Biden administration wouldn’t, but we also owe Texas a monetary debt. Now the bill is due: it’s time for the federal government to pay Texas taxpayers back.

From the moment he arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, President Biden reversed the previous administration’s successful immigration policies: he ended President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy; directed DHS to halt construction of the border wall, instead using federal funds to store wall materials; and ended Title 42, the COVID-era policy that was our last line of defense against the migrant surge.

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President Biden oversaw a crisis on our southern border that far surpassed illegal migration numbers from prior decades. In Biden’s four years, CBP encountered over 10 million illegal immigrants. More than 1.7 million known gotaways evaded Border Patrol entirely and are freely roaming somewhere in the interior of our country. 

Hundreds of thousands of Americans died from overdose of synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, a drug manufactured with Chinese precursor chemicals and smuggled through our open border by drug cartels. Innocent Americans such as Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray died at the hands of illegal migrant criminals.

Despite the immigration authorities that were already available to President Biden, he threw up his hands, claiming that there was nothing more he could do – all while his Homeland Security secretary reassured the public that the border was “secure.” But facts don’t lie. The whole world knew America’s borders were wide open.

This tragic crisis was felt most acutely in Texas. My state shares the longest border with Mexico, and with the president missing in action in the midst of a disaster, Gov. Abbott had to intervene. 

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Under Operation Lone Star, Texas law enforcement apprehended over half a million illegal immigrants, including more than 50,000 criminal arrests. They built more than 240 miles of border barriers, seized over half a billion deadly doses of fentanyl and reduced illegal immigration into Texas by 87%, according to the governor. However, these efforts cost upwards of $11 billion, a pretty penny for Texans to pay for the basic safety and security that the federal government owes its people.

If there is any lingering question that President Biden’s policies are to blame for the mess we saw at our southern border, consider President Trump’s swift success in reversing the damage. As soon he was elected and even before he took office, the migrant flows began to subside. 

In the first two weeks of 2025, CBP encounters were nearly 50% lower than they were at the same point in 2021, at the start of the Biden administration. In President Trump’s first 100 days in office, daily border encounters decreased by 95%.

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This dramatic sea change resulted from President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s commonsense policies. On day one, President Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border. He ended President Biden’s “catch and release” policy and reinstated his own tried-and-tested “Remain in Mexico” policy. ICE arrests have increased by more than 600%, while arrests of criminal migrants have doubled.

The Trump administration’s policies are a welcome change from the past four years of disaster under the Biden administration. But the damage Texas experienced and the financial sacrifice we made for the good of the country must be fully repaid.

The federal government under President Biden created this crisis, and Congress must rectify it. Texans have had to bear the brunt of open borders, rampant crime and deadly fentanyl for four years, costing the state billions of dollars to fill in for our absentee commander in chief.

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In late January, Gov. Abbott asked Congress to reimburse Texas for the $11.1 billion that Texas taxpayers spent. I immediately began working in partnership with President Trump, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Texas Republicans in the House, to ensure Congress fulfills this request through the reconciliation bill, also known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

Texas Republicans make up the largest Republican delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives; thus the speaker could not pass a bill without support from this key voting bloc. It was unacceptable that the initial text of the legislation released by the House did not reimburse Texas.

But thanks to coordinating efforts with Congressman Chip Roy, R-Texas, language to reimburse states like Texas was added to the legislation during the amendment process, and the House passed these provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill.

The next hurdle is to shepherd our reimbursement provisions through the Senate. I will continue working with Leader Thune, Gov. Abbott and President Trump to ensure the Senate includes even stronger language in the One Big Beautiful Bill and that Texas specifically will be rightfully repaid for Operation Lone Star. I will continue fighting to ensure this language remains in the final version of the One Big Beautiful Bill that will go to the president’s desk.

The road to victory is long, but if there’s one thing us Texans know how to do it’s to stay the course and defy the odds. President Biden abdicated his responsibility as commander in chief at the southern border. It’s now up to Congress to reverse the damage and make Texas taxpayers whole.

SEN. JOHN CORNYN