Texas is on track for 1 million illegal crossing apprehensions in 2021. The Biden administration will not do anything other than foster an open border policy regardless of cartel, gang, human trafficking, and public health risks that are unprecedented.

Unlike D.C., Texas doesn’t sit and wait in a swamp of incompetence.

Today, a special called meeting of the Senate Finance Committee heard testimony from border Sheriffs, Texas Department of Public Safety Director McCraw, and Major General Tracy Norris of the Texas National Guard about the crisis at the southern border. The drugs, crime, and gangs don’t stop at the border, they infiltrate our communities, overwhelming public safety and endangering our neighborhoods.

Today’s hearing resulted in the passage of a bill I am coauthoring, Senate Bill 89, a bill that deploys additional appropriations to border security, including:

• – A total of $1.8 billion dedicated to border security
• – The construction of a physical border fence with razor wire and sensors
• – Increased law enforcement preventing dangerous drugs, including fentanyl, from being smuggled across the border- 2500 additional personnel at the border funded by $300 Million to the Texas Military Department
• – An increase of 1500 Texas DPS Troopers at the border
• – $3 Million for tactical marine vessels- A new correctional security prison to incarcerate gang members, smugglers and criminals crossing the border and other criminals
• – Grants for District Attorneys that represent border communities to investigate and prosecute crimes in their communities
• – State jail felony for criminal trespassing to place those apprehended in immediate state custody rather than hoping they show up for a future federal hearing.
  
  Texas will not wait on DC any longer to secure our border.

*As of today, 44 border area counties have been declared as a disaster (both Republican and Democrat counties)