More than a dozen members of Texas’ Republican delegation to the U.S. House are asking their colleagues to withhold funding for the Department of Homeland Security because of the agency’s failure to strengthen the U.S.-Mexico border. The effort is being led by U.S. Rep. Chip Roy.
Roy and 14 other Texas Republicans sent a letter to the full chamber detailing the severity of the crisis on the Texas-Mexico border in depth.
Among the examples cited in the letter is the recent lawsuit filed against three Fort Worth-based illegal aliens for participating in a human smuggling ring. The letter also points to claims that criminal cartels have taken over the border, migrants are dying during their illegal travels, and the current border policies are leaving children more susceptible to the sex-trafficking trade.
According to the lawmakers’ letter, Gov. Greg Abbott has been forced to use Texas’ limited resources to start solving a problem the federal government created.
To put more pressure on the Biden administration, the lawmakers want Congress to invoke its “power of the purse” when the agency’s funding expires this fall.
I will not support giving taxpayer $ to a fed govt at war with Tx, suing our governor, lying about @CBP whipping people, lying about operational control, helping fentanyl kill Americans, & most sick of all, allowing little girls to get raped in stash houses. #NoSecurityNoFunding pic.twitter.com/qUm1AJaBCl
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) August 10, 2023
“I would just ask every one of my Republican colleagues, is it not enough to stand up for that one little girl to tell the president, ‘No, you’re not going to get a tax dollar to fund the Department of Homeland Security that’s allowing that to occur on our watch’?” said Roy when discussing the letter.
“At least a dozen of my colleagues from Texas are saying to our colleagues, you are not going to get our support for continuing resolution for any kind of funding for DHS if you don’t address the border, pass and sign H.R. 2 into law, secure the border, [and] fund Texas back for the $10 billion we’ve had to spend.”
Roy explained that the Texas Department of Public Safety and U.S. Border Patrol are “overwhelmed” with the amount of illegal aliens passing through.
Despite this, the Biden administration “refuses to secure our border, and people are suffering. And we’re saying enough.”
“Don’t write a check to fund a government that’s at war with Texas,” said Roy. “That’s my message to the administration.”
State Rep. Brian Harrison (R–Midlothian) agreed with Roy in a post on X (formerly Twitter), saying, “This. Is. The. Way.” He added that the U.S. GOP House members “must be willing to exercise the power of the purse to force Biden to secure the border.”
Of Texas’ 25 Republican members of Congress, 15 signed the letter, including Roy, Brian Babin, Wesley Hunt, Keith Self, Randy Weber, Beth Van Duyne, Nathaniel Moran, Michael Burgess, Michael Cloud, Lance Gooden, Troy Nehls, Pete Sessions, Ronny Jackson, Pat Fallon, and Morgan Luttrell.
Those that did not sign were Dan Crenshaw, Kay Granger, Tony Gonzales, August Pfluger, Jake Ellzey, Michael McCaul, Monica De La Cruz, Roger Williams, John Carter, and Jodey Arrington.
