Biden's border crisis costing Texas taxpayers $855M per year: Ken Paxton
Texas taxpayers spending millions on border security, health care and education for illegal migrants, Paxton said
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said taxpayers in the Lone Star State are spending more than $855 million on illegal migrants every year, including millions for border security, education, and health care, during an interview on FOX Business' 'Mornings with Maria' Friday.
SEN. RUBIO: BIDEN'S RHETORIC DRIVING 'CRISIS' AT THE BORDER
KEN PAXTON: We've known for decades that illegal immigration costs the state of Texas millions, hundreds of millions of dollars. And we put money in to help that because we have to, because we're required to educate people who come here. We're required to take care of their health care costs. We have to deal with law enforcement issues. And so we just put the information together. And it was a pretty conservative estimate, about $855 million a year. That's probably low. So it's surprising for Americans and Texans to know that this costs a lot of money. That's just the state of Texas that does not include the entire nation...
GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE
We saw what happened — it particularly got worse during the Obama administration with all the immigrants coming up from Central America; the open invitation across our borders, the discouragement of blocking the border with our border patrol, being told not to do their job. And then we saw what actually worked in the Trump administration. Not that it was perfect, but it certainly improved dramatically with the building of the wall, encouraging border security to do their jobs, and sending the narrative, 'Hey, you're not going to lose cross border, you're going to stay in Mexico.' Those policies have now changed back to Obama-era policies, and they're clearly not working...
They're clearly meant to open the borders, and those costs are borne by the citizens of Texas and the citizens of the United States...
It's not surprising at all if you send the message over on day number one, which is what President Biden did and said, 'Hey, you can come to our country, we're not going to deport you in the first hundred days,' you're going to end up with all kinds of problems, along with the costs that we talked about, but also just the risk of higher disease, with COVID coming across our country and other diseases. And then also just the law enforcement cost, the drug trafficking human trait. We know that's going on. We know the cartels are benefiting immensely. So these policies are not benefiting the American people. I don't think they're even benefiting the migrants that there's so much risk associated with coming. They are benefiting the cartels.