Governor Abbott announces that Texas will build border wall

June 16, 2021

This after­noon, Gov­er­nor Abbott held a press con­fer­ence con­cern­ing the cri­sis along the Texas/Mexico bor­der. With Lt. Gov­er­nor Patrick, Speak­er Phe­lan, and mem­bers of both the House and the Sen­ate, the Gov­er­nor announced that Texas will build the bor­der wall.

He first signed a let­ter addressed to the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Texas Facil­i­ties Com­mis­sion, direct­ing them to hire a pro­gram man­ag­er to over­see con­struc­tion of the bor­der wall.

A sec­ond let­ter was signed ask­ing the Leg­isla­tive Bud­get Board to trans­fer $250 mil­lion dol­lars to the Texas Facil­i­ties Com­mis­sion as a down pay­ment to begin the process of build­ing the wall. In addi­tion to State funds, the Gov­er­nor announced that borderwall.texas.gov has been set­up as a site to accept dona­tion funds to help build the bor­der wall.

The last let­ter Gov­er­nor Abbott signed was addressed to Pres­i­dent Biden ask­ing him to return land to Tex­ans that was tak­en to build the wall.

Although Speak­er Phe­lan did announce his intent to issue inter­im charges for House Com­mit­tees to study the impact of the bor­der cri­sis has affect­ed bor­der coun­ties, there was no men­tion of this crit­i­cal issue being added to the spe­cial ses­sion agen­da for the Leg­is­la­ture to take up.

Address­ing the cri­sis along the bor­der is too urgent to wait for the next leg­isla­tive ses­sion to take up, we need to take action imme­di­ate­ly and have the Leg­is­la­ture pass com­pre­hen­sive bor­der secu­ri­ty leg­is­la­tion as soon as possible.