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.
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