Abbott has spent $435K per migrant stopped
Governor claims victory in Operation Lone Star, but it hasn’t solved the problem
Gov. Greg Abbott has spent $10 billion of taxpayer money to secure the border. It hasn’t worked. But Abbott claims victory anyway. He notes that fewer migrants have been crossing the border into Texas, a sign that his spending spree, which includes National Guard troops, various floating barriers, helicopters, boats and lots and lots of razor wire, is paying off.
In February, the Border Patrol reported a little over 53,000 encounters with migrants along the Texas border, compared with around 87,000 total for Arizona and California. Last year, those numbers were reversed — agents in Texas encountered nearly 76,000 migrants compared with almost 55,000 in the other two states.
I should note that “encounters” is an imprecise term that includes apprehensions, expulsions and rejection of inadmissible asylum claims. But it doesn’t really tell us how many individual migrants crossed the border illegally and weren’t caught, for example, or how many may have crossed multiple times.
Nevertheless, they’re the best numbers we have, and at a February press conference in Eagle Pass, Abbott said those numbers show his efforts are working. He even argued that if the feds did what he’s doing, “you would eliminate illegal immigration overnight.”
Except, of course, you wouldn’t. Texas hasn’t eliminated illegal border crossings; it’s simply slowed them by about 30%. But large numbers of migrants are still coming into Texas.
The question is whether the reduction of 23,000 encounters is worth the $10 billion investment. Ten billion dollars over three years, by the way, is about double what the state spent annually for the entire Department of Public Safety in each of the past three fiscal years. If we can believe the numbers, the spending works out to roughly $435,000 for each migrant encountered.
More to the point, if the feds said they were going to spend that eye-popping amount to stop each migrant, and if two-thirds would still get across, I doubt Abbott would tout the success of the program.
“The shame is that these billions and billions of dollars are not an investment in policy, but an investment in politics,” said Tony Payan, director of the Mexico Center at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. “Has the $10 billion that taxpayers have invested changed anything structurally? Has the problem been solved? The answer is no.”
Part of the problem is that all the numbers are squishy. Migrants who aren’t caught aren’t counted. Which means that Abbott’s $10 billion spending spree might be less effective than his
already dubious claims imply.
More importantly, other factors can affect the flow of migrants, including colder weather. If migrant encounters rise this spring, as they frequently do as the weather warms, what will that say about Abbott’s program? Should we just throw more taxpayer money at the problem?
Payan pointed out to me that part of the decline in migrants may result from an agreement reached between the Biden administration and officials in Mexico to stem illegal migration. That helped reduce, at least temporarily, the number of migrants crossing the border in places like El Paso.
But over the three years that Abbott’s Operation Lone Star has been in effect, “the numbers go up and down with very little relationship to the government’s efforts,” Payan said. All of this makes for a good show, and when it comes to political theater, Abbott is the master of ceremonies. He knows his audience, and he knows how to keep them coming back for more. While he touts his program’s effectiveness, he also knows it won’t solve the problem. If it did, he’d lose a powerful political tool.
Let’s say for a moment that Abbott is right. His policies alone are acting as a deterrent.
The numbers seem to indicate that migrants are simply crossing into another state. Abbott’s actions risk turning border security into an auction, in which states that spend fewer tax dollars get more undocumented migrants.
It’s a reminder that there’s a reason immigration is a federal issue that needs to be addressed at the federal level.
Abbott is right when he argues border states bear a disproportionate burden from illegal immigration and the feds should do more about it. And because the feds won’t, it’s understandable that a governor would take action.
Abbott’s program to bus migrants to other states, for example, was not a bad idea. But he should have coordinated with the recipient states so that they were ready. Instead, Abbott turned a good idea into a political stunt and an act of cruelty toward the people involved.
Abbott is also right to complain that the feds should do more, but he’s selective in pointing the finger. He blames the White House, which is almost as powerless as he is to address the problem. Congress, on the other hand, does have the power to tackle the border crisis, and indeed had a hard-fought bipartisan bill just a few months ago that would have gone a long way toward doing just that. Members of Abbott’s own party, and indeed members from his own state, torpedoed the bill.
Nevertheless, Abbott’s plan is a political success because it offers no accountability. The program never had a defined vision of success. Abbott has never set a goal, such as specifying how many migrants the program was designed to stop, which makes it impossible to assess its effectiveness.
“By not setting any objectives, it allows the governor to claim success no matter what he accomplishes,” Payan said.
And so, in Texas, the taps of tax dollars continue to open wide, pouring into a middling scheme whose political popularity masks a wasteful and ineffective policy.