HOUSTON, Texas–On July 11, 13 Texas state representatives and two state representative nominees signed a letter to Governor Rick Perry, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, Speaker Joe Straus, and members of the Legislative Budget Board. In it, they urged the state of Texas to utilize “all lawful budget authority” to secure its border with Mexico.
The authors first pointed out that Perry called upon President Obama to deploy 1,000 National Guard troops to the border to enhance operations there. However, they additionally acknowledged that “help from Washington will [likely] be delayed, or absent altogether.”
Because of the this, they asserted, “Texas must act where Washington will not. … We urge [Perry, Dewhurst, and Straus] to utilize all lawful budget authority to deploy additional members of the Texas Military Forces to the border as the Governor requested. If budget execution authority must be exercised by the Legislative Budget Board under section 317 of the Government Code, then we offer our support for such a measure and ask that all steps needed to exercise such authority be taken expeditiously.”
Since the border crisis captured widespread national attention, Perry has asked for more federal assistance and stressed that the migrants–many of whom are minors–must be sent back to their home countries as soon as possible.
“Nobody is doing any of these children the slightest favor by delaying a rapid return to their countries of origin, which in many cases is not Mexico,” the governor said at a House Homeland Security Committee in early July. “Allowing them to remain here will only encourage the next group of individuals to undertake the same life-threatening journey. Those who have come must be sent back to demonstrate, in no uncertain terms, that risking their lives to cross Mexico and enter our country simply isn’t worth it.”
Follow Kristin Tate @KristinBTate.
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