AUSTIN, Texas — With no fanfare, five of Texas’ top Republican leaders late last month moved nearly a half-billion dollars from three law enforcement-related state agencies to pay for the mounting costs of keeping thousands of National Guard soldiers deployed at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Leaders of the three money-yielding agencies — which run prisons and the state police and regulate bars — signed letters affirming their departments and programs wouldn’t be “negatively affected” by the transfers of about $480 million.
In a letter on Gov. Greg Abbott’s stationery granting approval on Jan. 26, he and four top legislative Republicans sought to underscore the point made by agency chiefs that the money transfers — funneled through a disaster fund in Abbott’s office to the Texas Military Department — wouldn’t harm law enforcement efforts but actually would augment preservation of law and order, given a migrant surge.
