Gov. Abbott continues to push his $4 billion (and counting) border boondoggle Operation Lone Star. Pulling $360 million from prison funding.
Posted by
Qale
Oct 31 '22, 09:39
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The Texas prison system itself is beset by understaffing and rising health care costs, and officials there are asking lawmakers for $90 million for staff raises in the next biennium. Last August, TDCJ had about 67% of its officer positions filled. Some larger prisons in Texas had less than 40% of its officer positions filled.
A TDCJ spokesperson told The Texas Tribune that the transfer of the money would not negatively impact the agency, saying that the same amount would be allocated to the agency for “pandemic related expenses” but did not elaborate on where that funding would come from or when.
Previous budget transfers to Operation Lone Star have come from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, which oversees child and adult welfare investigations, the state’s juvenile justice system and Texas Health and Human Services, among other agencies.
Since Operation Lone Star launched a year and a half ago, Abbott has taken drastic measures to curb illegal immigration, including starting construction of a state-funded border wall, deploying thousands of National Guard members, arresting and jailing migrants on state criminal charges and spending millions on bus tickets to send migrants to other cities run by Democrats.
At the time of the launch, Abbott cited an urgent need to stop the flow of drugs and undocumented immigrants into the state through Mexico.
But the initiative has become a political wedge between those who sharply criticize President Joe Biden’s immigration policies and critics who call it a blank check for a governor facing a tough reelection in November and an ineffective financial boondoggle for Texas taxpayers.
Abbott has repeatedly blamed Biden for an increase in migrant crossings and called for the federal government to reinstate former President Donald Trump’s tougher immigration policies.
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