House Delegation Seeks to Block Biden’s “Remain in Texas” Policy

As the border crisis continues to impose disastrous costs on taxpayers, the Biden Administration has moved to lessen its impact on sanctuary jurisdictions by proposing that illegal aliens be required to remain in Texas. In doing so, the President would shield his allies in sanctuary cities, while continuing to jeopardize the safety and security of citizens in border states.

Sanctuary jurisdictions all over the country are reeling from the impact of the border crisis. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who once touted the city as a safe haven for illegal aliens, is now adamant that the crisis will destroy the city. As previously reported by FAIR, since the Spring of 2022, New York City has seen over 130,000 migrants arrive. To accommodate them, the city has been forced to house illegal aliens in at least 206 different sites, spending at least $20 million to lease out the Roosevelt Hotel alone. Chicago, Illinois is also being decimated by the border crisis. According to a House Homeland Security Committee report, the cost of housing and other services for illegal aliens has contributed $200 million towards the city’s $538 million anticipated budget deficit in 2024. Illinois has spent over $350 million responding to the crisis.

Across the country, sanctuary policies are racking up unprecedented costs for taxpayers. Rather than changing the policies that attract aliens to their jurisdictions though, sanctuary mayors are calling on President Biden to bail them out. On March 29, 2023, New York City submitted a request to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), asking for a $650 million reimbursement for the funds the city spent on illegal aliens. According to an August report from Politico, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has “received more funding requests than it could fulfill from border and interior communities.”

Instead, in September, the Biden Administration moved to block border states like Texas from sending migrants to sanctuary jurisdictions in the country’s interior. The Administration’s proposed “Remain in Texas” policy sought to force migrants to stay in Texas while awaiting their asylum screenings.  To ensure the migrants remained in Texas, DHS planned to track them with GPS monitoring devices.

In October, however, the Administration was forced to back off the “Remain in Texas” policy after intense local opposition. As just one example, officials in El Paso, a Democrat-led border city, came out strongly against the policy. Estrella Escobar, a spokeswoman for El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, noted that El Paso “‘never agreed’ and ‘never will’ agree to participate in a policy that would require migrants to remain in El Paso under strict monitoring.” While President Biden has shelved the policy for now, there is nothing keeping him from returning to it in the future.

To prevent that, last week Congressmen Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), and August Pfluger (R-Texas) introduced legislation to block a “Remain in Texas” policy and prevent DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas from enforcing it. The Congressmen believe that their legislation will be instrumental in protecting Texans from the border crisis, and in holding the Biden Administration accountable for creating a humanitarian crisis at our borders. Congressman Pfluger pointed out the hypocrisy of the “Remain in Texas” policy, noting that “sanctuary cities like New York that openly obstruct federal immigration laws and have policies in place to shield criminals from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should not be immune to the crisis at our border.”

Texas Governor Gregg Abbott has also taken action to protect Texans from the impact of the border crisis. The Texas House and Senate have now passed two major immigration bills that were top priorities for Governor Abbott. The bills would, respectively, appropriate $1.54 billion to fund border security measures and make illegal immigration a state crime in Texas.  According to Abbott, both bills aim to “better enhance the safety of all Texans by increasing funding for strategic border barriers and mirroring the federal immigration laws that Joe Biden refuses to enforce.”

Texas’ efforts to enforce immigration laws and strengthen border security are critical to stopping the flood of illegal aliens entering the country, but those efforts make even more clear the need for meaningful policy reforms at the federal level. With the Biden Administration promoting an open-borders agenda, and incentivizing lawbreaking, the crisis will only continue to worsen without action from Congress.

To learn more about FAIR’s efforts to ensure border security measures are included in any federal government spending package, visit our activist toolkit here.