Texas Gov. Rick Perry is facing some friendly fire from fellow Republicans who are resisting his plans to extend the security surge on the Mexican border until the new governor and legislature take office in January.
Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst hope to strike a deal with the Republican-led state legislature to re-allocate $20 million a month to continue the deployment of up to 1,000 troops of the Texas National Guard through August of next year,
according to The San Antonio Express-News.
Without the additional funds, money to pay the guardsmen could run out some time this month, officials said.
Dewhurst and Perry will be leaving office in January to be replaced by Greg Abbott as governor and Dean Patrick as lieutenant governor.
The powerful speaker of the House, Joe Straus, would have to approve any re-allocation of budgeted funds to continue the security operation launched in June to stop a massive influx of illegal immigrant children, mostly from Central America. Straus believes the incoming governor and legislature should approve any extension of the border surge.
“Because border security is such an important issue, Speaker Straus believes that the new legislature, as well as the new governor and lieutenant governor, should have a role in evaluating current operations and determining the state’s next steps,” Straus spokesman Jason Embry told the San Antonio Express-News.
“This can be done in the 2015 legislative sessions without interrupting ongoing operations.”
However, Dewhurst fears the border operation would be disrupted without an immediate approval of additional funds.
“I intend to remind our legislators that, ‘Just look what happens when we tell the other side — the bad guys — when we’re going to withdraw,’ ” he told
KXAN television in Austin.
“If we withdraw too quickly from the border, all the good we’ve done — the almost-billion dollars of Texas money we spent — is all wasted.”
Abbott, now attorney general, took a tough line on illegal immigration in the gubernatorial election against Democrat Wendy Davis. He told Fox News this week that he will file another lawsuit against President Obama to stop an expected executive order that would unilaterally legalize up to 5 million illegal immigrants. Abbott has already filed
25 lawsuits against the Obama administration.
If Obama ignores Congress over immigration reform, his action will “lead to a tremendous backlash across all Americans about the dictatorial way the president is going about trying to enact policy in the United States of America,”
Abbott predicted.
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