AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ A legislative panel is questioning what Texas will ultimately have to show for the $4.2 million per week it’s spending on beefed-up border security amid a surge of unaccompanied immigrant children.
Gov. Rick Perry is deploying 1,000 National Guard troops to the Texas-Mexico border at a weekly cost of $3 million. The state was already spending an additional $1.2 million weekly on border security.
Department of Public Safety director Steve McCraw told a Texas House hearing Tuesday in Austin that while children aren’t criminals, they’re crossing the border with smuggling gangs.
McCraw says federal authorities have been overwhelmed, causing other crime to spike.
But committee Democrats wondered what would constitute success, since Texas is trying to stop crime and illegal border crossings that were common before the current immigration spike.
