Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, and state lawmakers rerouted roughly $1 billion in federal coronavirus aid to help pay for a program focused on arresting migrants at the southern border, The Texas Tribune reported.
Texas officials in recent months have moved state money toward its immigration crackdown and Abbott's Operation Lone Star initiative, the Tribune reported.
The money moves appeared to be legal under the stimulus law known as the Cares Act, though critics say the funds should have been used to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in March 2021 to respond to a rise in illegal immigration under President Joe Biden. Nearly three months later, the governor issued a state of emergency for Texas over border crossing concerns.
Then in August 2021, he authorized the Texas National Guard to arrest people who illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border and violated state law. That came a month after ordering Guard members to assist the Texas Department of Public Safety in arresting illegal immigrants for breaking state laws.
Last month, Abbott began sending migrants from Texas to Washington, D.C., after the Biden administration had transported immigrants to places around the United States.
To help pay for Operation Lone Star, Texas has used money targeted to help states battle the coronavirus through a series of little-noticed "swaps" as one aide to the governor said.
The Tribune reported that such "swaps" entailed transferring money away from its public health and safety agencies and to the governor's office to administer Operation Lone Star.
The nearly $1 billion was available because the state had backfilled public health and safety agencies with stimulus funds it received from Washington. The Tribune based its report on interviews with local officials, submissions to the Texas legislature and communications from the governor's office.
The Cares Act, enacted in March 2020, does not prohibit states from rerouting money received via the Coronavirus Relief Fund, which aimed to help cities and states do such things as pay front-line workers, purchase supplies, and tend to other pandemic needs.
When asked about the funding by the Tribune, Abbott spokeswoman Renae Eze said the Biden administration created "an ongoing crisis along our southern border and throughout Texas, with millions of illegal immigrants from over 150 countries surging across the border."
"The president continues turning a blind eye to the suffering of Texans, as his administration dumps migrants in our border communities that are already overwhelmed and overrun by the historic level of illegal crossings," Eze said.
The ACLU of Texas has said the crackdown on migrants violated federal civil rights laws, and that some of the state's coronavirus aid should be returned because federal law prohibits the government from providing help to state agencies engaging in abuse.
"Gov. Abbott has poured money into Operation Lone Star that could be going toward literally anything actually productive for the state," Kate Huddleston, a staff attorney at ACLU of Texas, told the Tribune.