NEWS: Casar, Castro Introduce Amendment to Block Federal Funding for Operation Lone Star

WASHINGTON – This week, Congressman Joaquin Castro (TX-20) and Congressman Greg Casar (TX-35) introduced an amendment to the FY2024 U.S. Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Bill to prohibit federal homeland security funding from being used for Texas’s failed Operation Lone Star.

“Greg Abbott’s abusive, wasteful, and inhumane Operation Lone Star is a disgrace to our state,” said Congressman Greg Casar (D-Texas). “Every day, Abbott violates the rights of asylum seekers, immigrant families, and our border communities, all to score political points against President Biden. Not one federal cent should go toward caging families, cutting innocent people with razor wire, or drowning children. Period. We need to address the humanitarian crisis at our border head on, and chart a new path for a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system.” 

“Since 2021, Governor Abbott has stolen more than a billion dollars in federal COVID-19 aid and diverted hundreds of millions in state taxpayer dollars from critical public health and safety programs to fund Operation Lone Star,” said Congressman Joaquin Castro. “Operation Lone Star is trampling on the rights of border communities, endangering our economic relationship with Mexico, and violating the basic human rights of asylum-seekers. Congress should not be funding Governor Abbott’s wasteful political stunts.”

The text of the amendment is available here. 

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Congressman Greg Casar represents Texas’s 35th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, which runs down I-35 from East Austin to Hays County to the West Side of San Antonio.  A labor organizer and son of Mexican immigrants, Casar serves as the Whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus for the 118th Congress. He also serves on the Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Committee on Agriculture.