QUOTE: The deployment of National Guard troops that Texas Governor Rick Perry ordered in response to the border crisis is set to be phased out under a recommendation from the Texas Legislative Budget Board released on Monday. The move comes after media interest in the issue has died down after peaking this summer, when tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors, mostly from Central America, were illegally crossing the border. The LBB is a permanent joint legislative committee comprised of the Lieutenant Governor, Speaker of the House, and four members each from the Texas House and Senate. Current membership is Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, Speaker of the House Joe Straus, Senators Kevin Eltife, Craig Estes, Juan Hinojosa, and Jane Nelson, and Representatives Drew Darby, John Otto, Sylvester Turner, and John Zerwas. As Breitbart Texas previously reported, Dewhurst announced at a press conference last month that he had joined with Perry and Straus to send a proposal to the LBB to recommend that they approve more than $86 million in funding to sustain border operations through the end of the fiscal year, which ends in August 2015. The vote was necessary to ensure continuous funding for the border security operations, which would have otherwise expired this month and could not have been resumed until after the new Legislature was sworn into office in January and could take official action. Part of the proposal to the LBB included phasing out about 1,000 Texas National Guard troops from the border in the Spring, to be replaced with Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) officers. The LBB, which, as mentioned above, currently includes both Dewhurst and Straus as members, accepted this recommendation in a unanimous vote.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 08:18:22 +0000
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