Texas’s Greg Abbott used Covid funding to bus migrants out of state, report says

Texas’s Gov Greg Abbott used loopholes in federal law and insufficient federal oversight to ensure that at least $1bn of federal Covid funding meant for his state’s residents actually went to his controversial efforts to fight immigration.

A new report published on Thursday in The Nation reveals how the Texas Republican governor used money from federal Covid relief packages for his program designed to bus groups of migrants out of Texas and around the continental US. It’s a shocking direct decision to ignore the stated purpose of those funds that seems to have been made legal through loopholes allowing states to recoup lost revenues.

The Nation reports that an unnamed congressional aide (it wasn’t clear of which party) referred to Mr Abbott’s financial maneuvering of Covid funding as a kind of shell game; another expert explained that the governor had swapped out revenues from various state agencies with Covid-19 funding, then used those revenues (which unlike the Covid funding, was not bound to any purpose) for his immigration enforcement activities.

The result was roughly a billion dollars used to supplement those various programs launched by Mr Abbott, including Texas’s own efforts to construct fencing along the US-Mexico border as well as the controversial busing plan that has led to dozens of migrants being dropped off at a time in places like Washington DC outside of the vice presidential residence as well as the wealthy northeastern summer community of Martha’s Vineyard.

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