How is Texas prepping for next surge of illegal immigrants?

close

Video

How is Texas prepping for next surge of illegal immigrants?

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst sounds off

This is a rush transcript from "Your World," August 15, 2014. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

ERIC BOLLING, GUEST HOST: A new report shows another 30,000 illegal immigration kids will cross the border in September and October, as the weather cools. And most of them will end up in the state of Texas.

David Dewhurst is the Republican lieutenant governor of that state.

Thank you for joining us, sir.

Tell us a little bit about the concerns Texas has with all these influx, this flooding of illegal children?

LT. GOV. DAVID DEWHURST, R-TEXAS: Well, this is a huge problem, Eric. Obviously, we have had over 50,000 unaccompanied children come into Texas already. And using your number, if another 30,000 come in, that's a huge, huge number. Each 5,000 children, if we have to educate them, is going to cost the state of Texas some $50 million.

That's a huge amount of money. But, more importantly, this is -- to pick up something you just said, this is Barack Obama doing an end-around the Constitution. All he has to do is enforce his obligation, the federal government's obligation to secure the border.

But the federal government has failed miserably. That's why the state of Texas -- I started seven years ago, Eric, appropriating money to secure our border. We have appropriated $800 million. We have got high-altitude spotter aircraft, helicopters. We have got armor-plated gunboats. We have got people in the brush, and we're trying to stop.

But we have just started a huge surge of 1,000 members of our state police. And we have already shut down illegal immigration and drugs over the Rio Grande Valley sector already. But we want to get that number down from 50 percent reduction down to zero and to cover the whole border.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: So, let me just interrupt you for a second. I apologize for that.

You said there are 50,000 children in the state of Texas right now, could be 30,000 more. You said 5,000 costs the state $50 million to educate these kids. I just put a pen to paper here.

DEWHURST: That's right.

BOLLING: And if you have the 50,000 that are already there, that's going to cost you almost a half-a-billion dollars to educate these kids. What could the state of Texas do with a half-a-billion dollars to secure your border?

DEWHURST: Well, what we can do is, we can cut taxes again. Over the last 10 years, I have cut taxes some 54 times in Texas. We have got one of the lowest tax rates and we're constantly trying to get government out of people's way.

So we can make Texas even more attractive. You see, in Texas, Eric, we tried -- and you know -- you're a businessman -- we tried to make Texas the pro-growth model for the country for the other 49 states and Washington.

BOLLING: Right.

DEWHURST: And we're trying now to make it the model to how to stop illegal immigration.

BOLLING: Very, very quickly, sir, what I meant to ask you was, what with the $500 million -- $500 million that you're going to spend to educate these kids, could it be better spent to secure your border?

DEWHURST: Oh, absolutely.

We're putting money in. As I said, we have already appropriated $800 million, but it's costing us $20 million a month because the federal government has failed, failed to do their job, $20 million for the DPS, our state police and for the National Guard.

BOLLING: Wow.

DEWHURST: So we can either cut taxes, we can put more money into border security.

But the federal government needs to stop this problem with people crossing. All they have to do, Eric, is bring Congress back from their vacation. Good heavens.

BOLLING: Good luck.

(CROSSTALK)

DEWHURST: When I was in school -- yes. When I was in school, I didn't get a recess until I finished my homework.

But bring them back. And -- and plug that loophole, so you treat people from Central America the same way that you treat people from Mexico and Canada. Now -- now, what is wrong with that?

BOLLING: I don't know.

Sir, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, we're going to leave it right there. But thank you very much.

DEWHURST: You bet.

BOLLING: All right.

Content and Programming Copyright 2014 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2014 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.