Amazing what $20 billion that should have been ours buys, with Abbott’s political position at stake. Miller provides the children; Abbott provides the warehousing of them.
The language used by people watching this happen is becoming increasingly harsh.
The Guardian reported that nearly 80 percent of unaccompanied children placed into immigration proceedings in July — and more than 90 percent in August — were funneled into Texas. Advocates warned that concentrating them in Texas could create what one immigration lawyer called “a deportation churn out factory” where children have attorneys “in name but not real representation.” (The Guardian)
That fear is not abstract. In San Antonio, only 8.7 percent of the children in these cases had a legal representation form on file; the figures were 17.2 percent in Houston and 18.6 percent in El Paso. (The News International)
Another Guardian report described an immigration system originally intended to give children a chance to have their claims considered as being rebuilt to feed what it called the “mass deportation machine.” One advocate said children were being abandoned to meet “arbitrary mass deportation targets.” (The Guardian)
And Raw Story went further. Its original headline described the reporting as revealing “Nazi sentiments.” That was Raw Story’s characterization, not the Guardian’s finding, but it shows how extreme the policy appears even to some observers. (Arkansas Public Advocate)
Meanwhile, Stephen Miller is at the center of a coordinated federal effort to accelerate removal of migrant children. More than 200,000 minors have received removal orders since January 2025, according to the Guardian’s reporting. (The Guardian)
Then look at Texas.
On September 17, Abbott announced that the Trump administration had restored nearly $12 billion in Medicaid funding to Texas after a dispute lasting almost a year. Abbott thanked the Trump administration for helping secure the money. (Texas Government)
One day later, Abbott announced another $7.5 billion in federal reimbursement for Operation Lone Star. Abbott again thanked Trump and said Texas had “held the line when Washington would not.” (Texas Government)
That is approximately $19.5 billion in federal money announced in two days.
At almost the same moment, we learned that Texas was becoming the principal destination for migrant children caught up in the administration’s removal machinery.
With each new development, Abbott’s nearly $20 billion federal windfall is beginning to look less like coincidence and more like quid pro quo.
There is no public evidence yet proving that Trump gave Abbott the money in exchange for Texas helping carry out Miller’s child-removal program. But when billions of dollars flow in one direction while political cooperation flows in the other, the question is no longer unreasonable.
And the question becomes harder to dismiss when advocates are describing Texas as a “deportation churn out factory” and the broader system as a “mass deportation machine.”
