BROOKS COUNTY, Texas (RFD News) — Texas is receiving $7.5 billion from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to reimburse the state for border security expenditures during the immigration crisis of the Biden era.
RFD-TV Correspondent Frank McCaffrey spoke with Brooks County rancher Dr. Michael Vickers, who described the impact that period had on his community.
“We had a lot of traffic under Biden, probably as many as 300 plus dead bodies show up on private property. One of them was a woman that was probably 30 yards from my front door. She may have been the last one to die in this county. Under Trump so far, we’ve had two. One of them, Saturday, three weeks ago, it was about 9:30 at night, I was getting back and they were inside my gate loading him up on a funeral home vehicle. So that’s the only second body we’ve had under Trump since he’s been president in this county.”
Texas previously reported spending more than $10 billion on border security since Operation Lone Star began in 2021. Vickers said the reimbursement is long overdue after the state paid for additional security along the border.
“Oh, it’s way overdue. There’s no question. We spent a lot of money putting the DPS down on the border. Any given one weekend, a month, there’ll be 12 or 15 DPS units parked inside my front gate and they’re out there training. That’s an expenditure that we’ve had to use under Biden.”
While the state will receive reimbursement, Vickers said ranchers are not being repaid for damage to their own properties. He estimated more than $100,000 in fence damage on his ranch and said he recently spent $43,500 with a neighboring rancher to repair about three miles of fence.
Vickers said damaged fences also allowed nilgai and cattle to cross between ranches, leaving producers to get their livestock back in order.
The reimbursement will come from the Department of Homeland Security’s State Border Security Reimbursement Fund, which was part of President Donald Trump’s 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
