Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) on Thursday requested over $760 million in reimbursements for what Arizona spent on border security efforts, the majority of which was during the Biden administration.

The request to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem revives a previous 2023 appeal Hobbs sent to the government for financial relief, as her state was among those grappling with a surge of illegal immigration due to former President Joe Biden’s relaxed border policies.

Recommended Stories

• ICE arrests near 150,000 since January as Trump operation ramps up fast
• Judge delays end of TPS designations for 61,000 people from Honduras, Nicaragua, and Nepal
• House Democrats sue ICE and DHS for 'blocking' entry into immigrant detention sites

“Since January 20, 2021, the State of Arizona has appropriated and encumbered $759,693,277.52 in border security-related expenses,” the governor wrote in a letter to Noem. “In accordance with my statutory obligation under Arizona Revised Statutes § 26-105(E), and provisions in the recently passed H.R. 1, I respectfully request that the federal government consider reimbursing Arizona for these expenses.”

The majority of the financial reimbursement, around $737 million, accounts for fiscal years 2021 through 2024.

Republican Doug Ducey was Arizona’s governor for much of the Biden-era immigration surge his state faced. After she took the reins in 2023, Hobbs was publicly critical of Biden’s approach to immigration policy, accusing the former president of putting Arizona residents at risk by “refusing” to secure the border.

In December 2023, Hobbs sent a $512 million reimbursement request for the state’s border security spending.

Roughly 19 months later, with no reimbursement in sight, Hobbs eyed a pair of border provisions in President Donald Trump’s recently passed “big beautiful” tax cuts bill, which she hoped would bring in the funding.

Commenting in July on the measures, which could funnel $13.5 billion back to state and local governments for immigration enforcement, Hobbs said she planned to update her 2023 reimbursement request to account for more than a year of border funding that had elapsed since her original appeal.

“I’m looking forward to getting paid back,” Hobbs said. “We sent an invoice, if you will, a while back under the Biden administration. I can get back to you with the specifics of what those costs were that we asked for reimbursement for. And there’s a lot more now. And I think we’re working on the total there.”

Hobbs is not the only governor leading her state in seeking reimbursement for the cost of handling the Biden-era surge of migration.

Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), who led Texas in overseeing the bulk of migrants passing through his state, also hopes to receive payback for immigration enforcement efforts from the measures in Trump’s marquee legislation. In addition, top Texas lawmakers filed bills in May seeking to require reimbursement.

Abbott initially requested $11 billion in federal reimbursement in January for costs he said were associated with border security efforts.

ARIZONA DEMOCRATIC PARTY DEVOLVES INTO DISORDER

“Biden’s policies left Texas and the rest of America defenseless against an unprecedented infiltration of violent criminals, known terrorists, and other hostile foreign actors, like the dangerous Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua,” Abbott wrote in the letter sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), among other congressional leaders.

Abbott wrote that the weighty cost of carrying out Operation Lone Star to combat such threats “fell squarely on the shoulders of Texas taxpayers but should have been the federal government’s responsibility.”