In July, Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott installed a barrier of buoys on the Rio Grande River to prevent Mexican migrants from entering the United States. What is this device? How is the government reacting? What does justice say? 20 minutes takes stock of the “Floating Border Wall” affair.
This floating border, how does it work?
Last July, the governor of Texas installed a series of giant orange buoys on the Rio Grande, near the village of Eagle Pass, as recalled International mailwho cites the Wall Street Journal. This floating barrier is more than 300 meters long. The location was not chosen at random. This part of the river “has become one of the favorite crossing points for migrant families, because Piedras Negras, the Mexican town on the other side of the border, is relatively safe, and the water is quite shallow, which makes it possible to avoid the most dangerous currents”, specifies the Wall Street Journal.
“These buoys will prevent people from approaching the border. And that process begins more or less right away,” Greg Abbott said last July, obsessed with stemming what he calls the “invasion” of Hispanic migrants nicknamed “espaldas mojadas” (wet backs ). On the contrary, the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden assures that the number of illegal crossings has plummeted since the introduction of new rules concerning the right to asylum.
The effectiveness of the device raises serious questions. “There are many more injured migrants, who had to take riskier paths to cross the river,” said the Wall Street Journal Valeria Wheeler, who runs a refugee reception center near the floating border.
How did the federal government react?
In Washington, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the Texas initiative, explaining that these buoys raise a humanitarian and diplomatic problem, because they go against the border treaties concluded with Mexico.
Initially, a preliminary injunction from a New York court ordered Texas officials to move this barrier to a Texas levee by September 15 because the current location impedes river traffic. Not an easy task because the buoys are fixed by more than 140 particularly heavy concrete hooks, as recalled The Parisian.
How is this legal drama resolved?
This Thursday, a federal court ruled against the Texas governor demanding the dismantling of this barrier. The court prohibited state authorities and any entity working in their service from “constructing or adding any buoy, dam or structure of any type on the Rio Grande”, pending a decision on the merits of a higher court.
The judge justifies his decision by the “damage caused by the floating barrier”, citing “the enormous strains it has caused on US-Mexico relations”, as well as “threats to human life and obstruction to navigation free and safe”.
Except that after the appeal of the governor of Texas, a federal appeals court has just granted a temporary reprieve to the floating barrier, a blow for the Biden administration. To be continued…