Republican Gov. Abbott issued an order in July to place orange buoys along about 1,000 feet of the Rio Grande, which serves as the natural boundary between Texas and Piedras Negras, a region in northern Mexico. This measure was taken in a section of the river that migrants used to enter the United States. The Mexican Foreign Ministry recently reported the discovery of two bodies in the area, one of which was trapped near the buoys, while the other was found some distance from them.
Abbott said on Twitter that the buoys installed by Texas were not related to the deaths, noting that barbed wire barriers have also been put in place at the border to block the passage of migrants. The governor, a critic of Democratic President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, responded to an article in the Dallas Morning News that questioned the legality of installing buoys and barriers under federal laws and border agreements with Mexico.
Abbott maintains that he informed Biden almost a year ago of Texas’ constitutional authority to secure the border and attributes the country’s immigration crisis to the president. On the other hand, on the Mexican side of the border, thousands of migrants, mostly Latin Americans, wait to try to enter the United States and request asylum through a government application.
However, the arrival of migrants in Mexico persists, and some try to cross the river, getting trapped in the buoys and needing to be rescued. In response, the US Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit to prevent Texas from placing additional barriers and removing existing ones.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador described this action as a “provocation” that violates Mexico’s sovereignty and expressed concern about its impact on the human rights of migrants.