Houston. The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, ruled out yesterday that the buoys that he ordered installed in the Rio Grande to contain the crossing of migrants from Mexico to the United States caused the death of the two recently undocumented immigrants.
The governor’s statements came as The Dallas Morning reported that Texas authorities were warned by the International Boundary Commission, which controls the Rio Grande, that installing buoys or wire barriers violated federal laws and border treaties. with Mexico.
Last July, the Republican ordered the placement of this floating orange wall on some 305 meters of the river, between Texas and Piedras Negras, one of the sections used by migrants to enter the United States. The river is the natural border between the two countries in that area.
Last week, the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Relations reported the discovery of two bodies in the area. One of them was “stuck in the southern part of the buoys”, while the second was found five kilometers away.
“The buoys used by Texas did not cause the drowning of the two deceased,” Abbott said on the X social network, formerly known as Twitter. Barbed wire barriers have also been installed at the border to block the passage of undocumented immigrants.
The governor, a staunch critic of the immigration policies of Democratic President Joe Biden, responded to an informative note published by the Texas newspaper The Dallas Morning News in which he asserted that the Texas authorities knew that installing buoys or wire barriers violated the laws federal and border treaties with Mexico.
“What this story does not tell you is that I informed Biden almost a year ago about the constitutional authority of Texas to secure the border,” Abbott said about the publication, who blames the president for the immigration crisis that lives in the United States.
The Dallas Morning News stated that on March 29, “a Texas Highway Patrol captain even asked the International Boundary Commission, which controls the Rio Grande, to help him with a permit that the city of El Paso refused to grant to put electricity in a command trailer” for the buoys because it was on federal property and without authorization.
“Officials from numerous state agencies have been told for at least seven months (since last December) that Texas needed a federal permit before encroaching on federal land or installing barriers on or along the river,” the newspaper noted, citing documents from that commission.
The commission “repeatedly made clear to Texas officials our concerns about their activities in the territory under (their) jurisdiction,” the Dallas Morning reported.
The Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit a few weeks ago to prevent the Abbott government from putting up additional barriers and removing existing ones.
