Greg Abbott, a Republican governor of Texas, rejected allegations made by the Mexican government that a buoy barrier put in place by his state in the Rio Grande was to blame for the deaths of migrants this week.
Two bodies were discovered on Wednesday, likely those of migrants attempting to enter the border illegally. One of the dead was discovered close to river buoys that are a part of Abbott’s recently constructed border barrier. The tragedy was first reported to the public by the Mexican government, which also blamed the deaths on the buoys; Abbott’s office later refuted the theory.
“The Mexican government is flat-out wrong,” said Abbott’s spokesman Andrew Mahaleris, according to the Washington Examiner. “To be clear, preliminary information points to the drowning occurring before the body was even near the barriers. The Texas Department of Public Safety previously reported to Border Patrol the dead body floating upstream from the barriers in the Rio Grande.”
The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) reportedly informed the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs of a “lifeless body caught in the southern part of the buoys.”
According to Texas DPS Lt. Chris Olivarez, the buoy did not cause the death; rather, the river’s water carried the body “down into the buoy,” as reported by the Examiner.
According to Olivarez, the 1,000-foot line of buoys is positioned in a shallow spot where it is simple to cross the river on foot.
“The water is between knee and waist level,” Olivarez said. “There’s no way the body would have drowned there. … There’s nothing in the buoy — no objects, no sharp objects, no wire, no hook.”
The second body that was retrieved, according to Olivarez’s report, was discovered “miles upstream from the marine barriers.”
The river barrier built by Abbott, according to Mexico, is a “violation of our sovereignty.”
“We express our concern about the impact on the human rights and personal safety of immigrants that these state policies will have, which go in the opposite direction to the close collaboration between our country and the federal government of the United States,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
Along with Abbott, the US government has sued Texas for Abbott’s installation of the buoys. The Department of Justice asserts that Texas’ construction of the barriers was illegal and cites humanitarian concerns.
“The floating barrier poses a risk to navigation, as well as public safety, in the Rio Grande River, and it presents humanitarian concerns,” a warning letter from the department said.
The DOJ lawsuit argues that Texas is violating the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899, a law that prohibits the “creation of any obstruction not affirmatively authorized by Congress, to the navigable capacity of any of the waters of the United States.”
Abbott’s office said migrant drownings happen all too often, in part, because of the Biden administration’s border policies.
“If President Biden and [Mexican] President Lopez Obrador truly cared about human life, they would do their jobs and secure the border,” Mahaleris said.
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