By: Marina Han
The state of Texas will set up a 1,000-foot floating barrier of buoys in the heart of Rio Grande and its main purpose is to prevent migrants from entering the U.S., Gov. Greg Abott explained on Thursday.
Abott said that the floating barrier is made up of buoys that are 4 feet wide and it will be placed in the water off the city of Eagle Pass, which Texas officials said is set on a section of the border that is a common place for migrant crossings. It is a part of Texas’s big project on preventing migrants from entering the U.S. This is just one of the efforts made by multiple Republican leaders which focus on ending the migration of Mexicans.
Last month, the Texas Legislature approved a two-year budget for $5.1 billion in border security and the buoy barrier is only one of the parts of Texas’s program to deter crossings. Other facets of this program include the deployment of National Guard members and state police, the spreading of concertina wire along the banks of Rio Grande, and more.
Steve McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, shared that the first stretch of the buoy barrier will cost around $1 billion.
Although the first step of this barrier only covers a small fragment of the 1,254-mile border in Texas, Abott said that the buoys system can be expanded to other hot spots.
“We can put mile after mile after mile of these buoys,” he explained at a news conference where there are also photos showing how the barrier will look like when it is deployed on July 7. “When we’re dealing with gatherings of 100 or 1,000, one of the goals is to slow down and deter as many of them as possible.” Other versions of the barrier include spikes, which may be very harmful.
Abott’s plan is the latest attempt by Republican leaders to place attention on the immense amount of migrants that are entering the U.S. They have criticized the federal government and the President for not doing more to prevent thousands of migrants from coming in every single day.
On Wednesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida flew 3 dozen migrants from El Paso, Texas to Sacramento, California to attempt to combat the immigrant-friendly policies of California Democrats whom he said had “incentivized” more migrants.
Abott, a Republican, is joining the others against the migrants. From the beginning, Eagle Pass was a small city that had struggled to maintain all of the migrants that entered Mexico. The officials there welcomed Abott’s efforts to prevent this.
“If this means less people will be crossing illegally through the heart of Eagle Pass, we support it,” shared Rolando Salinas Jr., the mayor. “We want to avoid any interruption to our international bridges and our downtown businesses.”
Roberto De Leon, the chief deputy sheriff in Maverick County, which contains Eagle Pass, said that so many migrants from Mexico have been drowning in their area that deputies have to pull at least 1 dead body every day out of the river. “Anything that keeps us from finding a dead body on the side of the river, I’m for,” he shared.
However effective this barrier may seem, Rodolfo Rosales Jr., a state director with the Texas Branch of the League of United Latin American Citizens, explained that “it’s not going to stop people from coming.”
McCaw shared that the barrier had been tested and that although there might be some ways of getting over it, it would be an obstacle. “This is a deterrent from even coming in the water,” he said.
Overall, the barrier is just one plan to deter migrants. Hopefully, it will not cause harm to anyone who tries to pass through it. Mexicans trying to pass through and cause bigger problems.