AUSTIN, Texas — The Justice Department has informed Texas {that a} floating barrier of wrecking ball-sized buoys the state placed on the Rio Grande violates federal regulation and raises humanitarian issues for migrants crossing into the U.S. from Mexico.
President Joe Biden’s administration informed Republican Gov. Greg Abbott that the barrier put in this month close to the border city of Eagle Pass, Texas, was “unlawful” in a letter dated Thursday and obtained by The Associated Press.
“The floating barrier poses a risk to navigation, as well as public safety, in the Rio Grande River, and it presents humanitarian concerns,” reads the letter, which additionally informs the state that the Justice Department intends to sue if the boundaries aren’t eliminated.
Abbott’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark Friday, however on Twitter, the governor wrote that Texas was appearing inside its rights.
“Texas has the sovereign authority to defend our border,” Abbott tweeted.
The buoys are the most recent escalation of Abbott’s multibillion-dollar operation to safe the state’s 1,200-mile (1,930-kilometer) border with Mexico. Other measures have included razor-wire fencing and arresting migrants on trespassing prices. The mission referred to as Operation Lone Star got here below new scrutiny after a trooper mentioned migrants had been denied water and that orders got to push asylum-seekers again into the Rio Grande.
The Texas Department of Public Safety mentioned this week that the trooper’s accounts, which have been made in an e mail to a supervisor, are below inner investigation.
The buoy barrier covers 1,000 ft (305 meters) of the center of the Rio Grande, with anchors within the riverbed.
Eagle Pass is a part of a Border Patrol sector that has seen the second-highest variety of migrant crossings this fiscal yr with about 270,000 encounters – although that’s decrease than it was right now final yr.
The Biden administration has mentioned unlawful border crossings have declined considerably since new immigration guidelines took impact in May as pandemic-related asylum restrictions expired.
• Associated Press reporter Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington contributed to this report.
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