Texas will place a floating barrier between the US and Mexico

The state of Texas will erect a 300-foot floating barrier in the middle of the Rio Grande to prevent migrants from entering the United States, Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday, the latest in a series of escalating maneuvers by state leaders to stop illegal crossings.

Mr Abbott said the barrier, a floating border wall made of four-foot-wide buoys, would first be placed in the water at the town of Eagle Pass, an already heavily fortified section of the border that Texan officials have said is a prime location for migrant crossings.

While the floating barrier would only cover a small portion of the 1,254-mile border in Texas, Mr. Abbott that the buoys could be moved to other hotspots and expanded in the future.

“We can lay mile after mile after mile of these buoys,” Mr Abbott said at a press conference, flanked by photographs showing what the barrier would look like deployed once on 7 July. “When we’re dealing with gatherings of 100 or 1,000, one of the goals is to slow down and deter as many as possible.”

The announcement by Mr. Abbott, a third-term Republican, was the latest attempt by Republican state leaders to draw attention to the large numbers of migrants seeking asylum in the United States, many of them entering through Texas.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was credited Wednesday for flying three dozen migrants on two recent charter flights from El Paso, Texas, to Sacramento, California, as part of an effort to challenge California Democrats’ immigrant-friendly policies he said it had “encouraged” more migrants to cross the border.

In recent weeks, more than a dozen Republican governors, including Mr. DeSantis and the governors of Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia, have sent local police and members of the National Guard to the Mexico border in response to a request from Mr. Abbott .

Some federal border restrictions lifted last month with the expiration of a Trump administration policy begun during the pandemic had led to rapid deportations of many migrants under public health rules, but the change was accompanied by other new controls and did not lead to to a strong increase in migration.

Yet Mr Abbott and other Republican leaders have criticized the federal government and President Biden for not doing more to deter the arrival of thousands of migrants a day.

The buoy barrier joined other steps Texas had taken in its multibillion-dollar program to discourage crossings, including deploying members of the National Guard and state police and spreading concertina wire along the banks of the Rio Grande. The Texas legislature last month approved a two-year budget that includes $5.1 billion in border security spending.

The first piece of floating barrier, built by Cochrane USA, would cost $1 million, said Steve McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety. Other versions of the barrier, although not the one depicted in Mr Abbott’s presentation, including spikes.

Officials in Eagle Pass, a small town that has struggled to accommodate the large number of arriving migrants, welcomed Mr Abbott’s efforts.

“If this means fewer people will be illegally passing through the heart of Eagle Pass, we support that,” said Rolando Salinas Jr., the mayor. “We want to prevent any disruption to our international bridges and our downtown businesses.”

Asked if he was concerned the barrier could lead to dangerous conditions for those attempting to swim, Mr. Salinas that the Rio Grande was never intended to be an official crossing. “People shouldn’t be crossing there to begin with,” he said.

Roberto De Leon, the deputy chief sheriff in Maverick County, which includes Eagle Pass, said so many migrants had drowned in their area that deputies pull one or two bodies out of the river every day.

“Anything that keeps us from finding a body on the side of the river, that’s what I’m for,” he said.

Officials on the Mexican side of the border, in the state of Coahuila, did not respond to a request for comment.

Texas immigration advocates said Gov. Abbott’s plans to place a barrier in the middle of the Rio Grande amounted to another political stunt at the expense of desperate people.

“He’s using this as political theater, to promote his MAGA agenda, and it’s not going to stop people from coming,” said Rodolfo Rosales Jr., a state director with the Texas chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens .

Mr McCraw said the barrier had been tested and although there were some ways to get over it, it would be difficult.

When asked if the barrier would pose new dangers to migrants, particularly those with children, he said it would deter families from entering the river. “This is a deterrent to even getting in the water,” said Mr. McCraw.