Afotimber Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s floating barrier on the Rio Grande came with a $1 million price tag.
Abbott has challenged President Joe Biden’s administration on its efforts to protect the U.S.-Mexico border and has clashed with the president over the immigration issue since Biden took office in 2021. Abbott has requested stricter border protocols and more assistance from the federal government to curtail illegal immigration. He also has called for the resignation of U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, who oversees the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and sent two buses of migrants to Vice President Kamala Harris’ house at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.
Most recently, Abbott paid $1 million for a 1,000-foot barrier on the Rio Grande near the Texas border town of Eagle Pass to discourage illegal border crossing.
Abbott’s decision to employ the river barrier—which is equipped with circular saws—has brought forth criticism and now faces a lawsuit after the Department of Justice (DOJ) decided to sue the state and Abbott over the barrier. The DOJ says it poses a threat to navigation and presents humanitarian concerns.
Abbott has vowed to fight the lawsuit, pledging to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.
A floating barrier to deter migrants from crossing the Rio Grande into the United States through Eagle Pass, Texas, is seen from Piedras Negras, Coahuila state, Mexico, on August 4, 2023. The barrier cost $1,000 per foot.
Guillermo Arias/AFP/Getty
Abbott has defended his decision to install the barrier, which was placed in the river in July. Abbott said the buoys would be used to prevent people getting to the U.S.-Mexico border. The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) oversaw the project, which cost $1 million for 1,000 feet of barriers, according to Border Report.
A spokesperson from Abbott’s press office told Newsweek that Texas has allocated more than $9 billion of Texas taxpayer money “to respond to President Biden’s border crisis.” Methods included “deploying Texas National Guard soldier and DPS troopers, busing migrants to self-declared sanctuary cities, building our own border wall and installing strategic barriers,” according to the statement.
Newsweek reached out to the Texas DPS by email on Friday for comment.
Some experts argued that the barrier would help save lives by deterring river crossings, which can be fatal.
“We’re looking at how to save lives, how do we prevent people getting to this situation in the first place,” Rodney Scott, former chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, said in an interview with the Texas Public Policy Foundation on YouTube. “Let’s prevent the crime rather than reacting to it afterwards, and that’s what the buoy barriers allowed us to do.”
The 4-foot-wide rotating buoys were produced by Cochrane Global. The company confirmed to Newsweek that it produced the controversial floating barriers, fitted with metal circular saws, but said that the company is “not really commenting at the moment.”
A Cochrane Global webpage dedicated to the floating buoys described them as providing “effective deterrence of intruders.”
The floating wall is Abbott’s latest attempt in a multibillion-dollar effort to secure the U.S.-Mexico border. Other controversial methods include new razor-wire structures near Eagle Pass and that officers working for Abbott’s border force were allegedly told not to give migrants water in extreme heat.
However, data shows that law enforcement apprehensions of illegal border crossings have fallen by 42 percent since May. Newsweek reported that in June, law enforcement officers apprehended 99,545 people on suspicion of illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. It is the first time the number was below 100,000 since February 2021.
Republican officials have continued to criticize the federal government in regards to its actions at the U.S.-Mexico border, and some of them, like Abbott, are taking matters into their own hands.