Judge orders Texas to move buoys

Senior U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra on Wednesday granted the federal government’s motion for a preliminary injunction, ordering Texas to move the floating barrier from the “middle” of the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, which was designed to prevent migrants from crossing.

“Defendants shall, by September 15, 2023, reposition, at Defendants’ expense, and in coordination with the United States Army Corps of Engineers, all buoys, anchors, and other related materials composing the floating barrier placed by Texas in the Rio Grande in the vicinity of Eagle Pass, Texas to the bank of the Rio Grande on the Texas side of the river,” Ezra’s order states.

Lawyers for Texas submitted a filing Wednesday appealing the judge’s ruling to the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“Governor Abbott announced that he was not ‘asking for permission’ for Operation Lone Star, the anti-immigration program under which Texas constructed the floating barrier,” Ezra wrote in the 42-page order. “Unfortunately for Texas, permission is exactly what federal law requires before installing obstructions in the nation’s navigable waters.”

The motion was filed July 24 in the United States of America v. Greg Abbott et al lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.

Texas’ construction of the floating barrier violated two of the three courses of conduct by Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act, according to the lawsuit.

The first clause prohibits the creation of “any obstruction not affirmatively authorized by Congress, to the navigable capacity of any of the waters of the United States,” according to the order.

The second clause makes it unlawful “to build or commence the building of any wharf, pier, dolphin, boom, weir, breakwater, bulkhead, jetty, or other structures in any port, roadstead, haven, harbor, canal, navigable river, or other water of the United States,” according to the preliminary injunction motion.

The governor’s office stated Wednesday Texas will appeal.

“Today’s court decision merely prolongs President Biden’s willful refusal to acknowledge that Texas is rightfully stepping up to do the job that he should have been doing all along,” Gov. Abbott stated in a news release. “We will continue to utilize every strategy to secure the border, including deploying Texas National Guard soldiers and Department of Public Safety troopers and installing strategic barriers.”

He stated Texas is prepared to take this “fight” to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Around July 10, Texas began installing the floating barrier, according to the order.

“The buoys are surrounded by 68 anchors of about 3,000 lb each, and 75 anchors of about 1,000 lb each,” Ezra stated. “Attached to the bottom of about 500 feet of the floating barrier is an ‘anti-dive net’ made of stainless-steel mesh extending two feet down into the water.”

The order states Mexican officials have raised humanitarian “concerns at the diplomatic levels.”

Ezra’s order also prohibits Texas from building new or placing additional buoys, blockades or structures in the Rio Grande pending final judgment in the matter.

“The Court finds that the barrier’s threat to human life, its impairment to free and safe navigation, and its contraindication to the balance of priorities Congress struck in the [Rivers and Harbors Act] outweigh Texas’s interest in implementing its buoy barrier in the Rio Grande River,” the order states.

Since its start, Operation Lone Star has resulted in over 427,600 migrant apprehensions, over 33,800 criminal arrests and more than 30,700 felony charges, according to a Sept. 1  news release from the governor’s office.

During the border mission, the Texas Department of Public Safety seized over 426 million lethal doses of fentanyl.

“Today, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction requiring Texas to remove its floating barrier from the middle of the Rio Grande and prohibiting Texas from constructing new barriers in the river,” Justice Department Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta stated in a news release Wednesday. “We are pleased that the court ruled that the barrier was unlawful and irreparably harms diplomatic relations, public safety, navigation, and the operations of federal agency officials in and around the Rio Grande.”

Álvaro J. Corral, an assistant professor in the UTRGV Department of Political Science, said Judge Ezra’s decision in the case is “unique.”

“I don’t foresee that this appeal will go anywhere,” Corral said when asked about Abbott’s appeal. “A governor just doesn’t have this sort of, you know, what we would call plenary power to declare an invasion and then to take this action.”

Corral said Gov. Abbott is violating the Rivers and Harbors Act.

 “If you put a barrier in the middle of a river, you’re harming the navigation of that river,” he said. “And so Congress passed the law that talks about, you know, what local governments and state governments can and can’t do. And so essentially … Congress says that doing something like this isn’t allowed.”

Corral said the floating barrier may be harming U.S. Border Patrol.

“By putting these really dangerous buoys in the middle of the river, it kind of puts Border Patrol agents at risk too, right?” he said. “Because these are really sharp objects and, so, if they have to go fish up someone out of [the river], or help them … they also are running a … risk.”

UTRGV students gave their opinion on the case.

“[The buoys are] killing innocent lives,” said Melina Peralez, a mass communication junior. “The whole purpose of people wanting to come over here is that they want to start new. … They should give them a chance to start a new life … [because] the country that they are coming from isn’t giving them that option.”

 Social work freshman Samantha Fuentes said she agrees on removing the buoys. “It’s kind of scary to know that it’s killing a lot of people that they’re just trying to find, like, their freedom in another country,” Fuentes said. “Now that they are going to remove it, it’s actually a good idea.”