Mexico blames Texas border buoys for migrant deaths, Abbott denies responsibility.
Texas Governor Rejects Mexican Government’s Claims About Migrant Deaths
Texas Republican Governor Gregg Abbott has dismissed allegations from the Mexican government that blamed the deaths of migrants on a buoy barrier installed by his state in the Rio Grande.
On Wednesday, two bodies, believed to be of migrants attempting to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border, were found. One of the bodies was recovered near the buoys in the river, which are part of Abbott’s newly installed border barrier. The Mexican government was the first to report the incident and linked the deaths to the buoys, but Abbott’s office refuted this explanation.
“The Mexican government is flat-out wrong,” said Abbott’s spokesman Andrew Mahaleris, according to the Washington Examiner. “To be clear, preliminary information points to the drowning occurring before the body was even near the barriers. The Texas Department of Public Safety previously reported to Border Patrol the dead body floating upstream from the barriers in the Rio Grande.”
The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that it was informed by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) about a “lifeless body caught in the southern part of the buoys.” However, Texas DPS Lt. Chris Olivarez clarified that the river’s stream moved the dead body ”down into the buoy,” emphasizing that the buoy did not cause the death. Olivarez explained that the 1,000-foot stretch of buoys is located in a shallow area where it is easy to walk across the river.
“The water is between knee and waist level,” Olivarez said. “There’s no way the body would have drowned there. … There’s nothing in the buoy — no objects, no sharp objects, no wire, no hook.”
Olivarez also mentioned that Mexico acknowledged the second recovered body was found ”miles upstream from the marine barriers.”
Mexico has claimed that Abbott’s barrier in the river is a “violation of our sovereignty.”
“We express our concern about the impact on the human rights and personal safety of immigrants that these state policies will have, which go in the opposite direction to the close collaboration between our country and the federal government of the United States,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
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The U.S. government has also targeted Abbott for installing the buoys, filing a lawsuit against Texas last month. The Department of Justice argues that it was unlawful for Texas to erect the barriers and cites humanitarian concerns.
“The floating barrier poses a risk to navigation, as well as public safety, in the Rio Grande River, and it presents humanitarian concerns,” a warning letter from the department stated.
The DOJ lawsuit claims that Texas is violating the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899, a law that prohibits the “creation of any obstruction not affirmatively authorized by Congress, to the navigable capacity of any of the waters of the United States.”
Abbott’s office argues that migrant drownings occur too frequently, partly due to the border policies of the Biden administration.
“If President Biden and [Mexican] President Lopez Obrador truly cared about human life, they would do their jobs and secure the border,” Mahaleris said.
Leif Le Mahieu contributed to this report.
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