{"id":15903,"date":"2023-07-25T03:28:37","date_gmt":"2023-07-25T08:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=15903"},"modified":"2023-07-25T03:28:42","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T08:28:42","slug":"texas-is-using-disaster-declarations-to-install-buoys-and-razor-wire-on-the-us-mexico-border","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=15903","title":{"rendered":"Texas is using disaster declarations to install buoys and razor wire on the US-Mexico border"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

EAGLE PASS, Texas (AP) \u2014 Wrecking ball-sized buoys on the Rio Grande<\/u><\/a>. Razor wire strung across private property without permission. Bulldozers changing the very terrain of America\u2019s southern border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more than two years, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has escalated measures<\/u><\/a> to keep migrants from entering the U.S., pushing legal boundaries with a go-it-alone bravado along the state\u2019s 1,200-mile (1,930-kilometer) border with Mexico. Now blowback over the tactics is widening, including from within Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A state trooper\u2019s account<\/u><\/a> of officers denying migrants water in 100-degree Fahrenheit (37.7 Celsius) temperatures and razor wire leaving asylum-seekers bloodied has prompted renewed criticism. The Mexican government, some Texas residents along the border and the Biden administration are pushing back. On Monday, the U.S. Justice Department sued Abbott over the buoy barrier<\/u><\/a> that it says raises humanitarian and environmental concerns, asking a federal court to require Texas to dismantle it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abbott, who cruised to a third term in November while promising tougher border crackdowns, has used disaster declarations as the legal bedrock for some measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics call that a warped view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>\u201cThere are so many ways that what Texas is doing right now is just flagrantly illegal,\u201d said David Donatti, an attorney for the Texas American Civil Liberties Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abbott did not respond to requests for comment. He has repeatedly attacked President Joe Biden\u2019s border policies, tweeting Friday that they \u201cencourage migrants to risk their lives crossing illegally through the Rio Grande, instead of safely and legally over a bridge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Biden administration has said illegal border crossings have declined significantly since new immigration rules took effect in May<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ALTERED BORDER<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Under the international bridge connecting Eagle Pass, Texas, with Piedras Negras, Mexico, protesters gathered at Shelby Park this month, chanting \u201csave the river\u201d and blowing a conch shell in a ceremony. A few yards away, crews unloaded neon-orange buoys from trailers parked by a boat ramp off the Rio Grande.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jessie Fuentes stood with the environmental advocates, watching as state troopers restricted access to the water where he holds an annual kayak race. Shipping containers and layers of concertina wire lined the riverbank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The experienced kayaker often took clients and race participants into the water through a shallow channel formed by a border island covered in verdant brush. That has been replaced by a bulldozed stretch of barren land connected to the mainland and fortified with razor wire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe river is a federally protected river by so many federal agencies, and I just don\u2019t know how it happened,\u201d Fuentes told the Eagle Pass City Council the night before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither did the City Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel like the state government has kind of bypassed local government in a lot of different ways. And so I felt powerless at times,\u201d council member Elias Diaz told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The International Boundary of Water Commission says it was not notified when Texas modified several islands or deployed the massive buoys<\/u><\/a> to create a barrier covering 1,000 feet (305 meters) of the middle of the Rio Grande, with anchors in the riverbed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abbott on Monday sent a letter to Biden that defended Texas\u2019 right to install the barrier. He accused Biden of putting migrants at risk by not doing more to deter them from making the journey to the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The floating barrier also provoked tension with Mexico,<\/u><\/a> which says it violates treaties. Mexico\u2019s secretary of foreign relations asked the U.S. government to remove the buoys and razor wire in a June letter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fuentes sued over the buoys, arguing that border crossings are not covered by the Texas Disaster Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the river islands, the Texas General Land Office gave the state Department of Public Safety access starting in April \u201cto curb the ongoing border crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAdditionally, the General Land Office will also permit vegetation management, provided compliance with all applicable state and federal regulations is upheld,\u201d said a letter<\/u><\/a> from the office\u2019s commissioner, Dawn Buckingham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Texas Military Department cleared out carrizo cane, which Buckingham\u2019s office called an \u201cinvasive plant\u201d in its response to questions from the AP, and changed the landscape, affecting the river\u2019s flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Environmental experts are concerned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs far as I know, if there\u2019s flooding in the river, it\u2019s much more severe in Piedras Negras than it is in Eagle Pass because that\u2019s the lower side of the river. And so next time the river really gets up, it\u2019s going to push a lot of water over on the Mexican side, it looks like to me,\u201d said Tom Vaughan, a retired professor and co-founder of the Rio Grande International Study Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fuentes recently sought special permission from the city and DPS to navigate through his familiar kayaking route.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSince they rerouted the water on the island, the water is flowing differently,\u201d Fuentes said. \u201cI can feel it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state declined to release any records that might detail the environmental impacts of the buoys or changes to the landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Escalon, a DPS regional director overseeing Del Rio down to Brownsville, pointed to the governor\u2019s emergency disaster declaration. \u201cWe do everything we can to prevent crime, period. And that\u2019s the job,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TRESPASSING TO STOP TRESPASSERS<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For one property owner, the DPS mission cut him out of his land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2021, as Eagle Pass became the preferred route by migrants crossing into the U.S., Magali and Hugo Urbina bought a pecan orchard by the river that they called Heavenly Farms.<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hugo Urbina worked with DPS when the agency built a fence on his property and arrested migrants for trespassing. But the relationship turned acrimonious a year later after DPS asked to put up concertina wire on riverfront property that the Urbinas were leasing to the U.S. Border Patrol to process immigrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hugo Urbina wanted DPS to sign a lease that would release him from liability if the wire caused injuries. DPS declined but still installed concertina wire, moved vehicles onto the property and shut the Urbinas\u2019 gates. That cut off the Border Patrol\u2019s access to the river, though it still leases land from Urbina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey do whatever it is that they want,\u201d Urbina said this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The farmer, a Republican, calls it \u201cpoison politics.\u201d Critics call it d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI also really see a very strong correlation to the Trump and post-Trump era in which most of the Trump administration\u2019s immigration policy was aggressive and extreme and very violative of people\u2019s rights, and very focused on making the political point,\u201d said Aron Thorn, an attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project. \u201cThe design of this is the optics and the amount of things that they sacrifice for those optics now is quite extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DPS works with 300 landowners, according to Escalon. He said it is unusual for the department to take over a property without the landowner\u2019s consent, but the agency says the Disaster Act provides the authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Urbina said he supports the governor\u2019s efforts, \u201cbut not in this way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t go out there and start breaking the law and start making your citizens feel like they\u2019re second-hand citizens,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EAGLE PASS, Texas (AP) \u2014 Wrecking ball-sized buoys on the Rio Grande. Razor wire strung across private property without permission. Bulldozers changing the very terrain of America\u2019s southern border. For more than two years, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has escalated measures to keep migrants from entering the U.S., pushing legal boundaries with a go-it-alone bravado along the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":15904,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[10097,10096,3392,1298,8707],"class_list":["post-15903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-installed-buoys","tag-legal-boundaries","tag-razor-wire","tag-texas","tag-us-mexico-border-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15905,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15903\/revisions\/15905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}