EAGLE PASS — In a park near the Rio Grande, where families once celebrated reunions and athletes played soccer and baseball, concertina wire dominates. Helicopters take off and land. Empty shipping containers form a line, with a string of buoys floating downstream to deter migrants from crossing into the U.S.
Eagle Pass, a city of 28,000 residents, is trying to adapt to policies that have upended life here and across the border in Piedras Negras, Mexico. Earlier this week, two dead migrants were found on or near the buoy barriers.
The Texas Department of Public Safety denied that either migrant died by getting entangled in the barriers.
Jessie Fuentes, who owns Epi’s Canoe and Kayak Team, has spent his life along the river. Fuentes said he is suing the State of Texas and Gov. Greg Abbott over the barrier and its environmental impact. His business, which for years has offered lessons and tours, has come to a grinding halt, he said.
Fuentes’ lawsuit is one of two Texas is facing regarding the buoys. The Justice Department filed a lawsuit last month to try to force Texas to remove the floating barrier.
On Friday, a federal judge for the Western District of Texas scheduled an Aug. 22 hearing to consider the Justice Department’s call for an injunction requiring Texas to remove the barrier within 10 days.
Texas filed a motion earlier this week asking the court to combine both lawsuits.
‘A slap to the face’
“We’re right here in front of the buoys … and the flow of the river has already been changed by those buoys in the river,” Fuentes said. “What the governor has done is a slap to the face of our community, to our history, our way of life and our culture.”
Abbott has defended the buoys, saying he is protecting the state from an “invasion.” He has accused President Joe Biden of failing to properly enforce federal immigration laws.
Construction of the buoy barriers began four weeks ago as the latest escalation in Abbott’s $10 billion border security effort dubbed Operation Lone Star, which includes deployments of state troopers and the National Guard.
In its lawsuit, the Justice Department accused Abbott of breaking a law that bans installing objects that would obstruct a navigable waterway. The Justice Department then asked the court to block further construction along the Rio Grande and remove the hundreds of feet of buoys that have already been installed.
The barriers comprise buoys 4-feet in diameter, strung together in lengths of 1,000 feet. They are not wrapped in razor wire as early reports indicated, but there are sharp metal strips between each one, ensuring cuts for anyone who might try to climb through the narrow gap.
Floating barrier
The buoys received greater scrutiny this week after two bodies were found in the area of the floating barrier, Mexico Foreign Affairs Secretary Alicia Bárcena said.
One of the victims has been identified as a 20-year-old Honduran man. The man was found Wednesday a few miles from the buoys. Bárcena said a woman recognized him as her son because of tattoos on the body.
The Texas Department of Public Safety found the other victim stuck to the floating buoys. That person’s identity is still unknown. Texas DPS Director Steve McCraw has said the victim was already dead when he got stuck.
“Preliminary information suggests this individual drowned upstream from the marine barrier and floated into the buoys,” he said in a statement Thursday. “There are personnel posted at the marine barrier at all times in case any migrants try to cross.”
Spokespeople for Abbott and DPS did not respond to questions Friday asking if there was additional information regarding the deaths.
Mexican officials said Friday they don’t know the name or nationality of that person. Authorities found no identification papers, and no relative or anyone else has stepped forward.
Abbott spokesman Andrew Mahaleris said Thursday that four migrants drowned in the Rio Grande in July — before the barriers were installed — and blamed the deaths of migrants who have drowned in the last few years on Biden and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Alicia Chavarria, 59, a Piedras Negras resident, spends much of her time with friends and family in Eagle Pass. She wondered what other security measures might be added to the Rio Grande. “All they need are crocodiles,” she said. “We want our river back.”
But across Eagle Pass, you’ll find other perspectives. Jacqueline Barrientos, owner of the Bluebonnet Baked Goods, said she supports Abbott’s Operation Lone Star as “necessary for our community to feel safe.”
“But it won’t stop the migrants from crossing,” she said. “Anyone who wants to cross will find a way to do so.”
Staff writer Alfredo Corchado reported from Eagle Pass. Staff writer Aarón Torres reported from Austin.
