AUSTIN — Texas’ installation of a razor wire fence, which has led to an increase in migrant injuries, and a floating border barrier along the Rio Grande violates international law, Mexican officials and experts said.
Gov. Greg Abbott has also openly touted that Texas is ignoring federal permitting requirements when placing any structure along waterways.
U.S. State Department officials said Texas repeatedly ignored requests for proper inspection of wiring and buoys to ensure they do not violate any international treaties.
“We aren’t asking for permission,” Abbott tweeted in March, referring to the state’s erecting 60 miles of concertina wire.
Shortly before a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper sent an internal memo detailing what he called inhumane treatment at the border, Mexico’s incoming foreign affairs secretary sent a diplomatic memo to the United States accusing Texas officials of violating bilateral treaties from 1944 and 1970.
On Friday in Mexico City, top Mexican diplomat Alicia Bárcena told reporters she issued the memo on June 26 and is sending a team to inspect the razor wire fencing and floating buoys Texas installed.
“The Mexican Government requested the United States that the buoys mentioned, just like the razor wire fencing, should be removed from the channel of the Rio Grande due to obstruction and deviation of runoffs toward Mexican territory,” a press release from her office noted.
The Dallas Morning News asked spokespeople for several state and federal agencies to respond to Mexico’s concerns.
In a written statement Monday, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said Texas did not consult the federal government before laying down the wiring or buoys.
Travis Considine, a spokesman for Texas DPS, said agency officials will not comment on the diplomatic note because they have not seen it.
Andrew Mahaleris, an Abbott spokesman, said the governor’s office has not received any communications from President Joe Biden’s administration or the Department of Homeland Security about the wiring or the buoys.
Mahaleris did not respond to questions about whether Texas was violating the treaties or skirting permitting requirements. Mahaleris instead cited Biden’s immigration policies.
“The absence of razor wire makes the job of Texas National Guard soldiers and DPS troopers more dangerous and difficult,” Mahaleris said in a statement. “The real problem is that President Biden’s open border policies have unleashed chaos on the border that’s unsustainable.”
Abbott’s office did respond on Tuesday afternoon to reporting that state troopers are being told to push migrants back into the Rio Grande. A joint statement was issued by DPS Director Steve McCraw, Texas Border Czar Mike Banks and Texas Adjutant General Major General Thomas Suelzer.
“No orders or directions have been given under Operation Lone Star that would compromise the lives of those attempting to cross the border illegally,” the statement read.
A story published Monday by The News, sent by a DPS trooper who is a part of Operation Lone Star, detailed how officials were ordered not to give migrants water.
Stephen Mumme, a professor of political science at Colorado State University who has written a book on international policy of the waterways along the U.S.-Mexico border said Mexican officials are correct in saying Texas is violating the law with the wire fencing and buoys.
“The language and the treaties are very clear,” Mumme said. “It would survive any judicial test in an international arena ... The law is on Mexico’s side.”
Mexican government officials are not alone in raising concerns about Texas’ border operations.
In an unsigned internal memo obtained by The News, an official of U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Eagle Pass Station wrote that the razor wire is affecting agents’ visibility and stopping their ability to cross into the river to potentially save migrants who are in danger. The wire also is blocking access to the Rio Grande, the June 26 memo read. The memo was first reported by the Houston Chronicle.
“The concertina wire inhibits agents from effectively and efficiently apprehending at risk population (i.e. family units with infants and unaccompanied children),” it noted. “With water levels increasing and the concertina wire placed inside the river poses a high risk of injury as the wire is submerged and not visible.”
A 19-year-old pregnant woman was also caught in the razor wire while undergoing a miscarriage, an internal email from a DPS trooper said.
McCraw wrote in an internal email over the weekend that the razor wire had led to an increase in injuries for migrants. In the previous week, McCraw wrote, DPS identified seven incidents where migrants were injured from the wire.
The email included photos of migrants in which staples were required to close lacerations.
On Tuesday afternoon, Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, said the allegations raised in the email by the DPS trooper were “appalling.” He called on the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, to call for a hearing to determine how taxpayer dollars are being used.
“I will not and hopefully my colleagues won’t sit idly by while state taxpayer dollars fund cruelty and human rights abuses,” West said in a statement.
