OAN’s Roy Francis
11:34 AM – Saturday, July 15, 2023
Mexico’s Foreign Relations Secretary said that she has sent a diplomatic note to the United States government to express the concerns of the Mexican government regarding Texas’ deployment of floating barriers on the Rio Grande.
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Alicia Barcena said that the floating barrier that has been deployed by Texas along the Rio Grande may be in violation of the 1944 and 1970 treaties on boundaries and water. She also said that the Mexican government will be sending an inspection team in order to see whether the floating barrier extends into Mexico’s side of the river.
She said that If the barrier impedes the flow of water, then it would be in violation of the treaties, which state that the river must remain unobstructed.
The floating barrier is part of Governor Greg Abbott’s (R-Texas) multibillion-dollar effort to secure the southern border.
“We’re securing the border at the border. What these buoys will allow us to do is to prevent people from even getting to the border,” Abbott said. “This strategy will proactively prevent illegal crossings between ports of entry by making it more difficult to cross the Rio Grande and reach the Texas side of the southern border.”
Other efforts that were made the governor include busing migrants to other states as well as authorizing the National Guard to make arrests in the state.
When the plan for the floating barrier was first announced, migrant advocates voiced concerns about individuals drowning as they cross the river, and environmentalists voiced concerns about the impact of the barrier on the river itself.
The deployment of the buoys in the river began in early July, and once fully installed, the above-river parts of the system, and the connected webbing will cover around 1,000 feet of the middle of the Rio Grande river, their anchors will be in the wedged into the riverbed.
Most of the work on the barrier has been focused on the stretch of the river in Eagle Pass, an area with a higher than average number of illegal crossings according to the Texas Department of Safety.
Another strategy that has been used in Eagle Pass is the placement of barbed wire on some of the low-lying islands within the river, a strategy that Barcena has also protested.
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