EAGLE PASS, Texas – It’s been a year since Texas installed a floating barrier into the Rio Grande. Now one researcher says the buoys are barely floating at all.
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Last July, workers installed one-thousand feet of orange buoys, meant to deter migrants from illegally crossing into the United States through dangerous parts of the river. The move was quickly met with pushback and lawsuits that still haven’t concluded.
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The state installed the orange, wrecking ball-sized buoys last July. The barrier stretches about 1000 feet along the international border with Mexico between the Texas border city of Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, Coahuila.
In December, a divided panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had sided with a federal district judge in Texas who said the buoys must be moved. But the panel’s 2-1 ruling after was vacated in January when a majority of the conservative-dominated court’s 17 active judges voted to rehear the case. An 18th judge who is on part-time senior status and was on the three-member panel also participated with the full court Wednesday.
The Biden administration also is fighting for the right to cut razor-wire fencing at the border and for access to a city park at the border that the state fenced off.