Texas Governor Greg Abbott placed a floating barrier in the Rio Grande River to stop an “unprecedented invasion of Texas by transnational criminal cartels and potential terrorists,” a new legal document claims.
As part of Operation Lone Star, which Abbott launched in March 2021, Texas deployed thousands of Texas National Guard soldiers and placed razor wire along the border. Simultaneously, large floating buoys, separated by circular saw-like sheets of metal, have been put in the Rio Grande in an attempt to stop river crossings.
The federal government is suing Texas to have the barriers removed, arguing that they are interfering with the U.S. government’s right to patrol the borders.
It’s part of a long-running dispute between Abbott and the federal government over his attempts to stop people illegally crossing from Mexico into Texas.
Both sides have filed briefs in a Texas federal court, setting out the witnesses and exhibits they propose to use.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott. The Governor is refusing a federal government demand that he lift floating barriers along the southern border.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Newsweek sought email comment from Greg Abbott’s office on Tuesday.
Texas wants the court to accept an agreed set of facts between the two sides, that Texas “caused the Floating Buoy Barrier to be placed in the Rio Grande River about two miles downstream from the Camino Real International Bridge in Maverick County, Texas, in July 2023” and that they did not seek a permit to do so from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Texas also wants the court to accept that the floating barrier “has since at least August 31, 2023, been located entirely within the boundaries of the United States of America and the State of Texas.”
In its filing, Texas rejects that its actions are a violation of the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899, which prevents states from blocking a “navigable water of the United States.”
“The Rio Grande River is not navigable within the meaning of the RHA at the location of the Floating Buoy Barrier,” its filing states.
It also states that the court should not grant the federal government an injunction against Texas.
“The nonexistent harm to commercial navigation caused by the Floating Buoy Barrier is far outweighed by the detriment to Texas, its citizens and communities, and the nation that would be caused by an injunction to remove the Floating Buoy Barrier. The relief Plaintiff seeks plainly disserves, rather than furthers, the public interest,” it states.
It also included a number of proposed exhibits including a “video of the Rio Grande River in the vicinity of Eagle Pass” and a “video of the segment of the Rio Grande River between River Mile Markers 275.5 and 610.”
Texas also wants to submit a video “taken Sep. 20, 2023, in the vicinity of the buoys.”
In its filing the U.S. completely rejected Texas’ argument that it was exempt from the federal navigable river laws because Texas is facing an invasion from Mexico. U.S. federal lawyers wrote that this was a “novel” idea that was totally without merit.
The federal lawyers also objected to Texas’ request to call three expert witnesses who would talk about navigable rivers.
“The United States moves to limit cumulative testimony of Carlos Rubinstein, Herman Settemeyer, and Kathy Alexander. Based on their designations, reports, and deposition testimony, the three will provide redundant and cumulative testimony, consisting of identical opinions about the supposed legal requirements of water rights permitting … and the supposed impossibility of changing water preferences under various laws and treaties.”
“The United States does not seek to exclude all three of them, but no more than one witness should be necessary to give these opinions,” the U.S. states.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.