Greg Abbott slammed by Texas lawmakers for ‘cruel’ floating border barriers with ‘chainsaw devices’

Texas has been sued for controversial floating border barriers

Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus criticised Texas governor Greg Abbott for deploying “cruel and inhumane” tactics like razor-tipped buoys as part of his controversial effort to lock down the US-Mexico border.

“Today was eye-opening,” Rep Sylvia Garcia of Texas wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, sharing a video of orange buoys used in the Rio Grande which are separated with blade saw-like barbed disks. “Seeing the barbaric, inhumane, and ungodly practices in my home state of Texas. This is beyond politics and crosses a line into human rights violations.”

“Everyone needs to see what I saw in Eagle Pass today,” said Texas congressman Joaquin Castro in his own dispatch from the border. “Clothing stuck on razor wire where families got trapped. Chainsaw devices in the middle of buoys. Land seized from US citizens. Operation Lone Star is barbaric — and Governor Abbott is making border communities collateral damage.”

The Texas governor has insisted that the buoys and razor wire he’s installed across the border between the state and Mexico will save lives by deterring migration.

However, as The Independent has reported, advocates and Texas troopers are warning the tools are already putting people at risk.

In July, a Texas state border medic named Nicholas Wingate went public with allegations that the border barriers were already causing severe injuries, and that he and his fellow troopers were ordered, as part of the governor’s Operation Lone Star, to push exhausted migrants back into the river and refuse to offer them water. (The state denies this order existed.)

“I believe we have stepped over a line into the inhumane,” he told his superiors, in messages shared with media outlets.

Last week, Mexican officials informed the state of Texas that two bodies were found in the Rio Grande: one ensnared in Governor Greg Abbott’s controversial floating border wall, and another in a nearby area.

Critics allege the border build-up cause these deaths, though the cause of death for the two people found hasn’t been determined yet.

Guardsmen watch as migrants try to cross the Rio Grande from Mexico into the US near Eagle Pass, Texas, in July (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Despite years of border security installations and billions invested across multiple state and federal administrations, migration continues to increase, hitting a record in December.

“It’s been proven time after time that these so-called prevention through deterrence strategies don’t work,” Fernando García of the Border Network for Human Rights told The Independent last month. “They have not stopped immigration flows, but what they have done is they have put immigrants at risk.”

“It’s very likely that with [the floating buoy wall] they are looking for more remote and isolated places to come across so that whenever they are in danger by heat exhaustion, by drowning, they will not have anybody to help them,” he added, saying he worries it could be a record year for migrant deaths in the Rio Grande.

Members of Congress and human rights activists aren’t the only ones taking issue with the border barriers.

Last month, a local kayak guide in Eagle Pass named Jessie Fuentes sued the state, arguing it doesn’t have authority to erect a floating border barrier in the Rio Grande.

“You’ve taken a beautiful waterway and you’ve converted it into a war zone,” he toldThe Independent.

The Department of Justice has also sued the state, arguing it violated federal waterways laws.

Texas has insisted it has legal authority to carry out such measures, some of which it argues are allowed under a controversial reading of the US Constitution granting states war powers when theyr’e under invasion.

Legal experts told The Independent this is a mistaken reading of the clause, which was intended to cover invasion by military forces, not regular immigration by civilians.

“The theory that Abbott is relying on here is that the influx of undocumented individuals is an actual invasion. That also doesn’t pass muster,” Katherine Yon Ebright, counsel at the Brennan Center’s Liberty & National Security Program, told The Independent.