This Tuesday, the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the State of Texas prepared to battle in the courts over border security. CNN This Morning covered Texas’s controversial buoy border and portrayed the red state as apathetic to the plight of migrants.
The stream of migrants strained Texas’s resources due to inadequate support from the federal government. In response, the state introduced its Lone Star policy to deter migrants from crossing into the United States illegally. Recently, they added a 1,000-foot buoy chain with underwater fencing.
The DoJ ordered Texas to remove the barrier, citing the Rivers and Harbors Act which prevented any structures from being built in navigable waterways without approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Texas Governor Gregg Abbott refused to comply with the DoJ, quoting his right to protect his state’s border. The DoJ sued Texas, but Abbott said Texas would fight the order in the courts.
We will litigate it initially in Federal District Court in the state of Texas. If we lose there, we will be going to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and, eventually, all the way to the United States Supreme Court because Texas is defending its sovereignty and its constitutional right to secure the border of our state and our country.
CNN featured migrants attempting to cross into the United States illegally as the victims of an apathetic Texas, attempting to amass support for the DoJ’s case. CNN correspondent Rosa Flores listed instances where the concertina wire used to secure the border hampered migrants seeking to cross.
Ironically, the controversial buoy chain covered a small section of the river, and many migrants easily circumvented the barrier. The buoy lawsuit merely represented the larger, ongoing partisan struggle over border control.
“But if you take a look at your –at our camera right now, you can see like these are women and children who have skirted all of these border barriers, and what they are having to do is walk along this concertina wire,” Flores explained.
Flores’s examples drew attention to the more significant border crisis, not the buoys. Migrants continued to make the dangerous attempt to enter the US despite the short string of buoys.
While Flores portrayed Texas’s policies as apathetic to migrants, loose border policies from the left harmed migrants and led to misguided expectations and deadly crossing attempts. Last year, 51 migrants died in a truck when coyotes abandoned them in the Texas heat. Migrants also drowned while attempting to cross long before Texas deployed buoys. Border towns struggled to handle buses full of migrants relocated by the U.S. Government. U.S. infrastructure should never endanger migrants, but open borders cause far more problems and hazards than they solve.
CNN's disapproval of Texas Border Policy was made possible by a Liberty Mutual sponsorship.
The Transcript is below, click "expand" to read.
CNN This Morning
7/25/2023
8:08 AM Eastern
ERICA HILL: Well, this morning, Texas is refusing to remove its border barriers in the Rio Grande even as the federal government sues. Governor Gregg Abbott vowing now to fight the Biden administration in court.
[start clip]
GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): We will litigate it initially in Federal District Court in the state of Texas. If we lose there, we will be going to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and eventually, all the way to the United States Supreme Court because Texas is defending its sovereignty and its constitutional right to secure the border of our state and our country.
[end clip]
HILL: The Biden administration is asking a federal judge to force Texas to get rid of that floating barrier put in there to deter migrants. The barrier itself is about 1,000 feet long. The governor says there is a fence-like device hanging from it to the bottom of the river. Well, the Justice Department here says this is not only dangerous but also illegal.
CNN’s Rosa Flores is live in Eagle Pass, Texas near the border this morning. The government saying it's illegal not because of immigration issues. We should point out there it's a different statute. Give us a sense this morning; what are you seeing on the ground?
ROSA FLORES: Well, we actually just shot video, Erica, of migrants, and these are children and women who are walking along the concertina wire on the Rio Grande again to the point that all of this is happening. There is this giant legal battle, and it's not stopping illegal immigration. But let me show you the border barrier that’s at the center of this legal battle. Because if you look, you have to look beyond two sets of concertina wire and then you see the buoys in the middle of the river.
Now, according to the US DOJ’s lawsuit against the state of Texas, these buoys were deployed unlawfully. The state of Texas did not obtain permits before deploying these buoys. Now, this has caused, of course, an international incident because Mexico is concerned these buoys could be on Mexican territory, they are investigating that, and, of course, now there is this legal battle.
But if you take a look at your –at our camera right now, you can see like these are women and children who have skirted all of these border barriers and what they are having to do is walk along this concertina wire. And our understanding is that further south, as they continue walking they will meet up with law enforcement, U.S. border authorities, that then take them for processing.
