EAGLE PASS, Texas — The buoy barriers Texas is installing in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass just arrived on Friday, and the latest effort to deter illegal border crossings has already drawn a lawsuit.
Eagle Pass resident and kayaking outfitter Jessie F. Fuentes filed suit against Abbott in Travis County. He’s seeking a permanent injunction against installation of the buoys, saying his paddling business will be impacted by limited access to the river.
“The Governor proclaims to support law and order, yet he initiated Operation Lone Star without legal authority and seeks to install buoys to score political points without a legitimate public policy objective,” Fuentes’ attorney, Carlos E. Flores, wrote in a news release announcing the lawsuit.
Abbott responded to the lawsuit on in a tweet on Friday, writing, “We will see you in court. And don’t think the Travis Co. Court will be the end of it. This is going to the Supreme Court. Texas has a constitutional right to protect our border.”
Dozens of the large spherical buoys were stacked on the beds of four tractor trailers in a grassy city park near the river on Friday morning.
Setting up the barriers could take up to two weeks, according to Lt. Chris Olivarez, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety, which is overseeing the project.
Once installed, the above-river parts of the system and the webbing they’re connected with will cover 1,000 feet of the middle of the Rio Grande, with anchors in the riverbed.
U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, in a tweet, called the buoys “drowning devices.” Appearing on CNN Sunday, he called Abbott’s buoys and his larger Operation Lone Star border enforcement effort political distractions.
“Migration is down 50% since the end of Title 42, so 50% in the last few months. But again, for Greg Abbott and Republicans in Texas, migration and immigration and immigrants, all of it, is more of a political issue to them,” Castro said. “It is a substitute for solving the real issues that Texans deal with every day, like a power grid that’s on the brink of failure, it seems like, every week.”
On Friday morning, environmental advocates from Eagle Pass and Laredo, another Texas border city about 115 miles downriver, held a demonstration by the border that included a prayer for the river ahead of the barrier deployment.