AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, while signing a series of border security bill on Thursday, said the state will spend $1 million to place a series of buoys in the Rio Grande in order to deter migrant crossings.

More than a thousand feet of the floating barriers will be placed in the water near Eagle Pass, which is located in Maverick County and borders Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico.

If it’s successful, Abbott said, miles of buoys could be added.

“This strategy will proactively prevent illegal crossings between ports of entry by making it more difficult to cross the Rio Grande and reach the Texas side of the southern border. The first 1,000 feet of the marine floating barrier will be deployed near Eagle Pass,” a news release from the governor’s office states.

“What these buoys will allow us to do is prevent people from even getting to the border,” Abbott said during Thursday’s news conference. “That process is beginning pretty much immediately.”

“Nobody needs to come across the ports of entry; it’s dangerous,” Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said. “Family units that come across the river, between the ports of entry, are risking themselves and their family members. They’re putting themselves in harm’s way.

McCraw said deploying the buoys is a quick process.

“They can deploy it quickly right at the river to deter them from even risking themselves from coming across. It can be quickly deployed. It can be moved. All of these are mobile,” he said. “We don’t want anybody to get hurt. In fact, we want to prevent people from getting hurt, prevent people from drowning. This is a proactive way, and we’re about to deploy the first thousand feet of it in Eagle Pass.”