Court orders Texas to remove floating buoys on Rio Grande in major win for Biden admin

A federal court has ruled against Texas’s attempts to stymie illegal migrants from crossing America’s southern border by installing large floating barriers on the Rio Grande river.

US District Judge David Ezra ruled Wednesday (Sept 6) that the floating buoys were a threat to safety and the relations between the neighbouring nations.

The court also ordered the state to move the barriers out of the water onto the riverbank by Sept. 15.

This ruling is being seen as a major win for the Biden administration as the rare lawsuit against Texas was brought by the Justice Department.

Texas says it will appeal

Texas Governor Greg Abbott reacted to the ruling by saying that he will seek to appeal the decision.

“Today’s court decision merely prolongs President Biden’s willful refusal to acknowledge that Texas is rightfully stepping up to do the job that he should have been doing all along,” Abbott said.

Abbott is on a multibillion-dollar mission, known as Operation Lone Star, to stop illegal migrants from crossing the Mexico-US border. Last year, he invoked “invasion” powers to deploy aggressive new tactics to rein in the illegal migration.

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One of the several measures taken was to install bright orange buoys to create a barrier longer than a soccer field on a stretch of the Rio Grande River.

What did the judge say?

David Ezra rejected all justifications that Texas gave to defend the steps taken to discourage the immigrants from taking the perilous journey.

“Under this logic, once Texas decides, in its sole discretion, that it has been invaded, it is subject to no oversight of its ‘chosen means of waging war,’” Ezra wrote. “Such a claim is breathtaking,” he wrote in the judgment.

Justice Department celebrates

The Justice Department said it was “pleased” that the court ruled against Texas.

“We are pleased that the court ruled that the barrier was unlawful and irreparably harms diplomatic relations, public safety, navigation, and the operations of federal agency officials in and around the Rio Grande,” Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said in a statement.

Biden administration maintains that the buoys don’t contribute much to stop illegal migrants and that illegal border crossings anyway declined after new immigration rules took effect in May as pandemic-related asylum restrictions expired.

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