Nearly 80% of the controversial floating barrier Texas state officials assembled in the middle of the Rio Grande to deter migrant crossings is technically on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a federal government survey released on Tuesday.
The revelation was made public in a federal court filing by the Biden administration in its lawsuit against the barrier, which Texas set up in July as part of an initiative directed by Gov. Greg Abbott to repel migrants and repudiate President Biden’s border policies.
The river barrier, assembled near the Texas border town of Eagle Pass, has come under national and international scrutiny, including from the Mexican government, which has strongly voiced its objections to the buoys. Advocates, Democratic lawmakers and a Texas state medic have also expressed concerns about the structures diverting migrants to deeper parts of the river where they are more likely to drown.
Earlier this month Mexican officials recovered two bodies from the Rio Grande, including one that was found floating along the barrier, but the circumstances of the deaths are still under investigation. Mexican officials condemned the barrier in announcing the discovery of the bodies. But Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said preliminary information indicated that the first person found dead had “drowned upstream from the marine barrier and floated into the buoys.”
Abbott and other Texas officials have insisted the buoys are necessary to stop migrants from entering the U.S. illegally, and the state has refuted claims it violated federal law and international treaties when it set up the floating barriers without permission from the Biden administration or Mexico. (Article continues)
and the state has refuted claims it violated federal law and international treaties when it set up the floating barriers without permission from the Biden administration or Mexico. (Article continues)
That’s the clincher. States are 100% not allowed to treat internationally or make policies regarding other countries.
Building a fence has nothing to do with that. If Texas had setup a federal border crossing, that would be illegal. If Texas had that fence constructed in such a way that a federal border crossing were blocked off, that would be illegal. A natural land border augmented with a fence isn’t an international incident and you don’t need permission from the federal government to do that.
You sure as hell do when you put 80% of it outside your borders, outside US borders no less
This kind of thing could spark a war in different circumstances - imagine the Mexican army goes to dismantle the buoys in their borders, and one of several possible groups from Texas confronts them and it leads to a skirmish
Mexico would be entirely within their rights - it’s on their property and it’s suspected to be leading to deaths
The subject of this post is that “nearly 80%” of the border fence is in Mexico’s Sovereign border, so I don’t see the issue with them removing the trespassing part of the fence.
In the sense that we are all international citizens and that any action by anyone near any border is an international “incident”, sure I guess.
But if you want to be honest and acknowledge that calling something an “international incident” is a pretty loaded term, then I would say absolutely not.
From the article:
That’s the clincher. States are 100% not allowed to treat internationally or make policies regarding other countries.
Building a fence has nothing to do with that. If Texas had setup a federal border crossing, that would be illegal. If Texas had that fence constructed in such a way that a federal border crossing were blocked off, that would be illegal. A natural land border augmented with a fence isn’t an international incident and you don’t need permission from the federal government to do that.
You sure as hell do when you put 80% of it outside your borders, outside US borders no less
This kind of thing could spark a war in different circumstances - imagine the Mexican army goes to dismantle the buoys in their borders, and one of several possible groups from Texas confronts them and it leads to a skirmish
Mexico would be entirely within their rights - it’s on their property and it’s suspected to be leading to deaths
Sounds like if the Sovereign Nation of Mexico is as upset about them as you are, they should go remove them.
But
The subject of this post is that “nearly 80%” of the border fence is in Mexico’s Sovereign border, so I don’t see the issue with them removing the trespassing part of the fence.
That would literally be an international incident, no?
In the sense that we are all international citizens and that any action by anyone near any border is an international “incident”, sure I guess.
But if you want to be honest and acknowledge that calling something an “international incident” is a pretty loaded term, then I would say absolutely not.