Fighting Greg Abbott's 'Monument To Cruelty' In The Rio Grande
The Department of Justice is seeking the removal of Texas Governor Greg Abbott's 1,000 foot buoy barrier installed in the Rio Grande to deter border crossings.
On July 18, an e-mail complaint filed by Texas Department of Public Safety trooper Nicholas Wingate was reported by The Houston Chronicle, exposing the deplorable measures Texas Governor Greg Abbott had implemented at the border in the name of preventing asylum seekers from crossing the Rio Grande.
In his e-mail, Wingate wrote of measures he described as “inhumane.”
The email, which the trooper sent to a superior, suggests that Texas has set “traps” of razor wire-wrapped barrels in parts of the river with high water and low visibility. And it says the wire has increased the risk of drownings by forcing migrants into deeper stretches of the river.
Wingate described several incidents he witnessed.
[A] pregnant woman having a miscarriage was found late last month caught in the wire, doubled over in pain. A four-year-old girl passed out from heat exhaustion after she tried to go through it and was pushed back by Texas National Guard soldiers. A teenager broke his leg trying to navigate the water around the wire and had to be carried by his father.
He wrote that he and his fellow troopers were given orders to push migrants back into the Rio Grande and to withhold water from them, even in extreme heat.
As his e-mail read:
“Due to the extreme heat, the order to not give people water needs to be immediately reversed…
“I believe we have stepped over a line into the inhumane.”
Wingate described a mother and her child who were pulled out of the water but later declared deceased.
And the deaths have continued. Two more bodies have been found in the river in the past week, including one near the floating barrel barrier, which Beto O’Rourke has rightly referred to as a “drowning device.”
But Governor Abbott remains unapologetic in the face of these reports. Because this cruelty is all by design.
What Is Operation Lone Star?
What makes Wingate’s e-mail notable, in addition to the atrocities described within it, is that he appears to be a conservative, expressing unequivocal support for the overarching mission he was deployed to carry out:
“I truly believe in the mission of Operation Lone Star.”
Operation Lone Star is the name given to Greg Abbott’s anti-immigrant initiative, launched in 2021, to stop migrants from crossing over from Mexico into Texas.
In May of 2021, as part of this program, Abbott issued a declaration directing the Department of Public Safety, which is the agency that employs Wingate, to:
“use available resources to enforce all applicable federal and state laws to prevent the criminal activity along the border.”
Legislation funding the program authorized $5.1 billion for the project.
In July, as part of Operation Lone Star, Abbott deployed a floating barrier in the Rio Grande, which The Houston Chronicle described as:
1,000 feet in length and has spherical-shaped rotating buoys. They have webbing below that also prevents people from swimming under them…
The buoys range from 4 to 6 feet in diameter, and their rounded shape makes them extremely difficult to climb over.
Abbott has plans for much more.
As The Washington Post quoted Abbott as saying:
“We can put mile after mile after mile of these buoys.”
“A Monument To Cruelty”
The idea for such a device is not new. The Trump administration considered such a scheme to deter crossings as well, but it ultimately decided against it.
The Trump administration solicited proposals for floating border barriers in 2020 but did not award a contract. One CBP official said Thursday the agency opted against installing the buoy system because it was expected to increase drownings and risks to U.S. agents conducting water rescues.
Yes, Abbott’s plan was even too reprehensible for Donald Trump to sign on to.
The nation of Greece once had planned to deploy similar buoys to block Turkish asylum seekers in 2020, but the government in Athens scrapped the plan after pushback.
No wonder Amnesty International USA’s Amy Fischer described the barrier system as:
“...a monument to cruelty.”
Because, if what Trooper Wingate described in his e-mail weren’t enough, a closer inspection of the barrels, as U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia revealed in a viral video, reveals that they are actually outfitted with what appear to be circular saws.
Civil rights activists got a look at the buoys to see for themselves this week and confirmed:
There are also serrated metal plates that look like circular saw blades between each buoy to deter anyone from climbing over it.
Rep. Joaquin Castro, who represents San Antonio, Texas in Congress, released a disturbing close-up video of the blades as well, saying:
“The state says they are not a danger to anybody — but I want you to look here at this chainsaw-type device they have right in the middle of these buoys.
“You really have a situation where the state government and Greg Abbott are treating human beings like animals. These are folks who are asylum seekers, who try to petition for asylum in the United States, and this is how the men, women and children, what they’re seeing here, when they try to present for asylum.
“It's incredibly dangerous, incredibly inhumane, and it's the reason that I've said that it's barbaric: because it is."
Abbott apparently has no qualms about the misery and death he is inflicting with these devices. Nor does he appear terribly concerned about the political—or legal—pushback he is receiving.
Taking Governor Abbott To Court
Amnesty International has been among the humanitarian groups calling for the end not just of this cruel buoy system but of Abbott’s entire Operation Lone Star project.
Amnesty USA said in a statement:
“Governor Abbott’s spectacularly cruel Operation Lonestar (OLS) will continue to result in loss of life, family separation, and other violations of human rights as long as it exists. OLS is callous at its core, with a clear aim to cause lasting harm to vulnerable migrants and asylum seekers at any cost. It must be abolished immediately.”
In the wake of reporting about Wingate’s e-mail, the White House joined in the condemnation. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre expressed outrage, calling Abbott’s practices “abhorrent” and “despicable.”
Subsequently, the Biden Justice Department threatened legal action against Greg Abbott if he refused to remove the barriers.
After Abbott refused to remove the buoys, the Biden administration sued Texas in US District Court seeking to block the further construction of any more buoy barriers and compel the removal of the existing barrier, saying:
“We allege that Texas has flouted federal law by installing a barrier in the Rio Grande without obtaining the required federal authorization.
“This floating barrier poses threats to navigation and public safety and presents humanitarian concerns. Additionally, the presence of the floating barrier has prompted diplomatic protests by Mexico and risks damaging U.S. foreign policy.”
While the Biden administration was denied preliminary injunctive relief in its request to remove the barrels, a hearing has been set for August 22.
But the United States is not the only nation suing Texas over these barriers.
Mexico has filed a complaint against Texas as well, claiming the barriers Abbott has installed in the Rio Grande violate a 1944 water treaty.
Locals Are Souring On Abbott’s Inhumane Crusade
Just as Nicholas Wingate expressed in his original e-mail, many local Texans, among them Republicans typically aligned with Governor Abbott in his policies on immigration, are souring on Operation Lone Star.
The Texas Tribune has documented a remarkable shift in sentiment among residents of Eagle Pass, a small town on the Rio Grande that’s been heavily impacted by Operation Lone Star.
…in recent months, Eagle Pass residents and city leaders have become uncomfortable with the state’s tactics or have dropped their support of Abbott’s efforts, saying there must be a better way.
For example, Magali Urbina, who owns property along the river:
Urbina, a Republican who said she voted for Abbott for reelection, said the day it became too much came on a late-July afternoon when she spotted a pregnant woman cross the Rio Grande and push her way through the concertina wire.
“There’s a humane way to do it,” she told The Tribune, and elaborated on her hope for the future:
She said she wants the Biden administration to make it safe for asylum seekers to enter the U.S. and she hopes the federal government changes immigration laws so migrants don’t have to risk their lives.
The formerly supportive Mayor of Eagle Pass has had a change of heart as well:
Eagle Pass Mayor Rolando Salinas Jr., who in June agreed — without the City Council’s approval — to declare Shelby Park private property so state troopers could arrest migrants for trespassing, has recently reversed his support, saying that since he signed the agreement with the state, “things have changed, things that obviously I don't like.”
The City Council has now unanimously reversed the city’s support for the program.
Jessie Fuentes, a local entrepreneur who opened Epi’s Canoe & Kayak Team in Eagle Pass, is suing Abbott for harming his business with the barrel barrier system.
Fuentes sent a message to Abbott at a recent press conference.
“You don’t respect us, you're making us look like a third-world country.”
“You’re making that river that ties us together disastrous. You’re ruining the ecosystem, you don’t care about what you're putting in the middle of it.”
While lawsuits by the government and activism by national and state leaders such as Rep. Castro and Beto O’Rourke may be essential to ending Operation Lone Star, the local winds changing against Abbott may prove even more impactful.
After all, local residents are living with and witnessing the inhumanity on the Rio Grande every day, but what are they getting for it? For all these billions of dollars spent and the disruption to their land and livelihoods?
Nothing.
This sort of grotesque display is, of course, the point... but I think it's going to backfire.
That is entirely up to us. Let's make sure this costs the GOP all of the votes.
Live by the barrier and die by the barrier. Abbott should have the personal experience.