BUOYS SAGA:...Federal Court Orders ASAP Removal Of Rio Grande Buoys Seen By Abbott As Great Deterrent To Border Migrants...Ha Ha...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...The thing looked like a long floating baked Cheeto. There it was in the very middle of the passive Rio Grande, helping, it was said daily at the governor's office, stem the influx of immigrants coming to the southern border.

It cost $850,000.

And who knows if it helped stop the "invasion" Texas Gov. Greg Abbott feared like a sumbitch.

But the 1,000 or so feet of orange-colored buoys must now go.

This from texastribune.org: [ The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Texas on Friday to remove the floating barrier it deployed in the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass this summer, affirming a lower court’s ruling.

In a 2-1 decision, the court found that the river is navigable where the barrier was placed and that it is "an obstruction," meaning that Texas needed to receive permission from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - which regulates activities in waterways and wetlands under federal law - before deploying it.

Judge Don Willett, a Trump appointee, was the dissenting vote in the ruling, arguing that the Rio Grande cannot accommodate commercial boat traffic and is therefore not navigable.

Texas argued that the barrier was also meant to save lives and force migrants to cross the border at ports of entry, but Willet said Texas hasn’t proved that’s the case. ]

The silly buoys, lined-up in the middle of the river, have been there since early last summer. They even led to a protest by neighboring Mexico and a time or two floated over to the Mexican half of the Rio Grande.

Saw-like blades in the buoy construction also drew protest and condemnation.

Abbott has made immigration - and really immigration at the border - his signature project. Often, he decries (in a steady whine) inaction by the federal government, even as he knows the U.S. Border Patrol is on-station 365 days of the year...

Buoys, it says here, always were a silly, cockamamie idea...

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