The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that Texas can continue to use floating fences on the Rio Grande to stop illegal immigrants from crossing the river.
Last June, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a series of border security bills, announced the installation of floating buoys and provided $5.1 billion in funding to the state, which remains the epicenter of the border crisis. (Related article: While the Biden administration hunts down domestic extremists, illegal immigrants on terror watch lists continue to flood across the U.S. border.)
“What we're doing now is securing the border,” Abbott said at the time. “These buoys will allow us to stop people from even getting to the border.”
By December 2023, the Biden Administration and Department of Justice (DOJ) sued Governor Abbott over the barrier and obtained a preliminary injunction, but a New Orleans court overturned the ruling, allowing Texas to begin work along the river again.
“The district court clearly erred in finding that the United States more likely than not demonstrated a barrier to navigable sections of the Rio Grande,” Judge Don R. Willett wrote. I have written“The district court's ruling and conclusions cannot be reconciled with more than a century of precedent.”
A floating barrier designed to stop migrants from crossing the Grand River through Eagle Pass, Texas, into the United States is seen from Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, on August 4, 2023. (Photo by Guillermo Arias/AFP) (Photo by Guillermo Arias/AFP via Getty Images)
The barriers have been under legal scrutiny for nearly a year, with the Circuit Court allowing the legal fight to continue after a panel of judges ruled 2-1 in favor of the Biden Justice Department in January. according to In a letter to Bloomberg Law Firm, Governor Abbott argues that the state is experiencing record numbers of migrants crossing the river and that the barrier is a way to prevent migrants from risking their lives on the river.
The ruling came ahead of the case's scheduled Aug. 6 trial in District Court, Bloomberg Law reported.
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