MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A floating barrier of orange buoys installed by the Texas state government on the Rio Grande River to block immigrants from entering the United States violates water agreements and could encroach on Mexican territory Mexico’s incoming Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena said on Friday.

“We sent a diplomatic letter[to the United States]on June 26, because what we are actually violating is the 1944 Water Treaty,” Barcena told reporters in Mexico City. He touched on the Mexican Water Treaty between the United States and Mexico. We use water from the Colorado, Tijuana and Rio Grande rivers.

“We have sent a mission called a territorial inspection to check the location of the buoy,” Barcena said. added.

The State Department and Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Barcena, who was appointed foreign minister last month, is awaiting formal confirmation by the Mexican Senate.

On Friday, the Texas government said in a statement that it had begun installing a “new marine seawall along the Rio Grande River at Eagle Pass” this week.

The buoy “helps deter illegal immigrants from crossing the dangerous river into Texas.”

Many migrants have drowned trying to cross the river in recent years, and some experts fear the buoys will only make crossings more dangerous.

Earlier this month, four migrants drowned in the Rio Grande. Last September, nine migrants died and 37 were rescued while trying to cross a rain-swollen river near Eagle Pass.

(Reporting by Steven Eisenhammer; Editing by Sandra Mahler)