If you didn’t think the inhumane treatment of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border could get any worse, think again. It looks like Texas Governor Greg Abbott doesn’t think the large orange buoys he had placed in the Rio Grande as a river barrier are enough of a deterrent to stop migrants from crossing the river.
Now, we’re getting a close look at the even more dangerous modifications that Abbott has signed off on to stop migrants. To prevent them from trying to climb between the buoys, “serrated metal plates that look like circular saw blades,” according to Texas Public Radio, have been placed between the barriers. Two people have died crossing the river since the barriers were installed.
“Appalled by the ongoing cruel and inhumane tactics employed by [Gov. Abbott] at the Texas border,” wrote Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX). “The situation’s reality is unsettling as these buoys’ true danger and brutality come to light. We must stop this NOW!”
Garcia and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) were in Eagle Pass Tuesday (August 8) where they saw the apparatus that looked like it was pulled straight out of the Saw movie franchise and devised by the warped mind of Jigsaw.
“Everyone needs to see what I saw in Eagle Pass today,” Castro wrote alongside a video of the buoys. “Clothing stuck on razor wire where families got trapped. Chainsaw devices in the middle of buoys. Land seized from U.S. citizens. Operation Lone Star is barbaric — and [Gov. Abbott] is making border communities collateral damage.”
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit last month against Abbott for installing barriers, which they say violates the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899. The act bans the “creation of any obstruction not affirmatively authorized by Congress, to the navigable capacity of any of the waters of the United States.”