The Justice Department sued the State of Texas on Monday for the installation of a floating wall on the Rio Grande, intended to prevent migrants from crossing the border that separates Mexico from the United States. The Administration of Joe Biden thus passes the attack against Governor Greg Abbott, who ordered the installation of the barrier, composed of huge orange buoys, last June.
It is an obstacle of about 350 meters, which the federal government criticizes for its "humanitarian implications". Abbott did not have permission from either country to install it on the stretch that separates Eagle Pass, in Texas, and, on the other side, Piedras Negras, in Coahuila.
It is the latest provocation by the governor, who is at odds with Washington over the management of the border. As part of a plan launched two years ago under the title of Operation Lone Star (as the nickname of the state of Texas), he has placed barbed wire at some points of the divide, arrested migrants accused of trespassing, and sent them aboard buses paid for with public money to cities with a Democratic majority. like Chicago, New York or Washington. Some of those arriving in the capital are destined for the house of Vice President Kamala Harris, to whose doors she wanted to take the crisis in the south of her state, which shares 2,000 kilometers with Mexico, crossed by 28 international bridges and border crossings.
The complaint has not come as a surprise to the governor, who sent a letter Monday to President Biden accusing him of not stopping the flow of migrants and defending his right to take the measures that the federal government does not adopt to attack the crisis. "Texas awaits you in court, Mr. President," Abbott writes in the letter.
The Justice Department had given him until that same day to rectify, because, he was told in writing by Deputy Attorney General Vanita Gupta, the buoys represent "a safety risk to navigation on the Rio Grande, in addition to their humanitarian implications." Gupta also argued that the gesture had provoked "diplomatic protests from Mexico" and could "damage U.S. foreign policy."
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre accused Abbott of acting in bad faith in this matter. "The only person who is sowing chaos is the governor," he added in his daily briefing to reporters. "That's what he keeps doing: inhumane political pantomimes."
Jean-Pierre boasted that the border is registering the lowest numbers of illegal crossings in the last two years, after Title 42 was lifted in May, a rule imposed by the Donald Trump Administration under the pretext of stopping the advance of the pandemic. It allowed for the rapid expulsion of migrants, who were returned within minutes to Mexico. Title 8 now applies alone, which in practice means a tightening of the conditions for requesting asylum. It allowed Barack Obama's administration to deport more than three million migrants in eight years.
It's not the first time Abbott, serving his third term as governor, and the Biden administration have faced each other in court. Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2021 accused the state of overstepping the limits of its powers by authorizing Texas police officers to stop vehicles carrying migrants on the grounds that they might be contributing to the spread of the coronavirus.
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