Two bodies found alongside Abbott’s Rio Grande border buoys
Anna Giaritelli
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AUSTIN, Texas — Two dead bodies, presumably immigrants who attempted to cross the Rio Grande from Mexico to the United States, were found alongside a string of buoys that Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R-TX) administration had installed in the river.
The Mexican government was the first to confirm the incidents publicly in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon. The Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed Thursday morning that one body was recovered between Eagle Pass, Texas, and Piedras Negras, Coahuila, but did not confirm a second death.
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“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports that the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) notified the Mexican Consulate in Eagle Pass that at about 2:35 p.m. they found a lifeless body caught in the southern part of the buoys that were installed in the Rio Grande River,” the ministry said in a statement.
However, Texas DPS’s statement indicated that the Mexican government omitted a critical part of the incident: that the body was first spotted floating in the water further upstream before drifting into the barrier.
“Preliminary information suggests this individual drowned upstream from the marine barrier and floated into the buoys,” Texas DPS Director Steve McCraw said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “There are personnel posted at the marine barrier at all times in case any migrants try to cross.”
Texas DPS Lt. Chris Olivarez added that the river’s southbound flow led the deceased person to float “down into the buoy.”
Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R-TX) office issued a statement Thursday afternoon, slamming Mexico for making the incident into something he claimed it was not.
“The Mexican government is flat-out wrong,” Abbott spokesman Andrew Mahaleris said. “To be clear, preliminary information points to the drowning occurring before the body was even near the barriers. The Texas Department of Public Safety previously reported to Border Patrol the dead body floating upstream from the barriers in the Rio Grande. Also, DPS monitors the barriers for anyone attempting to cross and has not observed anyone attempting to cross since they were installed.”
The 1,000-foot-long portion of the river where the line of buoys was installed was in a shallow area easy to walk across; therefore, not an area where someone could have drowned as a result of the buoys, Olivarez said.
“The water is between knee and waist level,” Olivarez said. “There’s no way the body would have drowned there. … There’s nothing in the buoy — no objects, no sharp objects, no wire, no hook.”
Mexican authorities pulled the body from the water.
“So far, the cause of death and nationality of the person is unknown,” the ministry said in a statement Wednesday.
A second body was also recovered in the buoys on Wednesday, but the person’s identity and cause of death had yet to be determined, according to ABC News. The Mexican government did not comment on the second death. The Texas DPS said Mexican authorities found the second body and that Texas could not comment because it had not been involved.
The ministry said the barriers, installed in July, were a “violation of our sovereignty.”
“We express our concern about the impact on the human rights and personal safety of migrants that these state policies will have, which go in the opposite direction to the close collaboration between our country and the federal government of the United States,” the ministry said in a statement. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will continue to follow up on the case promptly through the Mexican Consulate in Eagle Pass, maintaining contact with the corresponding authorities in Mexico and the United States to obtain more information on what happened and to request that the necessary investigations be carried out.”
The drownings come weeks after the Eagle Pass Fire Department Chief Manuel Mello III told the Washington Examiner that the buoys could lead to more drownings in the river if immigrants attempted to go under, over, or through them.
“In regards to the buoy system, I believe that may help deter some, but we will have to see,” Mello told the Washington Examiner. “I hope to not see any deaths caused by the barrier. … In my personal opinion, I don’t like the idea of a barrier in the water, hoping it is not an obstacle in our rescue or recovery operations.”
Abbott has spent several billion dollars of taxpayer money bulking up resources and personnel along the state’s 1,250-mile shared border with Mexico since President Joe Biden took office in 2021.
On June 8, Abbott announced the forthcoming installation of “new marine floating barriers” that he said would “proactively prevent illegal crossings between ports of entry by making it more difficult to cross.” The project cost $1 million.
The buoys sit 4 feet above the water and have netting on their undersides that could be anchored to the river floor. McGraw said DPS tested out whether it was possible to swim under the buoys, climb over them, or go between them and that it would take “great effort” to do so.
Texas DPS Director Col. Steve McCraw said during a press conference on June 8 that the buoys will be placed in an area of the river where the currents are most dangerous.
“We don’t want anyone to get hurt. In fact, we want to prevent people from getting hurt. We want to prevent people from drowning, and this is a proactive way,” McCraw said. “We don’t want people to come across and continue to put themselves at risk when they go between the ports of entry.”
But the effort has been met with opposition from Washington and Democrats in Texas. The Justice Department sued Abbott in late July over the barrier, as well as a kayaking tours company headquartered in Eagle Pass. The Mexican government also threatened legal action.
Mello shared with the Washington Examiner in 2022 that his team was pulling deceased children and adults from the river at a shocking rate since the number of people choosing to cross the border in Eagle Pass skyrocketed in 2021.
In 2020, the fire department recovered up to 25 drowning victims in a year compared to 30 recoveries per month in mid-2022.
In April 2022, Texas Army National Guard Specialist Bishop E. Evans drowned in the river after he attempted to rescue someone crossing the river into Eagle Pass. Evans had been deployed to the border under Abbott’s Operation Lone Star border security initiative.
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Abbott added that the state could decide to install “mile after mile after mile” of the inflatable barrier if it is successful in Eagle Pass. With a rising number of illegal crossings into Eagle Pass from Mexico border town Piedras Negras, the area could again become ground zero for illegal immigrant apprehensions in the state.
The governor’s office and DPS did not respond to a request for comment.