Federal court rules Texas can keep its floating border barriers in place

The Fifth Circuit ruled Tuesday that Texas will be able to continue using its floating barriers on the Rio Grande River to deter illegal immigrant crossings.

Last June Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott announced the delivery of the floating buoy line as he signed a series of border security bills, giving the state $5.1 billion in funding as it remains the epicenter of the border crisis

“What we're doing right now, we're securing the border, at the border,” Abbott said at the time. “What these buoys will allow us to do is prevent people from even reaching the border.”

By December 2023, the Biden administration along with the Department of Justice (DOJ) had imposed a preliminary injunction. plaintiff Abbott on barriers. The court in New Orleans, however, has reversed the decision, allowing Texas to resume work along the river.

“We hold that the district court clearly erred in finding that the United States is likely to show that the barrier is in a navigable section of the Rio Grande,” Judge Don R. Willett said. he wrote. “We cannot square the district court's findings and conclusions with more than a century of precedent.”

For nearly a year, the barriers have been in a legal battle and were allowed to continue in January after the full circuit court agreed to review a decision made by a panel of judges, finding in favor of Biden's DOJ by a 2-1, seconds to Bloomberg law. Abbott has argued that the barriers are a way to prevent migrants from doing so to risk their lives on the river, as the state saw it registration numbers of crossings

The decision came before the case came before the district court for its scheduled trial on August 6, Bloomberg Law reported.

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