Death Buoys in the Rio Grande

By Roberto Morejón

The governor of the US state of Texas, Greg Abbott, has turned the profile of buoys, those floating beacons that aid navigation, into a passport to gruesome deaths for migrants.

The Republican governor ordered the use of these devices, typically anchored to the bottom of rivers and seas, as spiked barriers to intimidate undocumented migrants crossing the Rio Bravo or Grande to enter the United States.

Rejected by potential victims, human rights groups, and even Democratic congressmen like Joaquín Castro and Sylvia García, who consider them expressions of cruelty, these floating signals constitute the latest weapon of the Texas governor to prevent the arrival of travelers from other origins.

The official established the so-called Lone Star operation aimed at fortifying the border of his state against the passage of impoverished foreigners from the South, without obtaining permission from federal authorities.

Not by chance, the administration of Joseph Biden filed a lawsuit against the governor, which falls within another phase of the dispute between Republicans and Democrats during the primary season.

As part of the inhumane tactics used by the governor, he began chartering buses last year to send migrants crossing the Mexican border into Texas to states governed by Democrats.

The buses filled with these types of travelers are mainly dispatched to Washington and New York, without the person ordering the operation caring those homeless shelters in those destinations have exceeded their capacities.

Not satisfied with this blackmail, Abbott instructed the detention of adult migrants accused of trespassing and deployed members of the Texas National Guard to implement his Lone Star plan.

Supported in part by his Arizona counterpart, also Republican Doug Ducey, Greg Abbott prides himself on belonging to the most conservative wing of the Republican Party, supporting gun ownership and opposing abortion.

Known for being one of the politicians most closely linked to the National Rifle Association, he opposes those who try to do something in a country beset by frequent shootings in public places.

But amid his anti-immigrant efforts, the Texan will have to bear the responsibility for the first deaths of those who attempted to cross the Rio Grande and became trapped among the spikes that cover what should be harmless beacons.