I am having a very hard time finding a bottom to call when it comes to Texas extremism. They just keep digging, becoming more radical, and more disgusting.
Trucks hauling rows of large, orange-colored buoys arrived Friday at the U.S.-Mexico border, where the state of Texas is set to string them along a section of the Rio Grande as a tactic to deter migrants from crossing illegally into the country.
The Texas Department of Public Safety shared pictures on social media of the new buoy barrier, which showed equipment lifting some parts of it off a flatbed truck. The law enforcement agency noted in its tweet, “The buoys have arrived and the installation of the marine barrier on the Rio Grande begins today.”
There is no telling what kind of humanitarian toll this will take.
Col. Steven McCraw of the Texas Department of Safety called the buoy's a proactive way to prevent border crossings.
"Nobody needs to be coming between the ports of entry. It's dangerous," said Col. McCraw. "The buoy is on the water itself. They can be quickly deployed, and they can be moved." The first 1,000 feet of the buoys will be deployed in Eagle Pass, Texas, on July 7. The cost of the first 1,000 feet is about $1 million.
McCraw said they are four-feet high, equipped with weights and netting, and designed to rotate to keep people from scaling them.
Now if you are like me and heard “netting” and “weights” you flashed back to the era of “dolphin safe tuna” and what happened when the mammals got caught up in nets in the ocean.
If humans and wildlife get caught in the netting, in water, it may become impossible to extricate themselves from it, yes, possibly drowning them. Supposedly, there is razor wire at the actual border if the people make it through the netting, though I have not independently confirmed that. I don’t know if the people of Texas quite understand the implications of this sort of technology, or how many care.
But I do know I quit eating any tuna not explicitly dolphin safe, and I won’t be offering any business to Texas for many of the same reasons.
“Immigrant safe pecans” for example, should not have to be a thing.
-ROC
UPDATE with Mexican government note to Texas:
Mexico’s top diplomat said Friday her country has sent a diplomatic note to the U.S. government expressing concern that Texas’ deployment of floating barriers on the Rio Grande may violate 1944 and 1970 treaties on boundaries and water. Foreign Relations Secretary Alicia Bárcena said Mexico will send an inspection team to the Rio Grande to see whether any of the barrier extends into Mexico’s side of the border river.
She also complained about U.S. efforts to put up barbed wire on a low-lying island in the river near Eagle Pass, Texas.
Bárcena said that if the buoys impede the flow of water, it would violate the treaties, which requires the river remain unobstructed. Mexico has already asked that the barriers be removed.
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Love,
-ROC