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Texas authorities began installing the string of buoys in the
middle of the river near Eagle Pass, Texas, last week, part of
Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott's initiative dubbed
Operation Lone Star to deter migrants.
"We allege that Texas has flouted federal law by installing a
barrier in the Rio Grande without obtaining the required federal
authorization," Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said in
a statement. "This floating barrier poses threats to navigation
and public safety and presents humanitarian concerns."
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in the Western
District of Texas, seeks "to remove all structures and
obstructions, including a floating barrier and all
infrastructure related to the floating barrier, in the Rio
Grande," according to the court filing.
The U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, Jaime
Esparza, had threatened to take legal action in a letter sent to
Abbott last week.
In response to the Justice Department's legal warning, Abbott
sent a letter on Monday to Democratic President Joe Biden,
accusing him of failing to enforce immigration laws and causing
a "record-breaking level of illegal immigration."
Abbott, in an interview on Fox News, said the barriers have
potentially prevented hundreds of thousands of people from
entering the country illegally and argued the Biden
administration's lawsuit is based on an obscure statute.
"We believe we have the right to do so, and we will take this
lawsuit all the way to the United States Supreme Court," he
said.
Mexico has also complained about the barrier, saying it violates
a water treaty and may encroach on Mexican territory.
In addition to the border barrier, Abbott's Operation Lone Star
also has included the deployment of thousands of National Guard
troops and a campaign to bus migrants to Democratic-led cities
further north.
In recent months, National Guard troops have strung up razor
wire to block migrants from crossing the Rio Grande.
The number of migrants caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border
illegally has dropped since Biden implemented a restrictive new
asylum policy in May. Even so, roughly 100,000 were apprehended
in June.
(Reporting by Eric Beech, Kanishka Singh and Tyler Clifford;
Editing by Tim Ahmann, Bill Berkrot and Sonali Paul)
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