Key takeaways:
- A federal appeals court has ordered Texas to remove a floating barrier from the Rio Grande.
- The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled 2-1 in favor of a lower court’s finding that the buoys were illegal.
- The ruling is the second legal defeat for Texas this week over its border operations.
A federal appeals court has ordered Texas to remove a floating barrier from the Rio Grande, which was placed there under the direction of Republican Governor Greg Abbott to deter illegal migrant crossings.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled 2-1 in favor of a lower court’s finding that the buoys were illegal. The court’s decision requires Texas to stop any work on the roughly 1,000-foot barrier and move it to the riverbank.
Judge Dana M. Douglas, a Biden appointee, wrote that the lower court “considered the threat to navigation and federal government operations on the Rio Grande, as well as the potential threat to human life the floating barrier created.”
The decision comes after a federal judge allowed U.S. Border Patrol agents to continue cutting razor wire the state installed along the riverbank, despite objections from Mexico.
The ruling is the second legal defeat for Texas this week over its border operations. Governor Abbott had previously called the lower court’s decision “incorrect” and had predicted it would be overturned.
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