by Hailey Gomez
The Fifth Circuit ruled Tuesday that Texas will be able to continue using floating barriers on the Rio Grande River to deter illegal immigrants.
Last June Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott announced the installation of the floating buoy line as he signed a series of border security bills granting the state $5.1 billion in funding as it continues to be at the epicenter of the border crisis.
“What we’re doing now is securing the border, at the border,” Abbott said at the time. “These buoys will allow us to prevent people from even getting to the border.”
By December 2023, the Biden administration, together with the Department of Justice (DOJ), has issued a ephemeral injunction sue Abbott over barriers. But a New Orleans court overturned the decision, allowing Texas to work along the river again.
“We hold that the district court clearly erred in concluding that the United States was likely to prove that the barrier was located on a navigable section of the Rio Grande,” said Judge Don R. Willett. he wrote“We cannot reconcile the district court’s findings and conclusions with precedents from more than a hundred years ago.”
The barriers have been locked in a legal battle for nearly a year, which was resumed in January after the full district court agreed to review a decision by a panel of judges who ruled in favor of Biden’s Justice Department by a 2-1 vote. According to to Bloomberg Law. Abbott has argued that barriers are a way to prevent migrants risk their life in the river as seen by the state record numbers to the transitions.
According to Bloomberg Law, the decision was made before the district court hearing scheduled for August 6.
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Hailey Gomez is a reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
