Photo: Texas' Border Buoys

The state's floating barrier on the Rio Grande will cost about $1 million.

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has installed a 1,000-foot string of 4-foot-high bright orange buoys in the middle of the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass, which is a common—and frequently deadly—crossing point for immigrants. The floating barrier will cost about $1 million and will cover only a small portion of the 1,254 miles of river along the Texas border with Mexico. Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, admitted at a press conference that the barrier can still be crossed with "great effort." On August 2, the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that a body was found caught in the buoys, just one month after they were installed.

Comments

[tracerv]

"The state's floating barrier on the Rio Grande will cost about $1 million."

Sounds like a great investment by Texas if it can help stem the onslaught.

[SQRLSY One]

If a single un-american ferriner-type illegal sub-human is harmed or preferably killed… IT’S ALL WORTH IT!

(The Christian ethos in a Christian Nation MANDATES this, dammit! It's what Jesus would do!)

[Ersatz]

Doctor, doctor - it hurts when I move my arm like this...

[Mike Laursen]

Did you hear about the guy who was presenting alien bodies to the Mexican government? And here I thought all Mexicans are aliens!

[SQRLSY One]

Hadn’t heard of it, thanks! https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexican-congress-holds-hearing-ufos-featuring-purported-alien-bodies-2023-09-13/

(I think that these might be the “love children” of The Donald and Spermy Daniels, just maybe!)

[Mike Laursen]

They look like old ET manikins someone made for Halloween that he found at a garage sale.

[Mike Laursen]

¿No ligas de mañana?

¿Dónde está Senior Britschgi?

[Mike Laursen]

Oops, that shoulda been, Señor.

[SQRLSY One]

Señor Britschgi the space alien from Uranus had to return home to attend to some plumbing problems there at home... And if you think that plumbing problems here on Earth can be messy... Just you wait and see what one looks like on Uranus!

[SQRLSY One]

¡El mayor Britschgi, el extraterrestre, tuvo que regresar a su hogar en el planeta Urano!

[Mike Laursen]

¡Dios mío!

[TJJ2000]

Why don't you just leave your house door open just in-case someone breaking-and-entering falls on some broken glass and hurts themselves huh?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

It's dumber than that.

Neighborhood kids trying to break in to your house keep drowning in your pool, so you build a fence around it and reason sniffs about how awful, dumb and expensive the fence is.

[Mike Laursen]

Oh, is this more of trying to sell the narrative that maybe Texas put the buoys there to save lives?

Is this hypothetical pool fence topped with razor wire?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Is this hypothetical pool fence topped with razor wire?

Yes.

You seriously can't be this fucking stupid.

[Nazi-Chipping Warlock]

Wanna bet?

[Mike Laursen]

Ah, the resort to personal insults!

[TJJ2000]

There's a point where plain stupid is the bottom line and not just a personal attack. Like pretending it's the victims job to save lives of those breaking and entering.

[Nazi-Chipping Warlock]

Didn't Eric Adams declare the cost of dealing with 110 thousand migrants as 12 billion dollars? This sounds downright cheap, in comparison.

[Public Entelectual]

How much do they cost for the East River and the St. Laurence?

[rbike]

Umm, why would any reasonable person attempt to crawl over it and drown? Maybe they swam in the dark and couldn't see it? Swimming in the dark is probably more dangerous than it seems, though I have done it at times. It didn't work out so well for that woman on JAWS.

[Rossami]

Far more likely that the guy died somewhere else and the body washed downriver to get caught in the barrier.

[Ben of Houston]

If this is the same design as was seen earlier, there is a hanging net under the buoy. When swimmers can try to crawl under the net, there is a possibility that they could get caught in the net and drown.

The biggest change, though, is that they cannot bring luggage. Even a small bag with a spare change of clothes and enough water for the trip would be extremely difficult to go over or under that barrier.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

So it'll discourage them from swimming across a "common and frequently-deadly" section of the Rio Grande with luggage. This thing might actually work.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Yes, a different part of the Rio Grande will magically become "common and frequently-deadly".

[BillyG]

So far one body found "near", one body found three miles downstream.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2023/08/02/dead-person-found-in-texas-anti-migrant-buoys-that-mexico-and-justice-dept-want-removed/

[Nobartium]

What a steal.

[mad.casual]

My math puts the cost to run it the total length of the border at right around $6.5B. That's pretty close to [checks notes] 2 "Ukrainian accounting errors".

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

And what with all the savings from the migrants that were happily relocated to sanctuary cities...

[Nazi-Chipping Warlock]

So, according to the mayor of NYC, if it discourages just 55,000 migrants, it has already paid for itself!

[Social Justice is neither]

So totally not part of that "migrant crisis" impacting NYC is it, this is just wasteful spending for no reason.

[Don't look at me!]

It’s a dangerous stretch of the river. Perhaps it will save lives.

[NOYB2]

Seems like a good investment to me if it stops just one illegal alien from crossing; after all, even a single illegal alien ends up costing US taxpayers around that much.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

This article says a lot, while saying very little. According to REason this narrow segment of the river:

“is a common—and frequently deadly—crossing point for immigrants.”

Also, it’ll:

“cover only a small portion of the 1,254 miles of river along the Texas border with Mexico.”

So let’s see. According Reason, despite having 1,254 miles of river along the Texas/Mexico border, this spot is a “common and frequently-deadly crossing point. So it sounds like the government of Texas is putting in the buoys to discourage crossings at this common and frequently deadly place along the river. It’s very possible that this segment of buoys is there to save lives, not “stop south America from entering Texas” which, also according to Reason– if by nothing more than omission– isn’t having a “migrant crisis” while New York (a place where Reason staff lives) is.

[Mike Laursen]

It’s very possible that this segment of buoys is there to save lives

Nice try, but then you'd have to explain why they stuck serrated metal plates (popularly called "saw blades") in the gaps between the buoys.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

""(popularly called “saw blades”) ""

I'd like to see a photo of that. This strikes me as fake, like the whipping from horses. That played big for a bit to falsely enrage some people. But the truth was largely ignored in the same media outlets behind the false rage.

[Dillinger]

pic up top doesn't show blades

[Mike Laursen]

Seriously, that's you response? Pointing to a picture taken from an end-on angle where it is not possible to see what's between the buoys? Again, nice try.

[Dillinger]

don't know if that's Eagle Pass or the literal buoy saving lives @Eagle Pass, but pic up top doesn't show blades is purely factual

[Mike Laursen]

Actually, you can see one of the disks right there in the bottom right corner, right in front of the first in the chain of buoys.

Here's a link with photos showing similar disks more clearly:

https://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/leaders-disagree-on-the-purpose-of-blades-in-between-the-rio-grande-buoys

And I know the next thing you are going to say, so I'll head off the gaslighting right here: the former border patrolman, spokesman for the right-wing is full of shit when he say the serrated edges can't hurt anyone.

[Don't look at me!]

Saw blades have teeth. These disc do not.

[Dillinger]

idk if the plate on the end is the same as the serrated plate in your pic but if it is it is. serrated plates say "keep off" not "crawl over me" which lends towards safety in the whole.

[Mike Laursen]

"serrated plates say 'keep off' not 'crawl over me' which lends towards safety in the whole"

What utter b.s. They are there to cut people. That is not done out of a concern for safety.

[Dillinger]

cool man. this is where we diverge.

[Rossami]

Even looking at the enlarged picture in your linked article, that’s not a dangerous “serration”. Based on the scale, they look roughly as sharp as a plastic picnic knife. You’re not going to seriously cut yourself on that without some intentional work.

Those disks might be dangerous if you hooked them up to a motor and spun them at speed. But just sitting there? Using no more force than a swimmer’s own body weight? I’d barely call that uncomfortable. It would be hard to get a grip on, though. Which I suspect is the point.

For context, look up the techniques used by infantry to cross a barbed wire barrier – a barrier that actually is designed to cut and tear. A technique used from WW2 thru Vietnam was to have the first person in the squad throw himself on top of the wire (protecting his face with his arms) and crush the barbed wire coils with his own body weight. The rest of the squad then literally runs up and across his back to cross the wire. The guy then slowly disentangles himself from the wire, possibly getting some scratches and torn clothing but nothing else, and catches up to his unit.

The bottom line is that barriers like that are designed to slow people down – and that’s all they can ever do. They make you be more deliberate about your movements and create time for the folks (or systems) monitoring that stretch of the wire to notice and react to your breach. Unmonitored barbed wire may be useful for deterring cattle but to a human, it’s nothing more than a bluff.

[Mike Laursen]

Why are the disks there at all, then?

[Don't look at me!]

TO. SLOW. YOU. DOWN.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Well, I guess we'll have to wait and see how many bodies pile up on this now-buoyed section of river vs the veritable pile of bodies that were piling up prior to its emplacement.

[Mike Laursen]

We really don't need to. There's no scenario where putting blades to cut people between the buoys can be reconciled with a hypothesis that the buoys are there to prevent people from being hurt.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

NO ONE WOULD EVER USE RAZOR WIRE TO KEEP PEOPLE FROM JUMPING INTO A DANGEROUS WATER FEATURE. BECAUSE RAZOR WIRE "HURTS" PEOPLE AND IF YOU'RE TRYING TO KEEP PEOPLE FROM GETTING KILLED YOU WOULD NEVER WANT TO "HURT" PEOPLE.

[Dillinger]

lol that's not a pool.

[Mike Laursen]

This conversation wasn't about putting razor wire around a pool. It is about putting metal disks with serrated edges on a chain of buoys floating in the middle of the Rio Grande.

[Don't look at me!]

There are no serrated edges. It’s a smooth edged disc that rotates to prevent climbing.

[B G]

It's likely that most of that 1254 miles is in areas where the land on one or both sides of the river isn't passable, or where the river itself is too deep, fast, or wide to be possible to cross on foot.

People are far less likely to die in locations that they don't go to. The climate in the Alaskan bush is far more dangerous than the climate on the beaches of San Diego County, but I'd bet that far more people are seriously injured or killed by nature/wildlife in the latter area than in the former simply because more people go to those beaches in any given summer than travel into rural Alaska over any three years.

If this spot was frequently deadly before the barriers, part of that would be because it's a spot where attempted crossings are common, which may be due to it being one of the easiest places to cross (or one of the easiest crossings to reach on foot).

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Yes, I'm sure "saving lives" is what really animates them...

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

On August 2, the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that a body was found caught in the buoys, just one month after they were installed.

They found a body... on a "common—and frequently deadly—crossing point for immigrants"?

Well, I guess we'd better remove it. Maybe it'll make the bodies easier to find.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

""They found a body… on a “common—and frequently deadly—crossing point for immigrants”?""

When you pay the cartel your life savings to get somewhere, you are willing to take some risks for that investment.

[TJJ2000]

This administration is too busy doing wealth distribution, media censorship, mandating racist and sexist indoctrination, persecuting political opponents and monopolizing/socializing the energy sector to worry about doing the very job the federal government was even created for.

Doing everything they shouldn't be doing and nothing they should be doing per the very definition of the USA (US Constitution). 100% treasonous to the USA from both sides of the equation. THAT is where the insurrection is.

Thank goodness the state of Texas still cares about invasion of the USA.

[Dillinger]

>>and frequently deadly

the buoy wall saves lives.

[Mike Laursen]

Ah, I see, it's not just Diane/Paul. "It's there to save lives" is officially a talking point.

[Dillinger]

I think for myself just fine if Diane & I have the same thought maybe it's the correct one

[Nazi-Chipping Warlock]

Did White Mike just accuse someone of not thinking for themselves? Holy crap, that's an astounding lack of self awareness.

[Liberty_Belle]

"The floating barrier will cost about $1 million and will cover only a small portion of the 1,254 miles of river along the Texas border with Mexico."

One million dollars and it covers a small portion ?

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Trickle down economics.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I'm guessing the one million is "soaking wet" all puns intended.

Planning, design, placement, maintenance etc. The government can't do anything for cheap.

[nobody 2]

I notice there's no mention of what, if any, effect this barrier is having on the number of people crossing at this "frequently deadly" location. I'll take that to mean that the number is noticeably down.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Given the 'frequently-deadly' moniker, and they've only found one body so far, and no evidence as to whether that person died AT the buoys or whether they floated down river and became entangled there, it suggests that this section of the river might not be as 'frequently-deadly' as it used to be. But time will tell.

[Mike Laursen]

If it’s not frequently deadly in that particular location it undermines your (and Dillinger’s) talking point that the buoys might have been put their to save lives.

[Don't look at me!]

Cite that it isn’t dangerous to swim that section of river??

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

If it’s not frequently deadly in that particular location

4-foot-high bright orange buoys in the middle of the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass, which is a common—and frequently deadly—crossing point for immigrants.

[Mike Laursen]

You just argued the area isn’t really “frequently-deadly”, as the blog post says it is, and now you are making the opposite argument citing the blog post as your source:

https://reason.com/2023/09/14/photo-border-buoys/?comments=true#comment-10236013

“suggests that this section of the river might not be as ‘frequently-deadly’ as it used to be”

[Don't look at me!]

….as it used to be”

Means after the floats were installed.

[Mike Laursen]

Texas is spending a fortune on Operation Lone Star. Enough that they could have just paid immigrants hundreds of thousands to simply stay home, or heaped social services and welfare on them:

https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/running-tab-with-4-billion-already-spent-abbotts-operation-lone-star-gets-another-359-million-15147757

“It’s another large sum for an operation that’s already run up a tab of more than $4 billion despite what critics have called questionable results.”

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

You can't put a price on political power, Mike.