Border tensions intensify after 3 migrants drown at Texas border

The White House says U.S. Border Patrol agents need access to the border after officials say three migrants drowned.

After Texas fenced off a park along the U.S.-Mexico border and began turning away Border Patrol agents, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott explained why at a campaign stop near Houston.“We are not allowing Border Patrol on that property anymore,” Abbott said Friday, drawing applause from supporters while endorsing a state legislator running for reelection. He relayed frustration over migrants illegally entering the U.S. through the border city of Eagle Pass and federal agents loading them onto buses. “We said, ‘We’ve had it. We’re not going to let this happen anymore,’” Abbott said.

Later that night, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said three migrants, including two children, drowned near the park after Texas officials “physically barred” Border Patrol agents from entering. Mexican authorities pulled the bodies, each of them wearing jackets, from the water on the other side of the Rio Grande. The weekend deaths intensified tensions between Texas and the Biden administration. They also unleashed a new round of criticism from Democrats over Abbott's aggressive actions to curb illegal crossings, accusing the measures of putting migrants at risk. U.S. authorities described the drownings as underscoring the need for Border Patrol agents to have access to the area around Shelby Park, which Texas closed off earlier this week. “U.S. Border Patrol must have access to the border to enforce our laws,” White House spokesman Angelo Fernández Hernández said in a statement.

On Sunday evening, the Texas Military Department released a statement disputing the U.S. government's accounts, calling it “wholly inaccurate” that state personnel prevented Border Patrol from saving drowning migrants.

"At the time that Border Patrol requested access, the drownings had occurred, Mexican authorities were recovering the bodies, and Border Patrol expressed these facts to the TMD personnel on site,” the department said.

The Biden administration stuck to its initial account Sunday, saying in a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that Texas denied Border Patrol agents access before they knew the migrants died. In a direct contradiction of Texas' version of events, Homeland Security said agents at the time knew only that migrants were attempting to cross the river.