Texas places buoys in Rio Grande in latest battle over migrants: What to know

In the final months of Donald Trump's administration, a new plan to seal off the southern U.S. border started gaining steam: a floating water barrier to discourage migrants from trying to cross from Mexico.

The idea never materialized. But three years later, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has put it into action.

The state installed a floating barrier of bright orange, wrecking ball-sized buoys on the Rio Grande beginning on July 8, stretching roughly the length of three soccer fields.

It is an untested strategy of deterring migrants along the U.S. border that is already fortified in wide sections by high steel fencing and razor wire. The rollout of the buoys on the Rio Grande has thrust Texas into a new standoff with the Joe Biden administration over immigration on the state's 1,930-kilometre border with Mexico.

The Justice Department has asked a federal court to order Texas to remove the buoys, saying the water barrier poses humanitarian and environmental concerns along the international boundary. But Abbott has waved off the lawsuit as he is cheered on by conservative allies eager for states to take on more aggressive deterrence measures.

Here's what to know about the river barrier:

In 2020, Mark Morgan was the acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). He told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he approved plans to deploy the same water barrier on the Rio Grande that Texas is now using.

That August, the Army Corps of Engineers posted a solicitation for a "buoy barrier system" that would "mitigate the ability of swimmers to climb" over or under it.

Morgan called it the "water wall."

"It was really designed to be a stopgap to utilize in high-flow areas where we didn't have a physical structure in place," Morgan said.

The CBP did not immediately address questions Tuesday about the 2020 plans. The federal International Boundary and Water Commission, whose jurisdiction includes boundary demarcation and overseeing U.S.-Mexico treaties, said it didn't get a heads-up from Texas about the state's floating barrier.

Earlier this month, before the buoys were installed, four migrants drowned in the Rio Grande. Last September, nine migrants died and 37 were rescued as they tried to cross the rain-swollen river near Eagle Pass, Texas.

Experts have also raised concerns of the buoys changing the river's flow or of objects getting caught in them.

It is unclear how quickly a federal judge in Texas will rule on the Biden administration's lawsuit.