Political Shell Game Used to Block Buoys at Border

AUSTIN, Texas — The state’s top land official denounced the Biden administration’s attempt to protect a mussel species as a “political” shell game aimed at stopping Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) from deploying buoys in the U.S.-Mexico water border to curb illegal immigration.

“Unfortunately, the Biden administration is turning the Endangered Species Act into a political tool to push an agenda rather than ensuring true conservation efforts are implemented,” Texas General Land Office Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said in a statement Friday about her complaint to the Biden administration over the endangerment declaration. “This administration is proposing to roll back reasonable improvements made to this law and are simply ignoring the successful accomplishments of private preservationists, state, and local land managers by adding more federal red tape regulations.”

The Justice Department took sudden action in late July to shut down Abbott’s water buoys, which were installed weeks earlier to block immigrants from crossing the Rio Grande into Eagle Pass, Texas. The DOJ argued that the buoys posed “threats to navigation and public safety and present humanitarian concerns.” The buoys stretch 1,000 feet in length, roughly one-fifth of a mile on the 2,000-mile southern boundary. (Excerpt from the Washington Examiner.)