Deaths of three migrants on US-Mexico border raises tension between White House and Texas

Tensions between Joe Biden’s administration and Texas over the immigration crisis are on the rise as federal and local authorities continue their dispute over the surveillance of the Mexican border. The friction between the two has recently intensified, days after three Mexican migrants — a young mother and her two children, aged eight and 10 — drowned in the Rio Grande while trying to reach the United States. The tug-of-war between the two parties has made one of the most dangerous international immigration routes even more lethal.

The Biden administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court to intervene in a lawsuit that Washington has filed against Texas over border surveillance with Mexico. In the petition, federal authorities explain that on January 12, at around 9 p.m. local time, the Mexican government informed the U.S. Border Patrol that two Mexican migrants were in trouble near a boat ramp on the U.S. side of the river. The discovery was made in Shelby Park, an area of Eagle Pass, which has become the epicenter of an immigration crisis that poses a threat to Biden in a year when his re-election to the White House is on the line.

The Mexican officials also reported that three people had drowned in that same area an hour earlier, at approximately 8 p.m. The Mexican citizens “did not enter the United States,” the Mexican Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued Sunday. The victims were originally from the State of Mexico and were not identified at the time. The bodies were recovered by the Beta group of the National Institute of Migration and the National Guard.

After being notified by Mexican authorities, agents of the Border Patrol, the federal body in charge of guarding the 3,000-kilometer (1,864-mile) border with Mexico, attempted to enter the Shelby Park area, which had been monitored since January 11 by state law enforcement. “Speaking through the closed gate, the [Texas National] guardsmen refused to let the Acting Supervisor enter because they had been ordered not to allow Border Patrol access to the park,” stated the brief addressed to the Supreme Court. A staff sergeant supervising the guardsmen unit posted in the area stated that his orders prevented the passage of federal agents “even in emergency situations.”

Although the Texas National Guard sent soldiers to investigate, the migrants who were in danger were rescued by Mexican authorities, even though they were on the U.S. side of the river. They were pulled from the water suffering from hypothermia and returned to Mexico along with two other people who attempted to cross into the United States last Friday night.

The incident, according to the federal government, reflects Texas is “firm in its continued efforts to exercise complete control of the border and land adjacent to it on this 2.5-mile stretch of the Rio Grande […] It is impossible to say what might have happened if Border Patrol had had its former access to the area — including through its surveillance trucks that assisted in monitoring the area. At the very least, however, Border Patrol would have had the opportunity to take any available steps to fulfill its responsibilities and assist its counterparts in the Mexican government with undertaking the rescue mission. Texas made that impossible,” the Department of Homeland Security stated.

The death of the three migrants has provoked strong criticism of the Texas state government of Republican Greg Abbott. “This is a tragedy, and the state bears responsibility,” Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar, one of the most prominent Latinos in the Texas legislature, said over the weekend. “Republicans have so successfully dehumanized migrants that there is no empathy for the loss of life,” Veronica Escobar, another Texas Democratic representative in Congress, posted on X.

Escobar recalled that Abbott had told a conservative radio host that his administration is doing everything possible to strengthen border enforcement. “The only thing that we’re not doing is we’re not shooting people who come across the border, because of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder,” the governor said on January 11, a day before the incident on the Rio Grande.

Washington has asked the Supreme Court to overturn a decision of the Fifth Federal Circuit Court of Appeals that prohibits the Border Patrol from destroying the barbed wire installed on the border by Texas agents. State Attorney General Ken Paxton has stated that the appeals court is already dealing with the matter on an expedited basis and that this is a ploy by the Biden administration to disrupt the appeals process.

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