Texas governor, AG celebrate court decision allowing floating river barrier on Mexico border

NEW ORLEANS – Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton celebrated a federal appeals court decision on Tuesday, permitting the state to maintain a floating river barrier along the Mexico border.

Abbott and Paxton said the barrier, if allowed when the ongoing legal dispute is completed, will help stop unwanted migration into the state.

"The Federal Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit just ruled that Texas can KEEP these buoys in the water securing our border," Abbott said in a social media message. "(President) Biden tried to remove them.  I fought to keep them in the water. That is exactly where they will stay. JUSTICE!!!!"

The Biden administration filed a lawsuit against Texas, arguing the state needed federal permission and that the barriers threatened navigation, public safety and U.S.-Mexico relations.

Paxton said the 5th Circuit found the federal district court "abused its discretion when it ordered Texas to remove the buoys floating in the Rio Grande that prevent aliens from attempting a dangerous river crossing to enter America illegally."

"The buoys can remain in the river," Paxton said. "I will continue to defend Texas's right to protect its border from illegal immigration!"

The appeals court overturned a preliminary federal trial court injunction that had mandated the state to stop work on the 1,000-foot barrier and relocate it to a state riverbank.

"We hold that the district court clearly erred in finding that the United States will likely prove that the barrier is in a navigable stretch of the Rio Grande," Judge Don R. Willett said. "We cannot square the district court's findings and conclusions with over a century's worth of precedent."

The decision was issued a week before the case is slated to return to the district court for a trial scheduled for Aug. 6 in Austin.