EAGLE PASS, TX –In a whirlwind chain of events that took place within the span of a few hours on Friday in Eagle Pass, Gov. Greg Abbott was sued for actions without legal authority in this city of 28,000.
Hundreds of buoys began to arrive in 18-wheelers at downtown’s Shelby Park, just after dozens of community organizers held a press conference in response to the recent takeover of Shelby Park by state troopers from Texas and Florida.
Withintwo hours of the delivery of the buoys, Eagle Pass resident and kayaking outfitter Jessie F. Fuentes filed suit against Gov. Greg Abbott in Travis County, seeking a permanent injunction to stop the installation of the buoys.
“The Governor proclaims to support law and order, yet he initiated Operation Lone Star without legal authority and seeks to install buoys to score political points without a legitimate public policy objective,” said Fuentes’ attorney, Carlos E. Flores of Laredo.
The morning began with a lengthy tense encounter between community organizers and state troopers at the park entrance over the press conference. Organizers had received approval from City Hall – something that was never required before – to hold the press conference at the city-owned Shelby Park and allow four kayakers to launch into the river from the park boat ramp.
State troopers, however, held back residents on Friday morning without explaining under what authority they had to change the press conference venue, and continued to prevent people from accessing large sections of the city park and its boat ramp. The press conference was ultimately held in front of the shipping containers from China that the state brought in last year and lined along the banks of the park with vast amounts of concertina wire in and around the containers.
The press conference began with an indigenous grounding ceremony. Residents demanded that access be restored to the people for their park, shoreline, and public boat ramp.
They also demanded that state crews depart from their park and the once pristine island recently bulldozed to serve as staging ground for the buoy system.
The Eagle Pass Border Coalition was joined by supporters from the No Border Wall Laredo Coalition who drove in from Laredo and Zapata to support their efforts.
Two weeks ago at the island, crews built a dirt road from the riverbank that now covers a river stream to connect onto the island to cross their heavy equipment, vehicles, and buoys.
Eagle Pass residents angrily pointed out that politicians from Austin and Washington have increasingly militarized their once popular park through the construction of a 14-foot steel border fence and the line-up of nearly 100 steel containers against the river’s edge that block all views and access to the river. The containers are topped with concertina all along the shoreline of the park and its island.
Shelby Park is the site of numerous festivals and family gatherings and sits next to an international bridge that leads to Piedras Negras, Mexico.
Like many cities on the Texas-Mexico border, Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras depend completely on the Rio Grande – a highly distressed river system – for their drinking water supply.
(The Eagle Pass Border Coalition is a group of community organizers that are working to empower our community to lift our voice, protect our culture and become ambassadors of our fronterizo identity. We’re fighting to be the ones that get to tell our own story. IG – @epbordercoalition | epbordercoalition@gmail.com CONTACT: Robie Flores, robie@ambientefilms.com, 646-673-5964 | Alex Flores, alex@ambientefilms.com, 830-968-1453)
From The Texas Tribune, excerpted:
Texas prepares to deploy Rio Grande buoys in governor’s latest effort to curb border crossings
BY VALERIE GONZALEZ AND ACACIA CORONADO
ASSOCIATED PRESS JULY 07, 2023 7:43 PM
Read more at: https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/nation-world/national/article277119488.html#storylink=cpy
…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 proposed floating barrier. “We are studying what Texas is publicly proposing to determine whether and how this impacts our mission to carry out treaties between the US and Mexico regarding border delineation, flood control, and water distribution, which includes the Rio Grande,” Frank Fisher, a spokesperson for the commission, said in a statement.
On Friday morning, environmental advocates from Eagle Pass and Laredo, another Texas border city about 115 miles (185 kilometers) downriver, held a demonstration by the border that included a prayer for the river ahead of the barrier deployment.
Jessie Fuentes, who owns a canoe and kayaking business that takes paddlers onto the Rio Grande, said he’s worried about unforeseen consequences. On Friday, he filed a lawsuit to stop Texas from using the buoys. He’s seeking a permanent injunction, saying his paddling business is impacted by limited access to the river. “I know it’s a detriment to the river flow, to the ecology of the river, to the fauna and flora. Every aspect of nature is being affected when you put something that doesn’t belong in the river,” Fuentes said.
Adriana Martinez, a professor at Southern Illinois University who grew up in Eagle Pass, studies the shapes of rivers and how they move sediment and create landforms. She said she’s worried about what the webbing might do. “A lot of things float down the river, even when it’s not flooding; things that you can’t see like large branches, large rocks,” Martinez said. “And so anything like that could get caught up in these buoys and change the way that water is flowing around them.”
(Read more at: https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/nation-world/national/article277119488.html#storylink=cpy)
Greg Abbott’s wasteful day-glow orange ‘floaties’ buffoonery and Ron DeSantis’ ‘macho-man’ breast-beating apish photo op with the de rigueur river skiff ride for television audiences are offensive appeals for voters who don’t reside anywhere near our border. These circus acts are more in line with the unreasoning mentality of Laredo’s flag-waving “horde” (about a dozen) MAGA clowns on McPherson Road a few weeks ago. It is reminiscent of the 909 members of Reverend Jim Jones’ People’s Temple who so blindly believed lies that they committed murder and suicide because they believed their cult leader’s lies and could or would not think for themselves. Some shot themselves while many dean’s and gave their children a “soft drink”. Remember:🍇 GRAPE…that was the flavor of the cyanide-laced Kool-Aid they drank.
I beg these persons to read history, demographics, and political science BOOKS instead of being dumbed down by TV and the Internet. But then one is reminded that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. Miran el fuego y aún se tiren en el.