A battle over border security now poised to play out in court,
with the Biden administration suing Texas over these floating barriers in
the Rio Grande between Mexico and Eagle Pass, Texas.
A thousand foot line of buoys that this Honduran couple told us they saw and
avoided as they crossed into the US this afternoon.
She's eight months pregnant.
Why did you decide to come to the US?
Because my brother was killed in Honduras, he told us.
>> Speaker 2: The Biden administration's Department of Justice is now
suing the State of Texas over their spike wrapped buoys.
And of course, these are the buoys that Greg Abbott, the Governor of Texas,
has decided to place in the middle of the Rio Grande to deter migrants
from coming to the United States.
Now, Abbott's opponents say that the treatment of these migrants is cruel and
inhumane.
So let's get to the details on what this lawsuit entails.
Now, the barrier which we have covered
on the show prior to this is about 4 feet tall and movable so
that it can be deployed strategically in migrant crossing hotspots.
Webbing is also attached to the barrier underwater to make it difficult to
swim below.
And as a result of that, some migrants have drowned because they try to
avoid those buoys, they try to avoid the spike wrapped barriers, and
in doing so, they end up in deeper parts of the water.
And some of these migrants have drowned as a result.
So, by the way, over the years, hundreds of people attempting to reach the US
through these fast flowing waters have also drowned.
So that's another thing to keep in mind.
Now, on September 1st last year, 13 migrants drowned there.
Earlier in 2022, authorities had recovered 12 bodies from the river in a single day.
So we're literally talking about people dying here.
Now, on the first day of this month,
authorities recovered the bodies of a Guatemalan woman and her infant daughter.
She tried to swim around the spike wrap buoys and
drowned as a result, and so did one of her children.
She was present with two children and
it's still unclear what happened to her second child.
Now I'm going to get to the details about the lawsuit and
what the grounds are for the lawsuit in just a moment.
But Cenk, do you want to jump in?
>> Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's two different issues here.
One is the federal and state issue.
The federal government says there's laws on the book saying you cannot do
something in these rivers that are maintained by the federal government
without getting approval.
And so that's very important.
But as what I always tell you guys, be careful, so
whatever the red states can do and cannot do also applies to
the blue states when there's a Republican President.
So there's a lot of things I would want the blue states to do that the federal
government might not agree to if Trump is in charge, right?
So that one's a little bit of a mixed bag.
But I think the Biden administration is on solid legal grounding.
And then there's a humanitarian issue, what should you do here?
And to me, that's also a little bit of a mixed bag.
And maybe that might be surprising, but we talked about the wires before,
the barbed wires, totally unacceptable.
No way that I think that's just so inhumane.
And by the way, people that are on the ground, ranchers, farmers, etc, people
that are near their properties, abut the river, etc, a lot of them are saying, and
they're Republicans, and they're saying, no, don't do the wires.
I don't want the wires.
It's too much.
The buoys, on the other hand, well, a buoy a wall, yes, it's got issues,
but it's know, alligators and snakes that Trump was talking about.
It's not electric fences.
It's not barbed wire.
Buoys and walls are historically what are used for borders, but
you've got to get the federal permission.
So I think that one's a little bit more complicated.
>> Speaker 2: So let me give you the statements coming from the Biden
administration.
So a Biden administration official, according to CBS News, said,
the floating barriers have interfered with Border Patrol efforts to patrol
the river and process migrants who reach US soil.
In one week, the official added, Border Patrol encountered dozens of injured or
drowned migrants, including babies.
So let's get to what the Justice Department lawsuit actually entails and
argues.
The lawsuit, which has been filed in the US District Court in the Western District
of Texas, the department alleges that Texas and Abbott violated the Rivers and
Harbors Appropriation Act by building a structure in US water without
permission from the United States Army Corps of Engineers.
So that's the main argument here, right?
That the federal government controls those waters and without permission,
Texas decided to implement these barriers and they just can't do that.
Now, the Act also prohibits the placement of structures and
waterways without federal approval.
And Abbott claimed, without really explaining why,
that the statute doesn't apply in this particular situation.
But you got to explain why you can't just say it and
allow that to stand without any further explanation as to why you believe that.
>> Speaker 3: Well, he is a Republican.
That is their usual routine these days.
I don't need any stinking evidence.
Well, bad news for you, you're going to court.
And you said you can't wait to go to court.
You're going to need evidence in court.
So you better have your side prepared.
So right now it looks like the Biden administration is in better shape when it
comes to the issue of federal versus state.
>> Speaker 2: Look, I'm going to keep it real.
I think that what Abbott and DeSantis were doing,
as much as it disgusted me to use human beings as political pawns.
What they were doing in sending migrants to sanctuary cities and
sanctuary states sent a message that I think resonated with a lot of people,
including those who live in those blue states, in those blue cities,
who previously might have been a little more, I don't know,
laissez faire when it comes to immigration policy because
it didn't impact them the way it does some of these border cities.
They lose people once they engage in cruel and unusual punishment or
treatment toward human beings.
And that's exactly what's happening here, right?
Sending migrants to different parts of the country, as long as they consent to it,
I don't have a problem with, and again, it does send a message in regard to the lack
of immigration policy that we're seeing from Congress.
But doing something that you know is getting people killed as they're
fleeing their countries to come to the United States for either safety or
economic opportunities is insane.
And that's where you definitely start to lose people.
I'm glad that the DOJ is suing them over this.
>> Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm surprised they didn't include the wires.
It seems like that's a much better case, but okay, so let's talk about it.
But yes, in fact, when we covered that story last time, we said, hey,
Biden is president, is he going to do anything about this?
And he just did, so great.
Or at least the Department of Justice did.
So credit where credit is due.
Look, I want to be super clear, I love those immigrants.
So I'm an immigrant.
I'm a documented immigrant.
And sometimes documented immigrants are, we did it the right no, no, well,
we had the opportunity to do it the right way.
My uncle was a doctor that lived here in America much, much easier than that guy
that you saw in the interview that had his brother killed and
had to travel all that way with his family and
then somehow try to crawl to this side of the border with all these obstacles.
Why is he doing it?
Because he's trying to protect his family.
I love that guy.
And so I wanna help them.
Now, at the same time, everybody gets to put up borders, right?
So, for example, walls are not great,
we on the left don't want as many walls, right?
But walls do exist.
They are fairly common.
Fences are fairly common in borders, right?
And so you could make the argument, well, if you have a wall or fence,
people could try to climb it, they could fall down, they probably do.
And some people die that way.
Does that mean we should never have a wall or a fence?
Some on the left would say, yes,
and I think a lot of people probably would say no.
So the question is where's the line?
For most decent human beings, barbed wire is nowhere near the line, right?
But buoys, I think, are near the line.
Then you need facts.
I'm not saying I agree with the buoys.
What I'm saying is, if they show, hey, with walls,
actually, almost no one dies, they don't really try to climb it, but with buoys,
they do actually try to cross and you get drownings all the time, then I say, no,
I hate the buoys, get them out, right?
But if almost no one drowns and you're just putting a barrier there that doesn't
hurt human beings but prevents them from crossing, as much as I'm rooting for
those guys, and I love those guys, well, I get that a country can vote to say we're
protecting our border and we're gonna put some obstacle there.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I think the biggest issue impacting immigration in
America right now is the inaction that we're seeing from Congress.
Their dysfunction and their inability to pass any reform or
any legislation necessary to deal with sporadic influxes at the border.
We have to have the resources in place to process people,
the resources in place to deal with it, but we don't.
And so if you leave it up to the states like Texas especially,
to make these decisions in lieu of federal policy and federal immigration reform,
you're gonna end up with gross policies like the spiked barriers.
And in this case, with this specific lawsuit,
the buoys meant to serve as an obstacle for people to come in.
Anyway, I do wanna end with Abbott's response to this lawsuit because
he remains defiant, to say the least.
He says, Texas will see you in court Mr President.
If you truly care about human life,
you must begin enforcing federal immigration laws.
Texas will fully utilize its constitutional authority to deal with
the crisis you have caused.
Arguing that Biden caused the crisis, let's just keep it real, is ridiculous.
I mean, how exactly did Biden cause the crisis?
If I recall correctly, during the Trump administration, there was a months
narrative about the migrant caravan coming to the border, was that Trump's fault?
Was it Trump's failed immigration policies that persuaded migrants to come to
the border?
>> Speaker 3: Not only are Trump and Biden's numbers very similar, but
there's actually been a lull recently in immigration,
partly because the economy is improving in Central America.
There's so many other factors in real people's lives.
Violence is going down a little bit in Latin America that is helping so
that more people are not forced to flee.
Remember, the trek to America is incredibly dangerous.
They're not gonna do that willy-nilly,
they're only doing it if they feel like they're desperate and absolutely need to,
to protect their family and to provide for their family.
So actually the number of crossings have gone down considerably now.
Do you get that sense if you watch right wing media?
No, of course not.
They're all, when Trump's in charge, it's record lows, that's not true.
When Biden is in charge, they're record highs, that's not true.
It's just not true.
And they keep saying it no matter what.
And yes, no, things like war on drugs causes more immigration issues and
more illegal border crossings than any other policy by US Presidents and
soon climate change will cause the biggest influx of immigrants.
Those are actual macro factors that cause these problems, not little,
hey, how many guards did you put on this 2000 miles border?
That's not really the issue.