Mexico confirms body found in buoy barrier installed by Texas in Rio Grande

By Jorge Antonio Rocha

MEXICO CITY (AA) - Mexican authorities confirmed Thursday that a body was retrieved from the Rio Grande River separating Mexico from Texas that was stuck in a barrier of buoys and razor wire installed by Gov. Greg Abbott.

Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that the Texas Department of Public Safety had recovered one body from the water earlier that day. However, local news outlets reported the discovery of a second body 3.8 kilometers (2.4 miles) from where the first body was found on Thursday.

Mexican authorities pointed to the buoys and barbed wire that the Texas government installed in early July as the cause behind the deaths of the two men. The 1,000-foot-long floating barrier is part of Abbott's Operation Lone Star, a $4 billion initiative to hamper migration from Mexico.

On July 24, the US Department of Justice sued Abbott for refusing to remove the buoys from the Mexico-US border, a move that Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador praised.

On Aug. 1, Lopez Obrador denounced the buoys as an affront to Mexico's sovereignty and accused Abbott of pursuing anti-immigration policies for political purposes.

"It is a breach of our sovereignty and international agreements," he said.

At his morning briefing Thursday, Lopez Obrador said the authorities are still working to identify the country of origin of the deceased while demanding the removal of the buoys. Asked if he had any message for Abbott, he slammed the Republican governor over his "inhumane" migration policies.

Abbott "should not act like that. That is inhumane. No person should be treated like that," he said.