In Piedras Negras, a nun prays for migrants as smugglers benefit from Texas’ border buoys

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico — Sister Isabel Turcios, a nun who runs the Casa del Migrante shelter, confesses that Gov. Greg Abbott’s border buoys along the Rio Grande keep her up at night.

She prays for the many families who remain undeterred, trying to cross safely into the U.S.

“We need to be better human beings, good Christians, and think of humanity,” she said. “We should be talking about solutions, like work permits. Or the root of the problem. Because concertina wire, buoys and walls … will not stop people from crossing. They continue arriving daily, fleeing from unimaginably dire situations at home.”

Last week, two dead migrants were found on or near the buoy barriers, strung along the river between Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, Mexico. The Texas Department of Public Safety has denied that either migrant died by getting entangled in the barriers.

Abbott has defended the buoys, saying he is protecting Texas from an “invasion.” He has accused President Joe Biden of failing to properly enforce federal immigration laws.

In a letter dated July 24, Abbott wrote to Biden: “Neither of us wants to see another death in the Rio Grande River. Yet your open-border policies encourage migrants to risk their lives by crossing illegally through the water, instead of safely and legally at a port of entry. Nobody drowns on a bridge.”

Abbott spokesman Andrew Mahaleris has said four migrants drowned in the Rio Grande in July — before the barriers were installed — and blamed the deaths of migrants who have drowned in the last few years on Biden and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Last year, according to immigrant rights groups, more than 70 migrants drowned in Maverick County, which includes Eagle Pass. So far this year, 26 migrants have drowned in the area.

Construction of the buoy barriers began in July as the latest escalation in Abbott’s $10 billion border security effort dubbed Operation Lone Star, which includes deployments of state troopers and the National Guard.

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit last month to try to force Texas to remove the floating barriers. On Friday, a federal judge for the Western District of Texas scheduled an Aug. 22 hearing to consider the Justice Department’s call for an injunction requiring Texas to remove the barrier within 10 days.

Avoiding buoy barriers

The barriers comprise buoys 4 feet in diameter strung together in lengths of 1,000 feet. They are not wrapped in razor wire as early reports indicated, but there is a sharp metal strip between each one, ensuring cuts for anyone who might try to climb through the narrow gap.

Turcios, an emphatic figure of faith who doesn’t mince words, says asylum seekers avoid the buoy barriers by walking three to four hours up and down the shores of the Rio Grande, risking more dangerous crossings of the river.

The buoy barriers make the journey longer and more dangerous, agreed Ieva Jusionyte, associate professor of international security and anthropology at Brown University.“Like the steel wall, the buoys in the river endanger the lives of people who are attempting to cross,” said Jusionyte, who has researched what she calls the “mechanisms of injury” that threaten migrants’ lives.

“We have seen again and again,” she said, “tht these obstacles don’t deter border crossers, that they only function as inhumane, cruel tools to inflict pain.”

Mexican officials say the barriers violate an international treaty and encroach upon Mexican territory. Speaking of last week’s migrant deaths, Roberto Velasco, the top North American official in Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, told : “We are shocked by this tragic event and the impact of unilateral actions by the state of Texas.”

Mexico became the top U.S. trading partner at the start of 2023, with trade between the two countries totaling $263 billion during the first four months of this year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

“Neighbors deserve respect,” Velasco said.

News of drownings

One recent evening, fresh arrivals knocked on the door of Turcio’s shelter, looking for a meal, a bed and a shower.

News of the drownings dominated conversations inside a courtyard filled with Venezuelans and Central Americans — in particular, three Hondurans who were headed to a store, where friends and relatives in Houston would wire them money.

The latest drowning victim was a 20-year-old Honduran man, referred to by his wailing mother, as “mi niño, my child.”

One of the Honduran migrants, Miriam Garcia, 43, said she had just spoken to her brother and her 19-year-old daughter back in her homeland. Her daughter urged her to be careful crossing the river.

Garcia said she left because, at the maquiladora plant where she worked, a gang extorted the plant’s employees, including management.

The gang demanded 1,500 lempiras, or about $60, biweekly. Then the gang increased the amount to 2,500 lempiras. When she told them she couldn’t pay more, they urged her to leave for the U.S. They threatened to rape her daughter and force her into sex work.

Garcia told her daughter to move to her brother’s house. Garcia hoped to get to Houston where friends had secured a job for her cleaning hotels.

As the sun set over the Rio Grande, the river was at times deceiving, always treacherous. Garcia and the two other Honduran migrants approached a smuggler. They planned to cross in the coming days.

Human smuggling

Another smuggler, Jose Roberto, stared across the river and saw a landscape dotted with Texas state troopers. He pointed to four Venezuelans whom he was about to help cross the river. On the other side, they would turn themselves in to border authorities.

“These are people who are not trying to evade detention,” he said, speaking on the condition that his full name not be used. “Many come with children. The currents, at times, are strong and they [the migrants] can end up tangling up along the buoys downstream.

“My job is to help them turn themselves in safely” to U.S. authorities in places where the concertina wire doesn’t threaten migrants, he said. Away from the buoys, which he called “human traps.”

Abbott’s actions have made the migrants’ journey harder, resulting in higher prices paid to smugglers like him, he said. He used to help as many as 25 migrants a day. Lately, the numbers have increased to about 40 people, he said. His job is to get the people across the river for a few dollars each.

Abbott’s latest efforts, including the Rio Grande buoys, are “a waste of money for you, as taxpayers,” he said, “and a quick buck for us.”