Ugh. I made the mistake of clicking the twitter link. It’s mostly RWNJs saying what a great idea the barrier is. It’s foul.
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The product isn’t the problem. The use case is. Surrounding a naval base with it to prevent unauthorized access is completely reasonable. This is not. Biden should send in the military to dismantle it. Who controls the border? Right now, Texas, not the federal government.
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Also gerrymandering. And making it harder to vote (blocking mail-in and drive-thru voting). And “looking into”/disregarding votes from urban districts, particularly Harris & Tarrant counties. I don’t trust Paxton to be anywhere close to ethical when deciding what votes are acceptable.
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Cruella Cowardlady (UK Home Secretary) will be phoning that company as I type this, asking what it would cost to put barriers like these in the English Channel. She just loves her some ‘the cruelty is the point’ policies and hardware.
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You are correct, but somebody is marketing this stuff to people like the Texas authorities who think this is a good use case. I mean, we don’t sell alcohol to minors. If Texas is predictably going to misuse stuff like this then perhaps the company should be taken to task (because Texas is already offending – obviously).
I wholeheartedly agree. Perhaps even sanctions to both Texas and Corchrane to boot.
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It’s worse than that. Not only is it a violation of the Constitution, as states have no legal standing to make foreign policy; not only is it a violation of Mexico’s sovergnty; the Rio Grande is an international, navigable waterway. It’s against US and international law to create navigational hazards there.
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Why would a military base need barriers with hidden saws? If you want people to stay away, you make the danger obvious. This is a trap for hurting people rather than deterring them…at best it might have some use as a trap during an actual war, like mines, but since it really only works on the unsuspecting or desperate I doubt it.
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Anything related to CBE and ICE is complicated for the Biden Administration. Short of disbanding ICE (which I woukd support) and severely nerfing CBE, attempts to remove these woukd be met with adverse compliance. Those two federal LEO are the most RWNJ-filled in the federal government. With a court order, the administration would have a backstop to order them removed and remove any LEOs who defy the order.
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No doubt. I saw this and thought, obviously, fuck you Abbott. But some company out there has this garbage in their product line. Can you imagine going into work knowing you’re a cog in such an amoral machine… 
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Abbott Afterlife
I’ve been thinking about that scene a lot, lately…
Eh. Most of the Rio Grande isn’t navigable and afaik, no vessels use it for commerce. The river was dammed in the 1950s downstream of the bouys and you really can’t get a bigger interruption to navigability than that.
That said, Abbott did say drug traffickers and coyotes were using it which is kind of commerce…
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Check your understanding of the legal definition of navigability. It doesn’t have to have a connection to the ocean. In contrast, damming a river usually increases river navigability. So unless the area is unpopulated wilderness or has impassible rapids for the whole length that Texas has trapped (hint: it isn’t and it doesn’t); it’s navigable by the legal definition.
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I think it’s even easier than that, a court order is a de-escalation step.
First the court order, backing up and setting the expectation for what the law says and which government is responsible and has the rights. Then removal. At that point, anyone trying to put them back again is simply arrested as they’re clearly breaking the law as established and affirmed by the court order. Which will also discourage anyone from trying to put them back knowing they’re breaking the law ahead of time.
The alternative of send in federal forces to remove them is an escalation. Without the court confirming, Texas will continue to claim it’s their right. (They’re wrong, but that’s their current augment.) They’ll simply send in someone to put back new ones. Rinse and repeat the removal and replace. Pretty soon (if not the first time) both the removers and the replacers are there at the same time, face to face, working at cross odds. At this point you have direct escalated conflict between federal and state actors. Might be construction workers, could be armed forces. This will devolve very fast after that.
The court plan to create unambiguous standing that Texas is wrong and does not have this right is to de-escalate the situation and prevent an armed conflict. It is still tragic that it will take so long.
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Have you met Republicans?
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I’m unaware of any clear definitive legal definition of navigable waters.
The Federal government broadly considers navigable waters to be those which have past/present/potential for interstate or foreign commerce and have the physical capabilities for use by commerce - at least for the purposes of determining whether it has jurisdiction under the Constitution.
Of course, it also believes that it can’t make an administrative determination of what constitutes navigable waters and judges are ultimately responsible to decide.
Disputes over what parts of the Rio Grande are navigable waters going back to the 19th century haven’t clearly defined which parts in Texas to my knowledge other than to say some parts are. The Rio Grande in NM though was ruled non-navigable in US v. Rio Grande Dam & Irrigation Co. It was argued in that case that the Rio Grande was navigable from the mouth to Roma, Texas, but that’s a couple hundred miles downstream of the buoys.
Today, the only commercial ships are at the mouth of river afaik and Texas argues they stuck the buoys in water too shallow water to be an impediment to navigation. That said, I’m not sure that argument will fly.
The test courts use for navigability is, if people boat it, it’s navigable. If Texas used boats to install the bouys, they established navigability. From looking at the river at Eagle Pass, that’s navigable for anglers in bass boats, which has already been established as an acceptable test for commercial purpose. It doesn’t have to be merchant ships or even commercial fishing; just that someone fishes there from a boat and contributes as such to the local economy.
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Commerce is absolutely a requirement according to courts. Congress only has power to regulate it because it has the power to regulate foreign and interstate commerce under the Constitution and navigation is commerce (Gibbons v. Ogden).
The Supreme Court in United States v. Holt State Bank (1926) when summarizing the law on navigation:
The rule long since approved by this court in applying the Constitution and laws of the United States is that streams or lakes which are navigable in fact must be regarded as navigable in law; that they are navigable in fact when they are used, or are susceptible of being used, in their natural and ordinary condition, as highways for commerce, over which trade and travel are or may be conducted in the customary modes of trade and travel on water; and further that navigability does not depend on the particular mode in which such use is or may be had - whether by steamboats, sailing vessels or flatboats - nor on an absence of occasional difficulties in navigation, but on the fact, if it be a fact, that the stream in its natural and ordinary condition affords a channel for useful commerce.
Or Justice Hughes in US v. State of Utah (1931):
The test of navigability has frequently been stated by this Court. In The Daniel Ball, 10 Wall. 557, 563, the Court said: ‘Those rivers must be regarded as public navigable rivers in law which are navigable in fact. And they are navigable in fact when they are used, or are susceptible of being used, in their ordinary condition, as highways for commerce, over which trade and travel are or may be conducted in the customary modes of trade and travel on water.’
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And recreational fishing has been established to represent commerce.
Even if the bed of a waterway is privately owned, the waterway may be used by the public for certain purposes if it meets the state test of navigable-for-public-use (the “public use doctrine.”) A waterway is navigable-for-public-use if it has the capacity, in terms of length, width and depth, to enable boats to make successful progress through its waters. If a privately owned waterway meets this test, the lawful public uses generally include navigation, commerce or recreation. Recreation in this case includes use of small boats for pleasure and fishing, as well as swimming. The public may use the land adjacent to a waterway that is navigable-for-public- use as long as the use of the adjacent land is “necessary” to the lawful use of the waterway.
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IANAL but my understanding that there’s numerous laws being violated here. The waterway itself is likely federally controlled and it is also subject to various treaties between US and Mexico that are being violated. These buoys also are deliberately placed in such a way that they maim and kill. If that’s not gross negligence I don’t know what is.
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