Michael Karlis
Texas National Guard troops stationed along the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass as part of Gov. Abbott's Operation Lone Star keep watch for migrants attempting to enter the U.S.
“The state says they’re not a danger to anybody; well, I want you to look right here at this chainsaw device,” the San Antonio Democrat said in the clip, pointing to what appears to flat, circular blades wedged together between the orange buoys.
During the video, posted to X — the platform formerly known as Twitter — Castro also shows off razor wire installed along the banks of the Rio Grande River.
“You really have a situation where the state government and Greg Abbott are treating human beings like animals … it’s incredibly dangerous, it’s incredibly inhumane and it’s the reason that I’ve said it’s barbaric — because it is,” the congressman added.
Everyone needs to see what I saw in Eagle Pass today.
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) August 8, 2023
Clothing stuck on razor wire where families got trapped. Chainsaw devices in the middle of buoys. Land seized from US citizens.
Operation Lone Star is barbaric — and @GovAbbott is making border communities collateral damage. pic.twitter.com/PzKyZGWfds
Castro posted his video following a press conference in Eagle Pass, in which he and other Democratic lawmakers, including state Sen. Roland Gutierrez of San Antonio, called on the U.S. Border Patrol stop cooperating with Texas Department of Public Safety troopers. He said the cooperation should be ended until a suit by the Justice Department seeking the removal of the buoys is resolved.
Abbot deployed the buoy barrier near Eagle Pass as part of his $4.4 billion border crackdown Operation Lone Star, an initiative Castro and Gutierrez blasted as political grandstanding during their press conference.
“What the governor of Texas has done for the last two years it just create nothing but stunts,” Gutierrez said, also invoking Abbott's initiative to bus asylum seekers to Democrat-controlled cities.
Although Abbott continues to maintain the buoys are not a danger, just last week, two migrant men were found dead near the buoys, with one corpse of the corpses stuck to the barrier. In a statement, DPS officials said without explaining their reasoning that the man stuck in the buoys probably died upriver.
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