By: The opinion Posted Aug 22, 2023, 1:29 pm EDT
The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, celebrated this Tuesday the decision of the governor of Texas, the Republican Greg Abbott, to move the buoy barrier into US territory that he placed in the Rio Grande to prevent the passage of migrants.
“It’s good that you rectify. It is wise to change your mind hopefully and learn that you should respect us”, said the president during his morning press conference.
The Mexican ruler thus referred to the decision of the Government of Texas, which announced this week that it would withdraw the floating border barrier built on the Rio Grande after surveyors realized that the buoys were in Mexican territory.
“Now, two days ago (he corrected), and it’s good that he did it, the governor of Texas already ordered the buoys to travel to his territoryThey have already removed the bases that they used to put those buoys with barbed wire,” López Obrador specified.
The Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations, Alicia Bárcena, has sent three diplomatic notes to Washington to complain about it, arguing that the buoys occupy a length of 230 meters on the Mexican side.
Criticism against the fence increased earlier this month when the body of a migrant was found stuck in the barrier.
The Abbott government defended itself at the time by saying the migrant died upriver. and that the current had dragged the body to the buoys.
The installation of the barrier even led the Texas government to face a federal court.
A judicial document presented by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) assured that the buoys were located in Mexican territory, so Abbott moved the buoys to United States territory.
These events occur in the midst of an upturn in the migratory flow through Mexico after the initial drop that caused the expiration last May of Title 42 of the United States, as recognized last week by the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
In recent weeks, reports of migrants dying while crossing the Rio Grande have grownwhich reflects the unprecedented migratory flow in the region, with more than 2.76 million undocumented migrants intercepted by the United States at the border with Mexico during fiscal year 2022.
With information from Efe.
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