(PatriotWise.com) — Last week, Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department said two bodies were recovered in the Rio Grande, across from Eagle Pass in Texas, including one that floated into the marine barrier Texas installed along the river, CBS News reported.
Initially, the Foreign Relations Department only reported that a body was found along the barrier. But hours later, the department revealed that a second body was found 3 miles away from the area with the barriers.
The state prosecutor’s office in Coahuila told local news on Wednesday that the bodies were recovered and identification was underway.
On Thursday, the Mexican migration agency confirmed that one of the migrants was a Honduran national while the second was Mexican. No cause of death was given in either case.
Mexican officials condemned the installation of the river barriers after the bodies were found. However, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw said preliminary data suggests that the body found along the barrier “drowned upstream” and later floated into the barrier.
In a statement from the Department of Public Safety, McCraw said personnel are posted at the barriers “at all times in case any migrants try to cross.”
Texas DPS spokesman Lt. Chris Oliverez said in the statement that the department had received a report on Wednesday about a possible victim of drowning “floating upstream from the marine barrier.” The department notified US Customs and Border Protection and the Mexican consulate and the body was later discovered at the barrier.
The marine barrier was installed as part of Operation Lone Star, an initiative launched by Governor Greg Abbott in March 2021 to shut down “dangerous gaps” after the Biden administration refused to secure the southern border.
Late last month, the Justice Department sued Texas over the barriers, arguing that they violate the federal law that governs structures in navigable waters.
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