Putting a floating barrier in the Rio Grande to stop migrants is new. The idea isn't.
In the final months of the Trump administration, a new plan to seal off the United States’ southern border started gaining steam: a floating water barrier to discourage migrants from trying to cross from Mexico. The idea never materialized. But three years later, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has put it into action. The state installed a floating barrier of bright orange, wrecking ball-sized buoys on the Rio Grande this month, stretching roughly the length of three soccer fields. It is an untested strategy of deterring migrants along the U.S. border that is already fortified in