For Texas Governor Abbott, the Cruelty Is Not Just the Point, It's the Entire Reason

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | August 9, 2023 |

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | August 9, 2023 |

I don’t think this is getting a lot of play in the American media outside of Texas because it doesn’t involve Donald Trump, the flailing campaign of Ron DeSantis, or Hunter Biden. In fact, it was brought to my attention this morning by an Israeli houseguest staying with our family this summer, who wondered how this could even be legal. Truthfully, I don’t know, because Texas Governor Greg Abbott has set up a literal death trap along the Rio Grande border between Mexico and the United States.

As part of Abbott’s $10 billion border project, Operation Lone Star, a “steel wall” of buoys has been set up along the border, a wall that both President Biden and Mexico strongly disapprove of. For that matter, so does Sister Isabel Turcios, a nun who runs a Texas shelter, who told the Dallas Morning News that “We need to be better human beings, good Christians, and think of humanity.”

The buoys are 4 feet in diameter, and thick cables and concrete bases hold the buoys in place, preventing anyone from going underneath. Here’s the kicker — there’s a strip of sharp metal that looks like a circular saw between the buoys that will cut, maim, or kill anyone trying to slip through the buoys. In fact, two dead migrants were found on or near the buoy barriers last week. Abbott, however, says that the buoys are necessary to protect America from an “invasion” of migrants.

This is literally like a Saw-like contraption, and Greg Abbott is the Jigsaw Killer. Migrants fleeing poverty, abuse, and violence walk hundreds of miles in blistering heat, and Abbott is figuratively at the border telling them, “You have to choose: Go back to the poverty and violence, or lose your foot — and potentially more — for a chance at a better life. And yes, your 11-year-old child has to make that choice, too.”

“We have seen again and again that these obstacles don’t deter border crossers, that they only function as inhumane, cruel tools to inflict pain,” a Brown University professor told The Dallas Morning News.

“Cruel tools to inflict pain” is the entire point.

Texas Gov Abbott has installed circular saws between the Rio Grande border buoys to maim or kill anyone who attempts to climb over. Two bodies have already been found trapped in the floating barrier.

He wants more migrants to die.
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— Laiken Jordahl (@LaikenJordahl) August 8, 2023