Breakaway border buoys disrupt Rio Grande bridges during Texas flooding
By David Martin Davies
July 28, 2026 at 6:33 PM CDT
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A slow-moving weather pattern brought several consecutive days of extraordinary rainfall to South and Central Texas in mid-July, flooding multiple rivers — including the Rio Grande.
The high water became the first major test of the Department of Homeland Security’s expanding floating border barrier, installed to deter illegal immigration.
“The buoys were definitely in the water, could not be retrieved and were on their way down the Rio Grande,” said Amerika Garcia-Grewal, co-director of the Frontera Federation, a binational community organization.
Garcia-Grewal watched as large orange buoys traveled downstream. The cylindrical aluminum barriers are about 15 feet long and four feet high, and each can weigh approximately a ton. Their movement downriver prompted Eagle Pass to temporarily close its two international bridges.
Most of the federal buoys had not yet been installed. Customs and Border Protection said they were stored in a staging area when floodwaters swept them into the river. The agency said the buoys remained under the control of a contractor and had not been transferred to CBP.
CBP would not provide a count of the number of buoys that were free-floating in the border river, but Rio Grande International Study Center Executive Director Tricia Cortez said there were roughly 600.
Cortez said some buoys reached the Mexican side of the river, where residents reportedly salvaged them for scrap metal.
“It’s such a fiasco,” Cortez said.
Her organization warned about the potential danger after the Trump administration announced Operation River Wall. The federal initiative calls for installing more than 500 miles of interconnected buoys in the Rio Grande as a barrier to illegal immigration.
“All of this was already predicted,” Cortez said. “Our organization commissioned a risk assessment of the wall and buoy system.”
That assessment concluded that barriers could break loose during a flood and strike bridges, water facilities or other critical infrastructure.
In Laredo, officials declared an emergency, monitored the river and temporarily interrupted some international bridge operations as the buoys and other debris moved downstream. Mayor Victor Treviño said the highest priority was protecting the city’s water system.
“The Rio Grande is our sole source of drinking water,” Treviño said. “If our water intake facility were compromised, Laredo has approximately only eight hours of water storage.”
Treviño called on the Trump administration to reconsider the buoy program.
“Our request is straightforward,” he said. “We respectfully ask the appropriate federal agencies to conduct a comprehensive reassessment of the buoy deployment program before additional deployment decisions are made.”
Cuellar said the incident demonstrated the need for stronger congressional oversight of DHS spending.
“You cannot provide $260 billion without any oversight,” Cuellar said. “And I say that because they got that from there. From the $260 billion, $46.5 billion went for the border wall and for buoys.”
Cuellar also questioned whether the barriers are necessary because illegal border crossings have fallen sharply.
“It went down 96% without a single buoy being deployed in the water,” he said.
No injuries or major infrastructure damage were reported. But Cuellar noted that the July flood was moderate compared with historic Rio Grande floods. He warned that a more severe event could have far greater consequences.
A slow-moving weather pattern brought several consecutive days of extraordinary rainfall to South and Central Texas in mid-July, flooding multiple rivers — including the Rio Grande.
The high water became the first major test of the Department of Homeland Security’s expanding floating border barrier, installed to deter illegal immigration.
“The buoys were definitely in the water, could not be retrieved and were on their way down the Rio Grande,” said Amerika Garcia-Grewal, co-director of the Frontera Federation, a binational community organization.
Garcia-Grewal watched as large orange buoys traveled downstream. The cylindrical aluminum barriers are about 15 feet long and four feet high, and each can weigh approximately a ton. Their movement downriver prompted Eagle Pass to temporarily close its two international bridges.
Most of the federal buoys had not yet been installed. Customs and Border Protection said they were stored in a staging area when floodwaters swept them into the river. The agency said the buoys remained under the control of a contractor and had not been transferred to CBP.
CBP would not provide a count of the number of buoys that were free-floating in the border river, but Rio Grande International Study Center Executive Director Tricia Cortez said there were roughly 600.
Cortez said some buoys reached the Mexican side of the river, where residents reportedly salvaged them for scrap metal.
“It’s such a fiasco,” Cortez said.
Her organization warned about the potential danger after the Trump administration announced Operation River Wall. The federal initiative calls for installing more than 500 miles of interconnected buoys in the Rio Grande as a barrier to illegal immigration.
“All of this was already predicted,” Cortez said. “Our organization commissioned a risk assessment of the wall and buoy system.”
That assessment concluded that barriers could break loose during a flood and strike bridges, water facilities or other critical infrastructure.
In Laredo, officials declared an emergency, monitored the river and temporarily interrupted some international bridge operations as the buoys and other debris moved downstream. Mayor Victor Treviño said the highest priority was protecting the city’s water system.
“The Rio Grande is our sole source of drinking water,” Treviño said. “If our water intake facility were compromised, Laredo has approximately only eight hours of water storage.”
Treviño called on the Trump administration to reconsider the buoy program.
“Our request is straightforward,” he said. “We respectfully ask the appropriate federal agencies to conduct a comprehensive reassessment of the buoy deployment program before additional deployment decisions are made.”
Cuellar said the incident demonstrated the need for stronger congressional oversight of DHS spending.
“You cannot provide $260 billion without any oversight,” Cuellar said. “And I say that because they got that from there. From the $260 billion, $46.5 billion went for the border wall and for buoys.”
Cuellar also questioned whether the barriers are necessary because illegal border crossings have fallen sharply.
“It went down 96% without a single buoy being deployed in the water,” he said.
No injuries or major infrastructure damage were reported. But Cuellar noted that the July flood was moderate compared with historic Rio Grande floods. He warned that a more severe event could have far greater consequences.