Accessibility links Skip to main content Keyboard shortcuts for audio player Open Navigation Menu --> Newsletters NPR Shop Close Navigation Menu Home News Expand/collapse submenu for News National World Politics Business Health Science Climate Race Culture Expand/collapse submenu for Culture Books Movies Television Pop Culture Food Art & Design Performing Arts Life Kit Gaming Music Expand/collapse submenu for Music Tiny Desk New Music Friday All Songs Considered Music Features Live Sessions The Best Music of 2025 Podcasts & Shows Expand/collapse submenu for Podcasts & Shows Daily Morning Edition Weekend Edition Saturday Weekend Edition Sunday All Things Considered Up First Here & Now NPR Politics Podcast Featured Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! Fresh Air Wild Card with Rachel Martin It's Been a Minute Planet Money Get NPR+ More Podcasts & Shows Search Newsletters NPR Shop Tiny Desk New Music Friday All Songs Considered Music Features Live Sessions The Best Music of 2025 About NPR Diversity Support Careers Press Ethics Controversy growing over buoys in the Rio Grande Trump administration started deploying 500 miles of Big buoys in the middle of the Rio Grande, the dividing border line with Mexico, financed by 2025's spending bill. Locals aren't happy considering that illegal border crossings are at a 50-year low. National Controversy growing over buoys in the Rio Grande March 29, 20265:23 PM ET Heard on All Things Considered By David Martin Davies Controversy growing over buoys in the Rio Grande Listen · 4:13 4:13 Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed "> <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/nx-s1-5728220/nx-s1-9708064" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript Trump administration started deploying 500 miles of Big buoys in the middle of the Rio Grande, the dividing border line with Mexico, financed by 2025's spending bill. Locals aren't happy considering that illegal border crossings are at a 50-year low. Sponsor Message
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The Trump administration is moving forward with plans to build out what it's called a smart border wall. This new part of the wall wouldn't be steel or concrete, though. It would be a floating barrier over 500 miles of linked buoys in the Rio Grande. But as Texas Public Radio's David Martin Davies reports, there are questions about what could happen when the river floods.
(SOUNDBITE OF VEHICLE DRIVING OVER BUMPS)
DAVID MARTIN DAVIES, BYLINE: It wasn't easy to find the buoys. To see them, I had to cross to the other side of the border wall, an area near Brownsville that folks call No Man's Land. I drove past a border wall gate and onto a bumpy dirt path, then kept going along the Rio Grande until I saw them.
BEKAH HINOJOSA: There they are.
DAVIES: We have found them.
With me is Bekah Hinojosa, cofounder of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network. She is an activist opposed to the border buoys.
HINOJOSA: This is a gorgeous river bank, and in the middle of our river, I see these orange cylinder barrier buoys...
(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS)
HINOJOSA: ...Just floating in the center.
DAVIES: Upriver at the buoy deployment staging area, there are over 100 buoys on the ground. Each one is about 15 feet long and 4 to 5 feet tall. A work crew on a raft is linking them together and anchoring them to the riverbed. Eventually, this one string of buoys to deter illegal immigration will grow to be about 17 miles long. But this is just the beginning. In January, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was in Brownsville to announce the buoy project.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KRISTI NOEM: The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection are deploying over 500 miles of border barrier that is long enough to stretch all the way from Washington, D.C. to Nashville, Tennessee.
DAVIES: DHS has named the effort Operation River Wall and signed this year a $96 million contract for the first 17-mile section. That breaks down to about $5.6 million per mile, making the whole project cost just under $3 billion. The Department of Homeland Security signed a waiver to expedite the project, waiving environmental laws. And environmental assessments, including flood modeling, are not public, according to Mark Tompkins, a fluvial geomorphologist who studies how rivers flow. He said putting hundreds of miles of buoys in the Rio Grande is a bad idea.
MARK TOMPKINS: It's going to cause disasters.
DAVIES: Tompkins was contracted by a Laredo environmental group. He studied Homeland Security's plan to deploy buoys in the area and said buoys could become a ticking time bomb.
TOMPKINS: Sections of these buoy chains breaking free, and then if they get caught on a bridge or on a section of wall, then you've got real problems.
DAVIES: Tompkins said if a string of buoys gets caught on border bridges, that could cause structural damage. Because of the significant amount of trade that crosses the border, closing down bridges could send shockwaves through supply chains. More than half of border crossings between the U.S. and Mexico are in Texas.
ADRIANA MARTINEZ: They don't seem very stable.
DAVIES: Adriana Martinez from Southern Illinois University studied the river flow in the Rio Grande after the state of Texas installed buoys to deter illegal immigration in 2023. She said the new buoys are bigger and much longer.
MARTINEZ: The amount of force that would be required to hold them in place is just not something that's physically feasible by the concrete blocks that I've seen.
DAVIES: In a statement, Customs and Border Protection said the waterborne barrier is designed to withstand a 100-year flood event. Additionally, the waterborne barriers are designed to withstand increases in currents and water elevations. According to the National Weather Service, the lower Rio Grande reached a record flood level in 2010 due to remnants of Hurricane Alex. For NPR News, I'm David Martin Davies in Brownsville. Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Facebook Flipboard Email Read & Listen Home News Culture Music Podcasts & Shows Connect Newsletters Facebook Instagram Press Public Editor Corrections Transcripts Contact & Help About NPR Overview Diversity NPR Network Accessibility Ethics Finances Get Involved Support Public Radio Sponsor NPR NPR Careers NPR Shop NPR Extra Terms of Use Privacy Your Privacy Choices Text Only Sponsor Message Sponsor MessageBecome an NPR sponsor (function () { var loadPageJs = function () { (window.webpackJsonp=window.webpackJsonp||[]).push([[22],{1167:function(e,n,c){e.exports=c(323)},323:function(e,n,c){"use strict";c.p=NPR.serverVars.webpackPublicPath,Promise.all([c.e(1),c.e(2),c.e(3),c.e(4),c.e(84)]).then(function(e){c(3),c(1140),c(116),c(94),c(52),c(493),c(239),c(102),c(104),c(1141),c(143),c(1142),c(238),c(48),c(1143)}.bind(null,c)).catch(c.oe)}},[[1167,0]]]); }; if (document.readyState === 'complete') { loadPageJs(); } else { window.addEventListener('load', function load() { window.removeEventListener('load', load, false); loadPageJs(); }); } })();