Texas Governor Greg Abbott had the big idea of installing a floating border wall across the Rio Grande River, and it turns out this was probably a bad idea instead.

He’d hoped to put a stop to immigration across the famed river, and the floating barrier, made of razor-tipped buoys was installed in mid-July in the Del Rio sector and has done next to nothing to stop the flow of humans crossing into the U.S. Migrant encounters here only dropped by about 100, falling from 24,632 in June to 24,513 in July, according to data collected by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, The Independent reports.

I guess the Republican Governor didn’t understand that it’s difficult stop the heart of a big river. And at 1,900 miles long, the Rio Grande is a big river with a watershed consisting of 336,000 square miles.

This makes me remember a time when I sat eating lunch with my partner, on the banks of this wild river, in Big Bend National Park as wild burros clattered across the flat rocks and a bat skimmed a drink of water. Mexico lay on the other side of the bank, where a couple with their toddler son sat enjoying slices of watermelon. We all smiled at each other across the river through the chain link fence marking the imaginary border that some people think is a good idea.

It’s completely understandable that Texas representatives describe this border as “cruel and inhumane.” Immigrants invoked a questionable legal theory that Texas is under “invasion” and therefore, can use emergency military-style action to slow migration.

Now, this bizarre, floating wall is being challenged in state and federal court.

Jessie Fuentes, who is a local kayak guide, sued Abbott in Texas, claiming the state didn’t have jurisdiction to block off sections of the large, regional waterway.

“You’ve taken a beautiful waterway and you’ve converted it into a war zone,” he told The Independent.

And the Justice Department also sued the state over the wall, contending that it broke federal law by constructing this in a major waterway without seeking the U.S. government’s permission.

As is typical, Texas is claiming the buoys are deterring migration and saving lives by discouraging illegal border crossings in dangerous areas, but border experts say this is doubtful.

“They don’t like the buoys we put in the water. Guess what? We put them in to save people from drowning. Drownings are down,” said Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick in an interview with Fox News. 

Of course, he provided no data supporting this, but then that’s typical of Republicans, now isn’t it?

In a series of leaked emails last month, a Texas trooper said the opposite was true. He asserted he’d been ordered to push migrants back into the river, and that he’d seen the barriers cause serious injuries.

“I believe we have stepped over a line into the inhumane,” he told his bosses in messages that were shared with the media.

Earlier this month, two bodies were discovered near the barriers, and one of them was even stuck in the razor buoys. Their identities and their cause of death are currently being investigated.

Seriously, how is covering buoys in razors even humane? No one is going to grab one of these unless they are in the most desperate situation.

“It’s been proven time after time that these so-called prevention through deterrence strategies don’t work,” Fernando Garcia of the Border Network for Human Rights told The Independent last month. “They have not stopped immigration flows, but what they have done is they have put immigrants at risk.”

“It’s very likely that with [the floating buoy wall] they are looking for more remote and isolated places to come across so that whenever they are in danger by heat exhaustion, by drowning, they will not have anybody to help them,” Garcia said, saying he’s worried this could be a record-breaking year for migrant deaths in the Rio Grande.

But Abbott isn’t one to care. He very clearly dislikes immigrants and even promised to hire the eight border agents who boldly grabbed Haitian immigrants who were trying to cross the border into Texas.

And considering that these sadistic floating devices only decreased the number of crossings by a minuscule number, this is obviously a failure on Abbott’s part.

But I’m willing to guess he doesn’t even care.