In Austin, U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra has given Abbott’s attorneys until Aug. 9 to respond to the federal government’s call to remove the barriers, with a hearing scheduled on Aug. 22.

Abbott’s legal team already has offered a hint of how they will defend the state’s action. In a filing earlier this week, Abbott’s legal team justified the buoy barrier by saying it is part of a response to a “dire humanitarian crisis” at the border created by unprecedented levels of “illegal border crossings” that have increased the risks of human trafficking, fentanyl smuggling and cartel violence.

“To reduce these risks by redirecting migrants to ports of entry at bridges, Texas deployed a string of buoys that span less than 1,000 feet of the more than 1,250 miles that the Rio Grande runs along the border,” the state’s attorneys argue.

The buoys have been placed near Eagle Pass because that section of the U.S. border has become one of the most crossed areas. For decades, that sector of the border was one of the least crossed. But over the last year, migrants from Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti have increasingly tried to traverse that section of the border.