BROWNSVILLE, TX — A string of orange buoys is growing in the Rio Grande, as the Trump administration builds a “river wall” to stop what is now a trickle of illegal migration.

Unlawful border crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border have plunged over the past year, as the Trump administration ramped up deportations, deployed troops and military tanks to the borderline, and prohibited migrants from seeking asylum at the border.

Construction of 500 miles of buoy barrier began in January and is part of Homeland Security’s U.S. Coast Guard-led “Operation River Wall” to combat drug and human smuggling, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a Jan. 7 news conference.

From a stretch of tree-lined riverbank in Matamoros, Mexico, across the border from Brownsville, the traffic-barrel-orange barrier rests like a necklace on the wide neck of the Rio Grande. It appears to mimic Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s controversial installation of a similar floating system upriver.

The installation comes as migrant apprehensions in Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector have fallen dramatically, plunging during the last year of the Biden administration, then dropping off further after President Donald Trump took office in January 2025.

Border Patrol reported 1,371 migrant encounters in the sector in December 2025, the latest month for which data is available, compared with more than 10,000 encounters in December 2024 and nearly 30,000 in December 2023.

DHS awarded the $96.2 million contract to install 17 miles of buoy barrier in the Rio Grande Valley Sector to Montgomery, Alabama-based BCCG Joint Venture. It was one of 10 contracts awarded last year for 230 miles of “smart wall” technology at the southern border that includes steel fencing, lights, cameras, advanced detection systems, and waterborne barriers.

BCCG Joint Venture took home seven of the 10 contracts, a share worth $3.1 billion.

Brownsville is part of the Rio Grande Valley Sector, spanning 260 miles of borderland in South Texas. The buoy barrier is being installed upriver of the Veterans International Bridge in a rural stretch of borderland marked by farms and ranches.

The Biden administration sued Abbott over the governor’s installation of a 1,000-foot buoy barrier and reams of concertina wire on the banks of the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas, 300 miles northwest of Brownsville. A federal appeals court sided with Texas, and the buoys remained.

The Texas buoys were installed in an area where migrant drownings were common during a period of heightened migration.

Lauren Villagran covers immigration for USA TODAY and can be reached at lvillagran@usatoday.com.