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Next month, the state's Department of Public Safety will deploy the first of a fleet of six gunboats on the Rio Grande, the river that forms the border between the state and Mexico, CNN affiliate WFAA-TV reports.

The 34-foot-long boats, each powered by three, 300-horsepower outboard engines, will have bulletproof plating and six machine guns apiece, not unlike the river patrol boats the U.S. Navy used during the Vietnam War.

The vessels will be able to operate in as little as 2 feet of water, according to the report, and will work with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to combat drug smuggling coming across the Rio Grande.

"They're finding out when those people are coming across, and one of the things they need to be able to do is interdict them on the water," Texas state Rep. Paul Workman told CNN affiliate KVUE-TV when the first of the boats, the JD Davis, was christened in December.

"If you're trying to suppress organized smuggling activity, there's no substitute for putting people on the ground," Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven C. McCraw said at the December ceremony. "The way they're operating right now, you need them on the water as well."

"It sends a message: Don't mess with Texas," Jose Rodriguez, a regional commander of the Texas Department of Safety, told WFAA.

The six boats will be named after Texas state troopers killed in the line of duty. The first was named after Jerry Don Davis, who was shot and killed in 1980. Another, to be commissioned Thursday in Austin, will be named in honor of trooper David Irvine Rucker, who was killed in 1981, according to The Brownsville Herald.

My immediate thought was "how are they going to move a boat on the Rio Grande". 2 feet of water shoud get you through most of it though.

Also I support this move tbh. The mexican side of the border is getting downright scary.

Ah yes... the good ol' "Don't Mess with Texas" message... an anti-littering campaign.

Yeah, don't litter us with human slave traffic.

I'll be honest here, when I was asked to behold the Texas navy, I was kind of expecting something bigger. However, this still works.

Terrik said:

I'll be honest here, when I was asked to behold the Texas navy, I was kind of expecting something bigger. However, this still works.

Click to expand...

Well, we still have the Lexington and the Texas, I guess, if you want something big. But they'd have difficulty stopping drug runners from crossing the rio grande without a few hundred billion dollars worth of dredging.

It's kind of tragic how people who are against heavily guarding the border are actually acting counter to the ideals of human rights that they think they're supporting.

I mean, the idea of a poor immigrant sneaking past the border to gain a better life in the land of the free seems pretty appealing, no matter what your stance is on that issue. But an unguarded border also makes it extremely easy and lucrative to transport labor and sex slaves across the border to the rich assholes in America that are into that kind of thing.

And it's a big problem -- in 2005 it was estimated that between 14,500 to 17,500 people were trafficked into the United States every year -- most of them women and children.

"Secure the border" is just code for "we hate Mexicans".

DarkAudit said:

"Secure the border" is just code for "we hate Mexicans".

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Gasp! That highly opinionated political editorial completely and without a doubt proves your point! These southern states should totally be concerned with their Canadian border as well!

Texas! Send those ships up to the Texas-Canada border!

Soliloquy said:

Gasp! That highly opinionated political editorial completely and without a doubt proves your point! These southern states should totally be concerned with their Canadian border as well!

Texas! Send those ships up to the Texas-Canada border!

Click to expand...

Wyoming will pitch in with their aircraft carrier.

It just seems like that boat is too big for the narrow-assed Rio Grande. So now the DPS will be violating the Mexican Border on an hourly basis.

The Mexican Army already does it daily. I really don't think they'll complain when we do it.

While that's all very impressive and stuff, is it actually going to be effective?

I'm sure it's just my outsiders' perspective, but a lot of the War on Drugs seems to be about giving little towns in middle America SWAT teams. Now, having that on the Texas border makes a lot more sense, but I still wonder how effective it would be. It's not like they can shoot across the border (yet).

SpecialKO said:

While that's all very impressive and stuff, is it actually going to be effective?

Click to expand...

Overall, I'm guessing no.

Honestly, short of putting up manned gun towers, cameras and motion detectors every 100 yards, along with a thick minefield and a 50-foot high fence along the border, there really is nothing we can do to physically keep people from crossing the border. Even that option would fall apart eventually.

This entire issue really isn't about skin color, it's about economic issues. Right now, people are terrified of Mexican labor because they are worried they will lose their jobs because of it. It's hard to ask for a living wage with benefits when somebody else will do the job for half that and never complain because the alternative is going back to place where your neighbors might cut your head off for being at the wrong place, at the wrong time. The sad part is that businesses are encouraging this mindset, because it lets them get away with exploiting their workers.

I'm thinking the gun boats are intended more for drug smuggling than illegal immigration. That doesn't mean that's how they'll actually be used, certainly, but some of the gang stuff out of Mexico definitely warrants this kind of equipment.

Yeah, the boats are for the cartels with assault rifles schlepping cocaine across, not the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Those latter ones you can only do anything about with economic policy - IE, draconian punishments for businesses that hire illegal aliens. Otherwise, I'm sure they'd even brave the fence, mines, and dogs.

And, after all, comparing Mexico's border control/immigration policy with our own completely blows the "you just hate mexicans" ad hominem right out of the water.

I was actually asking about effectiveness in the War on Drugs (hence using those exact words in my question), not illegal immigration.

How long does it actually take a boat to cross the narrower parts of the US-side of the Rio Grande? Or can our guys actually fire across the border?

Some places you don't even need a boat.


Added at: 11:28
But many places, you do.


Added at: 11:30
And some places, the water is the least of your inconveniences in crossing.