Mexico rejects Texas claim to nine Rio Grande islands, Digi Mart USA News (Mexico): Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum attributed to electoral interests the decision by Texas authorities to claim as their own nine islands in the Rio Grande, the river that forms part of the border with the United States. She rejected the idea that a state government can unilaterally determine the sovereignty of those territories.
Asked whether she believed the claim was motivated by electoral considerations, Sheinbaum replied, “Yes, from my point of view, yes.” She explained that the delimitation of these territories corresponds to the International Boundary and Water Commission (CILA), the bilateral body responsible for applying border treaties between Mexico and the United States.
Sheinbaum said the islands can form through natural movements of the Rio Grande’s channel and that it is the CILA’s role to determine which side of the border they lie on. Her remarks follow an announcement last week by Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham that nine islands in the Rio Grande, with a combined area of about 27 hectares, had been identified as property of the state.
The Texas official said the measure would allow state and federal security forces to access those territories to strengthen border surveillance and combat possible illicit activities. On October 30, Mexico’s Secretariat of Foreign Affairs rejected the idea that Texas could modify the border unilaterally and recalled that the 1970 Boundary Treaty establishes that the international division follows the center of the normal channel of the Rio Grande.
The Foreign Ministry clarified that only the CILA has the authority to determine on which side of the international boundary each island lies and said Mexico will monitor any action in the area. The dispute comes amid U.S.
midterm congressional elections taking place this Tuesday and migration tensions between the two countries, which have intensified since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025.
