Incumbent Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) has spent months ordering work crews to pick up containers along the state’s southern border with Mexico in defiance of the federal government.
The Associated Press reported Sunday that Ducey, who is expected to leave office due to term limits in January, first ordered crews to plug gaps in former President Donald Trump’s border wall in August. Ducey issued an executive order to begin construction, and the state initially spent $6 million to erect a double-height container barrier in Yuma, Arizona, filling about 3,800 feet of the border.
His office has expanded the project in recent months, placing thousands of additional containers that stretch for miles through the Coronado National Forest near Tucson. That effort could eventually stretch 10 miles at a cost of $95 million, raising concerns from environmentalists, tribal governments and the federal government.
via the Associated Press
The U.S. Forest Service ordered Arizona to stop construction on the National Forest land, but Ducey sued in October, saying the state has jurisdiction over the land to protect Arizonans.
“Arizona will do the job Joe Biden refuses to do: secure the border any way it can.” Ducey said of the suit at the time. “We’re not backing down.”
Journalists who have seen the wall say the container barrier is far from perfect. Parts of it are covered with barbed wire, with pieces of metal placed or welded between the cracks. But there are regular cracks where the terrain is too steep to place and the wall is relatively easy to scale, even though it is 17 feet high.
Work on parts of the container wall has stalled in recent days amid protests and threats from local law enforcement that anyone placing containers will be arrested for illegal dumping.
Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs (D) said she is exploring “all options” regarding the shipping container barrier, including repurposing them to house homeless or low-income people.
During the election campaign, Hobbs said the container strategy was a “political gimmick”.
“I’m very concerned about the liability to the state of Arizona for those shipping containers that they put on federal land,” she said at the time. “There are images of people climbing on them. I think it’s a huge responsibility and a huge risk.”
Trump’s border wall has become a political flashpoint during his tenure, and GOP lawmakers have continued to support its construction, blaming Biden for the continued increase in migrants trying to cross the southern border into Mexico.
A record number of migrants have stopped here this year. Border officials said law enforcement stopped people 2.38 million times in the 12 months ending in September, up 37 percent from a year earlier.
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