To dissuade illegal immigration and criminal activities, shipping containers were stacked two high and placed in cracks in Arizona’s border wall.
Arizona’s governor, Doug Ducey, is taking the Biden administration to court over a federal order to remove double-stacked shipping containers used to fill up gaps along the state’s border with Mexico.
Ducey, a Republican, said in a press statement announcing the lawsuit that Biden’s failure to secure the southern border had led to a “illegal activity” crisis in the neighboring towns.
On behalf of our folks, Arizona is acting to protest,” he stated. “The action is a response to the federal government’s attempt to roll back our victories. Arizona and its residents’ security cannot be neglected. The state of Arizona is committed to securing the border in whatever manner possible, despite Joe Biden’s refusal to do so. That’s not something we’ll do.”
U.S. government agencies and their heads, including Agriculture Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack, are named as defendants in a lawsuit.
On Thursday, Ducey said that the containers placed at the border proved that the “Border Barrier Mission is functioning.” More than four thousand feet of the state’s border had been patched up throughout the summer, he said in August, thanks to shipping containers welded shut and topped with four feet of razor wire.
The governor claims in the case that the federal government started building a border wall, but then stopped when Biden took office, leaving billions in unfinished work and the states without the resources to finish it.
The suit claims that the decision to halt construction caused “many breaches” in the border wall, making it easier for illegal immigrants to enter the United States.
The complaint claims that the federal government has been “willfully blind” to the growing catastrophe at the southern border, which is “marked by a vast, multifold flood of migrants, narcotics, and crime.” “The humanitarian catastrophe in Arizona is a direct result of the holes in the border wall, which have led to an influx of people into the state’s border communities, which have swiftly reached capacity.”
The lawsuit was filed a few days after the Bureau of Reclamation sent a letter to Arizona officials requesting the removal of the containers and the suspension of any further plans to install them near the Morelos Dam in Yuma. This was done to avoid any potential conflicts with two federal contracts that had already been awarded and two that were still in the process of being finalized.
The Center for Biological Diversity has filed a notice of intent to sue the Ducey administration over the state’s purported intentions to install more cargo containers near the border, voicing an alternative concern regarding the containers.
According to the NGO, this decision would cut off a vital migration route for jaguars and ocelots.