Arizona Agrees to Dismantle Shipping-Container Border Wall after Biden Administration Sues
Arizona has agreed to dismantle its makeshift shipping-container border wall after the Biden administration and environmental groups sued to block its construction.
Republican governor Doug Ducey had the barrier erected to combat illegal migration into his state, which like Texas has suffered under the ongoing record influx of illegal immigrants. In late October, Ducey delivered thousands of shipping containers to the border in the Coronado National Forest — a desert landscape — to thwart the entry of illegal migrants.
The boxes, weighing nearly 9000-pounds, were topped with concertina wire and welded together, the Intercept reported. Arizona’s Department of Emergency and Military Affairs was involved in the rollout of the wall, which stretched four miles.
Environmental organizations were outraged by the project, which they claimed was illegal and disturbed critical wildlife habitats. They argued the governor, whose term expires at the end of the year, was not authorized to lay a wall across public land in a protected ecosystem. A small group of local activists mobilized.
Last week, the issue was escalated to the Biden administration, which filed a prelude to a lawsuit demanding a stop to all container wall construction, according to the Tucson Sentinel. The U.S. Forest Service had reportedly warned Ducey to discontinue the operation multiple times since it was on federal property, the Intercept reported.
Before the government could file for an injunction, Arizona preemptively agreed to “remove all previously installed shipping containers and associated equipment, materials, vehicles, and other objects” by early January, according to a stipulation filed Wednesday by Arizona officials and U.S. Attorney of Arizona Gary M. Restaino.
While lawyers for the Justice Department alleged that the wall violated federal law stating that the government has sovereign property rights along the border, they did not appear to propose an alternate solution to prevent migrant crossings in Arizona.
The southern border has seen an unprecedented surge of illegal immigrants, overwhelming local communities, homeless and resource shelters, and border agents. In the Yuma Sector of Arizona by the Colorado River, migrant encounters increased 14.6 percent this October compared to last year, even with the container wall installed, the Tucson Sentinel reported. Customs and Border Protection had 571,720 migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona in 2022, according to federal data. This represents an 83 percent increase over last year, according to Tucson.com.
The Department of Homeland Security anticipates that the steady flow of illegal immigrants into the interior, which has persisted for over a year, could multiply into a flood once Title 42 is lifted. The pandemic-era rule, which allows the administration to expel migrants as a means to prevent the spread of communicable diseases, was set to expire Wednesday, until the Supreme Court intervened to keep it in place temporarily. The Biden administration has been fighting to get rid of the rule for months.
On Monday, Arizona attorney general Mark Brnovich filed an emergency appeal directed at Chief Justice Roberts to stay a lower court order that ended the policy. The request was sent on on behalf of a host of red-state plaintiffs: Arizona, Louisiana, Missouri, Alabama, Alaska, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
