<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1666112124141,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"0000016c-727c-d9b2-af6f-f7ff06a00003","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1666112124141,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"0000016c-727c-d9b2-af6f-f7ff06a00003","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_66038033", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1114740"} }); ","_id":"00000183-ec05-da74-a1bf-ee956da30000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedThe governor of Arizona will not concede immediately to the Biden administration over an order to remove shipping containers stacked along the U.S-Mexico border and signaled a looming fight against Washington.
A spokesman for Gov. Doug Ducey (R-AZ) told the Washington Examiner Tuesday afternoon that the state is carefully considering its response to the Interior Department Bureau of Reclamation’s recent letter. The Biden administration demanded the 120 shipping containers stacked in Yuma, Arizona, be cleared out on the basis that they violated U.S. law and were not approved to be placed on federal land.
“As for the letter, we question their legal analysis and we are looking at our options,” Ducey’s Communications Director C.J. Karamargin said in a phone call.
Karamargin raised concerns that two months had lapsed between the state’s putting up the containers in August and the U.S. government acknowledging them and responding in October — an indication that the government was not taking the issue seriously, he said.
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“It took the feds since August to write a letter? If this is any indication of their sense of urgency, then perhaps that explains the problem we’re having,” said Karamargin.
The Biden administration’s letter last week calls Ducey’s border wall a “violation” of federal law.
“The unauthorized placement of those containers constitutes a violation of federal law and is a trespass against the United States,” the letter reads. “That trespass is harming federal lands and resources and impeding Reclamation’s ability to perform its mission.”
The Bureau of Reclamation instructed Arizona not to place any new containers in the meantime. The federal government’s concern is that the containers could interfere with federal contracts to install an actual border wall where the containers are. Two federal contracts already have been awarded, and two other contracts are pending. But the state was weary about the Biden administration actually intending to move forward, pointing to a year and a half of inaction.
Ducey announced in January that the state was planning to put up a barrier in spots without anything. The governor said in August that Arizona would not wait for the Biden administration to build a border wall on the U.S.-Mexico boundary or fill in gaps in the wall, as it had promised. Instead, it erected its own state-funded barrier to stop an unprecedented flow of illegal immigrants coming through Yuma.
Illegal immigrants who are taken into custody for unlawful entry are overwhelmingly released into the interior of the country, inundating regional airports and bus lines. In May, Ducey began providing buses to transport them to the East Coast. As of mid-July, 27 buses carrying more than 1,000 passengers from the border to Washington had departed.
The shipping container endeavor began over the summer. Ducey’s team said at the time that the state had lost all confidence in the federal government after it vowed in December 2021 to begin wall construction to fill in the gaps between barriers.
The state began with a project in Yuma in southwestern Arizona because it has been the most heavily affected by illegal immigration. From the government’s fiscal 2020 year to 2021, border officials encountered 1,200% more illegal immigrants year to year.
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) announced this summer that the Department of Homeland Security would begin the process of hiring a builder to fill in gaps in the wall in Yuma, but Ducey pushed forward, saying he had given the government enough time to act and they had not moved on the wall.
The U.S. government planned to award the construction contract for the project in September, an aide in Kelly’s office told the Washington Examiner. It is unclear whether the government has awarded that contract.
“The federal government has a duty to protect the states,” said Anni Foster, the general counsel to Ducey, during a call with reporters in August. “They failed to do that. We have made every effort to work with them and try to resolve this problem, but the governor can no longer wait for the federal government to take action when we have a community like Yuma, who is being sheltered at 150% of capacity.”
On Aug. 24, Ducey announced the completion of installing shipping containers along 3,820 feet of the border. The $6 million project was completed in 11 days and with state funding.
One Border Patrol agent in Yuma told the Washington Examiner in August that illegal traffic over the border was increasingly moving toward the Cocopah Reservation because they could not get past the shipping containers. The Native American reservation had not permitted the Trump administration to erect any wall on its land, which the agent said may make the reservation appealing to smugglers because they can get through in that area.
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“We believe the Bureau is taking the necessary and appropriate action to resolve this issue,” the Cocopah tribe wrote in a statement issued Monday. “Beyond that, we will continue working side-by-side with local, state and federal law enforcement on securing the border.”
