Arizona began moving in shipping containers on Friday to close a 1,000-foot gap in the border wall near the southern Arizona farming community of Yuma. Officials said they would act to stop migrants entering the area after repeated unfulfilled promises by the Biden administration.
“Arizona has had enough,” tweeted Doug Ducey, the state’s Republican governor, who is running for re-election in November.
“We can not wait anymore. The Biden administration’s lack of urgency on border security is a dereliction of duty.
The Yuma sector of the border, 126 miles long, has seen a nearly 300 percent increase in “border encounters” — migrants detained by Customs and Border Protection officers — this year compared to the same period in 2021.
The increase is the highest recorded by any of nine sectors: two in California, two in Arizona, one in New Mexico and Texas, and four in Texas alone.
Yuma has had the third-highest total of “encounters” this year – surpassed only by the Del Rio and Rio Grande sectors, both in Texas.
Ducey said his state tried to persuade the White House to do more but was frustrated.
Shipping containers are being put into place along the US-Mexico border in the Yuma sector
The bright orange and yellow shipping containers will be put into place on Friday
“For the past two years, Arizona has made every effort to work with Washington to address the crisis on our border,” he continued.
“Time and time again, we stepped in to clean up their mess.
“Arizonaans can no longer wait for the federal government to deliver on its belated promises.”
The move from Arizona is being made onto federal land without express permission, with state contractors beginning to move in 60-foot shipping containers and stacking two of the 9-foot-tall containers on top of each other early Friday.
They plan to complete the work within days, and the containers will be topped with four feet of barbed wire, said Katie Ratlief, assistant chief of staff to Republican Gov. Doug Ducey.
The state plans to fill in three gaps in the border wall, built during former President Donald Trump’s administration, totaling 3,000 feet in the coming weeks.
Governor Doug Ducey was spotted in the Yuma sector on the US-Mexico border last year
“The federal government has committed to this, but we cannot wait for their action,” Ratlief said.
John Mennell, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, said the agency just learned of Arizona’s actions and “is not ready to comment at this time.”
The move is the latest backlash by a Republican-led border state on what it says is Joe Biden’s inaction on immigration.
It was immediately prompted by the announcement of the end of the “Stay in Mexico” program announced this week, Ducey’s top attorney Annie Foster said.
This program required asylum-seekers to return to Mexico and await a court date, even though thousands of migrants who made it into the country were not turned back.
Arizona has sent two to three buses carrying asylum seekers from Yuma to Washington in the past three months to make a political statement as the number of migrants arriving was overwhelming local resources.
Migrants are seen in the Yuma sector of the border on July 11 awaiting clearance
A young Russian boy cowers in Yuma June 21 as a CBP agent walks by
Migrants board a bus for clearance in the Yuma sector on July 11
A CBP agent monitors migrants in the Yuma sector on June 21
Ducey began the program in May and said all bus passengers are voluntarily going to the capital with intended final destinations in East Coast cities.
Texas also buses migrants east, and the mayors of New York and Washington last month asked for federal help to deal with the influx.
Her request drew a cheerful response from Republicans, who say the requests are proof the US is mired in an immigration crisis.
As of Aug. 11, the state of Arizona had sent 1,425 asylum seekers to Washington, according to the governor’s office.
Ducey is using $6 million on the $335 million project that lawmakers approved in June to erect virtual or physical fences along the border with Mexico.
Ducey, co-chair of the Republican Governors Association, and other Republican politicians have used border security as a powerful political foil in an election year.
The Biden administration announced late last month that it had approved the completion of the Trump-funded US-Mexico border wall near Yuma. The area has become one of the busiest corridors for illegal border crossings, and they planned to fill four major gaps.
Arizona officials said they didn’t know why there was a discrepancy between the three gaps they identified and the federal government’s plans.
Biden had promised during his campaign to halt construction of any future walls, but the administration later agreed to some obstacles, citing safety.
The Department of Homeland Security planned work to close four wide gaps in the wall near Yuma to better protect migrants who may slide down a slope or drown walking through a low section of the Colorado River.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas approved the completion of the project near the Morelos Dam in July. Officials said a move reflects the government’s “priority to deploy modern, effective border measures and also to enhance security along the south-west border”.
Arizona points to an increasing number of migrants coming into the state and the associated drug smuggling as the main reason for their crackdown.
Agents stopped migrants in the Yuma sector more than 160,000 times from January to June — almost four times more than the same period last year.
Despite federal promises to fill the gaps, Arizona officials said no action has been taken to actually close them.
The federal government apparently put the project out to tender this week, but that could take weeks or months.
Foster, Ducey’s top attorney, said the governor decided to act even if the federal government later objects.
“At this point, we’re closing that gap and we’ll figure out the consequences as we move forward,” Foster said at a briefing for reporters.
“But the bottom line is that the federal government has a duty to protect the states – that’s part of the contract, that’s the Basic Law.
“They didn’t succeed.”