Arizona Governor Agrees to Remove Border Container Wall

A section of the Ducey Wall in Arizona's remote San Rafael Valley. Ross D. Franklin (AP)

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey has caved in to pressure from Washington.

The Republican president, whose days in office are numbered, has agreed to remove the 182 metal containers that form a controversial barrier on the border with Mexico.

Ducey bet on the barrier as a way to combat illegal immigration in Yuma and Cochise counties.

The metal wall made up of shipping boxes caused the Joe Biden Administration to start a lawsuit a few days ago for the environmental damage it causes in federal territory.

The agreement reached by the parties indicates that Ducey and Arizona agree that the boxes will be removed by January 4 "to the extent possible."

The federal Forest Service will be in charge of supervising that the operation does not damage the environment.

The Ducey wall is located in the Coronado National Forest, the only forest body along the more than 3,000 kilometers of the border between Mexico and the United States.

Some environmental organizations had complained about the installation of the wall, arguing that the large boxes cut off many of the routes used by local wildlife, including some species of big cats such as ocelots.

The local government and Washington are still finalizing some details of the end of the wall.

In total, only a third of the project proposed by Ducey, who had planned to place 3,000 boxes along 16 kilometers of the line, was built.

The local president has spent some 82 million dollars in the purchase of more than 1,100 of these boxes, which had to be transferred to the south of the entity.

Ducey leaves office on January 5.

The winner of the election, Democrat Katie Hobbs, who was the secretary of state to the Republican governor, did not plan to continue the work.

She had said publicly that the thousands of boxes that have been purchased with public money can be used for other purposes, such as providing temporary housing for the homeless in Phoenix, the state's largest city.

This Thursday, a local government spokesman stressed that Ducey always stated that the wall was a temporary measure aimed at addressing Biden's omission in border surveillance, including the White House's decision to suspend construction work on the wall. of Donald Trump.

“For more than a year, the federal government has been promoting its effort to resume the construction of the barrier.

Finally, once a huge crisis has broken out, they have decided to act," CJ Karamargin said in a statement.

Some Arizona communities have felt an increase in migratory flows in recent weeks.

The Yuma sector of the Office of Customs and Border Protection, the CBP for its acronym in English, recently indicated that more than 1,000 people are entering the region every day.

Authorities expected the situation to worsen this week in what would be the last hours of Title 42, a measure implemented by Trump that makes it easier to remove people who have crossed the border.

This Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States surprised with a decision that has postponed the end of Title 42. The White House has requested time until December 27 to prepare operationally to face the new reality at the border.

Thousands of migrants have arrived from the south to cities like El Paso, Texas, which has set up the convention center to house those who have arrived in the United States in the last few hours.

On the Arizona border, the communities of Yuma, Somerton and San Luis have declared a state of emergency to get more resources and thus be able to face the growing arrival of South Americans.

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