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Topline
The Department of Justice accused Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) and state officials of trespassing on federal lands by building a wall of shipping containers along the state’s border with Mexico, in a lawsuit filed Wednesday, four months after Ducey issued an executive order for its construction.
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Key Facts
The lawsuit names Ducey, Maj. Gen. Kerry Muehlenbeck and Arizona Division of Emergency Management Director Allen Clark as defendants.
Arizona has “entered and occupied” lands owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Forest Service without required permits or authorization while damaging federal lands, threatening public safety and impeding federal officials from performing official duties, according to the lawsuit.
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Officials from both agencies previously notified the state that it is trespassing, though the lawsuit claims Ducey has indicated the state will continue to install additional shipping containers while utilizing construction crews from the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs.
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Ducey responded to earlier federal objections to the wall with an October 21 lawsuit against officials from the two agencies and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack claiming the wall was necessary to alleviate “an unprecedented crisis” along the nation’s border with Mexico.
The U.S. is requesting damages in the amount required to remove the containers and declarations by the state that it has violated federal law and the U.S. Constitution.
Ducey’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Forbes.
Big Number
$95 million. That’s how much the 3,000-container wall is estimated to cost, according to the Associated Press.
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Crucial Quote
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Crucial Quote“The area where they’re placing the containers is entirely on federal land, on national forest land,” Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathway told FOX 10. “It’s not state land, it’s not private land, and the federal government has said this [is] illegal activity."
What To Watch For
It is unknown whether the shipping containers will be removed before Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs assumes office in January, though Hobbs said the containers could be repurposed as affordable housing opportunities if they remained, according to the Arizona Republic.
Key Background
Ducey’s refusal to remove the shipping container wall is based on his belief that President Joe Biden has not placed enough urgency on border security, according to a release announcing Ducey’s executive order to fill gaps along the state’s southern border with Mexico in August. The wall became a topic prior to the midterm election, in which Hobbs beat Republican Kari Lake, who has defended the wall and added she is willing to defend it to the Supreme Court, according to KTAR. A decision to build the shipping container wall complements decisions calling for more border security by officials in other states, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) busing migrants to Philadelphia and New York City.
Further Reading
Arizona Gov. Ducey Stacks Containers On Border At Term’s End (AP)
Gov. Ducey Builds Border Wall With Shipping Containers Before Leadership Transition (Axios)
READ MORE
Sheriff Calls on Feds to Seize Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s Illegal Border Wall Equipment
David Hathaway, the sheriff in southern Arizona’s Santa Cruz County, is offering a simple solution to stop Republican Gov. Doug Ducey’s illegal wall of shipping containers along the border: Federal agents should begin seizing vehicles associated with the project.
Hathaway’s county sits directly west of Cochise County, where Ducey has been dropping containers for the past month and a half despite federal officials repeatedly telling him that his actions are unauthorized and unlawful. With federal authorities doing nothing to act on those warnings, Hathaway has vowed to arrest the governor’s contractors if they cross the county line into his turf.
That scenario would be unlikely, as the contract for the project has the governor’s wall stopping just shy of Hathaway’s jurisdiction. Convoys of Ducey’s contractors have, however, been racing through communities in Santa Cruz County for weeks now, hauling 40-foot shipping containers behind multi-ton pickup trucks at dangerous speeds. Hathaway said his department has received complaints from residents in the town of Elgin of Ducey’s drivers “barreling through town,” ignoring stop signs, and “flying past children.”
“The way you would end this right away is you go get a seizure sticker, and you slap it on the side of one of those $200,000 trackhoes.”
“I’ve advised my deputies to especially scrutinize that area looking for speed violations, reckless endangerment, reckless driving,” Hathaway told The Intercept in an interview Friday — though, the sheriff argued, the real solution lies with the federal authorities paid to protect the public lands where the governor’s lawbreaking is taking place. The process wouldn’t be complicated. As a former Drug Enforcement Administration investigator, Hathaway sketched out a response the feds often take when targeting ongoing organized criminal activity. . ." READ MORE
Sheriff Hathaway Visits Container Wall Protesters, Offers His Support - Patagonia Regional Times
On Wednesday afternoon, Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway made an unscheduled visit to the group of protesters who have been working since Nov. 29 to stop construction of the container wall by the state of Arizona in Coronado National Forest, inside the neighboring Cochise County.
“He just came riding up in his sheriff’s car like he was kind of the cavalry,” said Kate Scott, executive director of the Cochise County-based Madrean Archipelago Wildlife Center and one of the organizers of the ongoing protest. “He said, ‘I’m so glad you guys are here.’ When you do a protest that’s not what you usually hear from law enforcement.”
Hathaway’s visit to the construction site in support of the protesters may have been unannounced, but it was not out of character for the sheriff. Hathaway, a Democrat, has been especially outspoken in the last week in his opposition to the controversial $95 million project put in motion earlier this year by Governor Doug Ducey.
“It is clearly illegal activity,” Hathaway told the PRT last Friday, Dec. 2, in a phone interview. “There are no permits for what they’re doing. It is illegal—and it is happening on federal land!”
Hathaway said his office had received numerous calls from concerned citizens in eastern Santa Cruz County regarding the trucks hauling the containers and heavy equipment, claiming they were traveling at breakneck speed.
“Those containers are now just 6.5 miles from Santa Cruz County,” he said. “I have a department of 38 sheriffs for the whole county, so we are not that big of a department, but we are prepared to draw a line in the sand if these containers make it to SCC. If we become aware of any individuals involved with the placing or trying to place these containers, we will arrest them and charge them with illegal dumping on public land.”
Hathaway felt that he was a bit of a “lone voice” in publicly calling out what he believes are illegal actions by the state of Arizona. He expressed disappointment that other agencies—and politicians—at the county, state and federal levels hadn’t done more to stop construction of the wall.
“The feds are the ones that should be really upset about these containers,” he said. “I’m not sure why they haven’t done more to stop this. They are just sitting there when they are the ones most impacted.”
The protesters are also puzzled over the federal government’s inaction.
“I don’t understand why the federal government doesn’t help out, or get an injunction,” said Scott today. “The state government of Arizona is seizing federal land—isn’t that kind of an insurrectionary act? And so I appreciate the direct and succinct statements Sheriff Hathaway has made to the governor. He’s really feisty. His presence, and his enthusiasm and appreciation for what we are doing here, mean a lot.”
Early Friday morning, the camp of protesters seemed to have triumphed. According to Scott, sometime around 7:30am a supervisor for the project asked activists not to block construction machinery, which he said was going to be returned to a staging area. The protesters cooperated, and the heavy equipment is now gone from the site.
Maintaining a 24-hour presence near the work site and placing their
bodies in front of machinery had allowed the growing group of organized
protesters to significantly slow the wall’s construction in the last week, bringing it to a
near-halt. A sheriff’s deputy from Cochise County visited the site
recently and, according to Scott, told the protesters their actions were
within their rights. Scott said the construction workers were clearly
frustrated. . ." READ MORE
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