REMOVE THAT WALL! An unprecedented victory for borderland residents who successfully fought to stop the project.
> Following weeks of fierce local resistance on the ground, the agreement will ironically make Ducey — a Republican who declared his state under invasion — the first U.S. lawmaker to initiate a large-scale border wall removal in modern American history. ..
✓ In a span of a month and a half, Ducey placed nearly 4 miles of shipping containers across federally protected jaguar habitat entirely unimpeded. By all indications, he was on track to complete a 10-mile wall through the stunning San Rafael Valley when his march was halted by a network of local residents frustrated with the absence of a federal response.
(Image: Arizona's Republican Governor Doug Ducey has sparred with the US federal government over a makeshift barrier on the border with Mexico [File: Ross D Franklin/AP Photo]
US governor to remove makeshift border wall criticised as ‘stunt’
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey has reached an agreement to remove shipping containers stacked as a wall from federal lands.
The governor of the US state of Arizona, which shares a border with Mexico, has agreed to remove shipping containers erected as a makeshift barrier on the border in defiance of the federal government.
According to court documents filed on Wednesday, Arizona’s Republican Governor Doug Ducey has entered into an agreement with the Biden administration to remove the containers from federal lands, including national forests.
In a lawsuit filed by the federal government last week, the Department of Justice described the barrier as “hundreds of double-stacked multi-ton shipping containers that damage federal lands, threaten public safety, and impede the ability of federal agencies and officials, including law enforcement personnel, to perform their official duties”.
". . .The effort to build the makeshift wall was about one-third of the way done when Wednesday’s agreement with the Biden administration was reached. The deal called on Arizona to remove containers placed in the remote San Rafael Valley, in southeastern Cochise County, by January 4 with no damage to natural resources.
Despite campaign promises that border wall construction would cease during his tenure, the Biden administration had previously said that it would fill in existing gaps in the border wall in Arizona.
“For more than a year, the federal government has been touting their effort to resume construction of a permanent border barrier. Finally, after the situation on our border has turned into a full-blown crisis, they’ve decided to act,” said CJ Karamargin, Ducey’s spokesperson. “Better late than never.”
Ducey’s government has also sparred with the Biden administration over the future of Title 42, a controversial policy that has blocked many migrants from seeking asylum on the grounds of combatting COVID-19.
The Trump-era policy has been criticised by human rights groups for expelling millions of people seeking asylum without due process.
Title 42 was set to expire on December 21, but the US Supreme Court intervened on Monday to temporarily halt the expiration, in a response to an appeal from Republican-led states.
Ducey has previously called on the Biden administration to extend Title 42, saying that it provided “critical protections”.
The policy stems from a rarely-invoked 1944 law that allows the government to turn away asylum seekers to protect public health. It was first invoked by the Trump administration in March 2020, in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, although experts have cast doubt on its utility as a public health measure.
Efforts by the Biden administration to end the policy have met fierce pushback from Republican lawmakers who say that rolling it back could lead to an increase in people seeking asylum at the US border with Mexico.
People aiming to reach the US and apply for asylum face uncertainty after sudden change in admissions policy.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey Agrees to Remove Illegal Border Wall
Ryan Devereaux
"Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey agreed to remove hundreds of shipping containers that he illegally installed on federal land along the southern border, marking an unprecedented victory for borderland residents who successfully fought to stop the project.
State and federal officials, in a joint filing this week, informed a judge in Arizona’s U.S. district court that a process to dismantle the governor’s unlawful barrier would soon begin. . .Precisely how much Ducey’s entire endeavor has — and will — cost Arizonans remains to be seen. In October, the governor’s office told The Intercept the installation of the wall in Coronado National Forest, south of Tucson, would cost $95 million. Combined with a separate, smaller, equally unlawful project in Yuma, total contracted costs for container wall installation in Arizona over the past year has been $123.6 million. Removal and remediation costs associated with taking the containers down could drive the overall total up even further. . ." READ MORE
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