Arizona has begun building a 1,000-foot barrier of shipping containers topped with four feet of barbed wire along the Yuma border, citing repeated, unfulfilled promises from the Biden administration to block off the area.
‘Arizona has had enough,‘ tweeted Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, who issued an executive order directing the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs to immediately fill the gaps in the Yuma border wall. ‘We can’t wait any longer. 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 staggering 300 percent increase this year in illegals arrested by Customs and Border Protection agents, compared to the same time frame in 2021.
The spike in illegal encounters in Yuma is the highest recorded by any of the nine sectors: two in California, two in Arizona, one in New Mexico and Texas, and four solely in Texas.
Yuma has seen the third highest total number of ‘encounters’ this year – beaten only by Del Rio and the Rio Grande sectors, both in Texas.
Ducey said he had tried to convince the White House to do more to help Arizona, but has been left convinced that the Biden administration has no interest in stemming the flow of illegals.
‘For the last two years, Arizona has made every attempt to work with Washington to address the crisis on our border,’ he continued.
‘Time and time again we’ve stepped in to clean up their mess.
‘Arizonans can’t wait any longer for the federal government to deliver on their delayed promises.’
Daily Mail report: The move by Arizona comes without explicit permission on federal land, with state contractors starting to move in 60-foot-long shipping containers, stacking two of the 9-foot-tall containers on top of each other early Friday.
They plan to complete the job within days, and the containers will be topped with four feet of razor wire, said Katie Ratlief, deputy chief of staff for the Republican governor, Doug Ducey.
The state plans to fill three gaps in the border wall constructed during former President Donald Trump’s tenure in the coming weeks, totaling 3,000 feet.
‘The federal government has committed to doing this, but we cannot wait for their action,’ Ratlief said.
John Mennell, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, said the agency had just learned of Arizona’s action and ‘is not prepared to comment at this time.’
The move is the latest pushback by a Republican-led border state to what they contend is inaction by Joe Biden on immigration.
It was immediately prompted by the announcement of the end of the ‘Remain in Mexico’ program that was announced this week, Ducey’s top lawyer, Annie Foster said.
That program required asylum-seekers to return to Mexico and await a court date, although thousands of migrants who made it into the country were not returned.
Arizona has been sending two to three buses of asylum seekers from Yuma to Washington over the last three months to make a political statement as the number of arriving migrants overwhelmed local resources.