(Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
The Biden administration recently announced it would be completing an area of the border wall in the Yuma sector in Arizona. But the state’s government isn’t going to wait on the White House to take action against illegal immigration amid a nearly two-year-long migrant crisis. Gov. Doug Ducey’s administration has concocted a rather creative way to erect a barrier to impede the flow of illegals into the country.
Arizona Begins Building Border Wall
Arizona’s government started moving large shipping containers into place to close a 1,000-foot space in the border wall in the Yuma area on Friday. Officials said they are taking this action after the White House repeatedly refused to keep promises to finish the wall. Apparently, they do not trust President Joe Biden’s latest vow to follow through.
The Associated Press reported:
“The move by Arizona comes without explicit permission on federal land, with state contractors starting to move in 60-foot-long (18.3-meter-long) shipping containers and stacking two of the 9-foot-tall (2.7-meter-tall) containers on top of each other early Friday. They plan to complete the job within days, and the containers will be topped with 4 feet (1.2 meters) of razor wire, said Katie Ratlief, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey’s deputy chief of staff.
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 (914.4 meters).”
Ratlief told the AP, “The federal government has committed to doing this, but we cannot wait for their action.” The project, which involves 60 shipping containers weighing about 8,800 pounds, is expected to be completed this week. This move comes after the White House announced that it was ending the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy. Ducey argued that the prospect of ending this program, which required asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while their cases are adjudicated, has increased the surge of migrants swarming the southern border.
“At this point, we are filling that gap and we’ll figure out the consequences. But bottom line is, is that the federal government has a duty to protect the states,” said Anni Foster, general counsel to the governor in response to reports that the Biden administration would be filling in the gap. “They failed to do that. We have made every effort to work with them and try to resolve this problem, but the governor can no longer wait for the federal government to take action when we have a community like Yuma, who is being sheltered at 150% of capacity.”
Will This Become a Trend?
The governor’s move also comes as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is sending busloads of illegal immigrants to Washington, DC, and New York City. Ducey has also transported illegals to these areas of the country, much to the consternation of the mayors running these cities. This has elicited an outpouring of criticism and outrage coming from the left. But those who favor border security argue that Democratic politicians supporting open borders policies should be subject to the negative consequences of the measures they are imposing on the rest of the nation.
With Texas pushing the Abbott Express line to blue cities and Arizona putting up its own border wall, one might wonder whether this is only the beginning of states taking action to address the ongoing migrant crisis. The White House has taken criticism from both Republicans and Democrats for its apparent inability – or unwillingness – to take concrete action to confront the matter.
Some have also taken issue with Texas and Arizona taking matters into their own hands – but since the entity that is supposed to handle immigration is not up to the task, how can they argue against the states that suffer most from the issue taking action to address the problem? If this administration continues turning a blind eye to this crisis, it is reasonable to expect that these states will take further action to solve the problem.
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