Arizona began hauling in shipping containers to seal a 1,000-foot breach in the border wall near the southern Arizona agricultural hamlet of Yuma on Friday, with authorities claiming they were acting to deter migrants following repeated, unmet pledges from the Biden administration to fence off the region.
‘Arizona has had enough,’ tweeted Doug Ducey, the Republican governor of the state, who is up for re-election in November.
‘We can’t wait much 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 experienced an approximately 300 percent rise in ‘border contacts’ – migrants captured by Customs and Border Protection officials – this year, compared to the same time period in 2021.
The surge is the highest reported by any of the nine sectors: two in California, two in Arizona, one in New Mexico and Texas, and four alone in Texas.
Yuma has had the third greatest overall number of ‘encounters’ this year – surpassed only by Del Rio and the Rio Grande districts, both in Texas.
Ducey said his state has attempted to encourage the White House to do more, but was unsatisfied.
‘For the previous two years, Arizona has made every endeavour to cooperate with Washington to solve the situation on our border,’ he stated.
‘Time and time again we’ve stepped in to clean up their mess.
‘Arizonans can’t wait much longer for the federal government to deliver on its postponed promises.’
The move by Arizona comes without express authorization on federal territory, with state contractors beginning to haul in 60-foot-long shipping containers, stacking two of the 9-foot-tall containers on top of each other early Friday.
They intend to finish the operation 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 expects to replace three holes in the border wall erected under former President Donald Trump’s reign in the coming weeks, totalling 3,000 feet.
‘The federal government has pledged to undertake this, but we cannot wait for their response,’ Ratlief added.
Customs and Border Protection’s John Mennell said that the organisation had only heard about Arizona’s move and that it “is not prepared to comment at this time.”
The action is the most recent attempt by a border state headed by Republicans to protest Joe Biden’s alleged slowness on immigration.
According to Ducey’s senior attorney, Annie Foster, the termination of the “Remain in Mexico” programme, which was announced this week, instantly provoked it.
Although thousands of migrants who managed to enter the US were not sent back, that programme forced asylum claimants to return to Mexico and wait for a court date.
Over the last three months, Arizona has sent two to three buses full of asylum seekers from Yuma to Washington to make a political statement as the influx of new migrants has strained local services.
Everyone on the bus journeys, according to Ducey, is travelling to the capital freely with ultimate destinations in East Coast locations. The initiative started in May.
The mayors of New York and Washington requested federal assistance last month to cope with the migration. Texas is also busing migrants to the East.
Republicans gleefully responded to their request by asserting that it is proof the United States is experiencing an immigration crisis.
According to the governor’s office, Arizona has transferred 1,425 asylum claimants to Washington as of August 11.
Out of the $335 million the Legislature approved in June to build actual or virtual barrier along the border with Mexico, Ducey is utilising $6 million for the project.
Republican governors like Ducey, who serves as co-chair of the Republican Governors Association, have used border security as a valuable political weapon during an election year.
Late last month, the Biden administration said that it had given the go-ahead for the Trump-funded U.S.-Mexico border wall in Yuma to be completed.
They intended to plug up four sizable holes since the region has grown to be one of the major pathways for illegal crossings.
Officials from Arizona said they could not understand why the three holes they found and the federal government’s plans differed.
Although Biden had vowed to stop building walls in the future during his campaign, the government eventually consented to certain barriers, claiming safety.
To better safeguard migrants who may fall down a slope or drown while trekking across a low area of the Colorado River, the Department of Homeland Security scheduled work to fix four large holes in the wall close to Yuma.
The project near the Morelos Dam was given final approval by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in July, a decision that, according to officials, reflected the administration’s “priority to deploy modern, effective border measures and also improve safety and security along the Southwest Border.”
Arizona cites a rise in the number of immigrants entering the state and the associated drug smuggling as a key justification for their actions.
In the Yuma area, agents stopped migrants more than 160,000 times between January and June, an almost fourfold increase over the same time previous year.
Arizona authorities said that despite the federal government’s pledge to plug the gaps, nothing had been done to actually do so.
The project was reportedly placed out to bid by the federal government this week, although it may take weeks or months.
The governor opted to proceed even if the federal government opposes later, according to Foster, Ducey’s senior attorney.
Foster said in a briefing for reporters that “at this moment, we are closing that gap and we’ll work out the repercussions as we go ahead.”
In the end, the federal government must safeguard the states since it is required under the constitution and the terms of the agreement.
“They didn’t do that,”