Arizona officials are disobeying a White House order to remove double-stacked shipping containers used to plug Mexico border wall gaps.
The 80 double-stacked shipping containers, welded shut and topped with four feet of razor wire, were declared illegal by the feds. The August attempt to close a gap of approximately 400 feet in the border separating the U.S. and Mexico drew blowback from federal officials.
Department of Interior Regional Director Jacklynn Gould corresponded with the Arizona Department of Homeland Security about the containers. Gould said their placement interfered with a current Border Patrol contract and two pending contracts to close border wall gaps.
The New York Post further reported:
Arizona is balking at a White House demand to remove shipping containers the state’s Republican governor ordered double-stacked along the Mexico border because they were not cleared for use on federal land.
The US Bureau of Reclamation informed state officials last week that using the containers to plug gaps in the border wall near Yuma violates federal law — the latest dispute between the Biden White House and Republican-led border states over the ongoing migration crisis.
Gov. Doug Ducey, expressing frustration at President Biden’s failure to address immigration, ordered the building of a border wall by stacking more than 100 22-feet-high shipping containers on top of one another earlier this summer.
Responding to the Bureau of Reclamation, Arizona’s Department of Emergency and Military Affairs fired back with its own letter on Tuesday.
“The containers will remain in place until specific details regarding construction are provided,” the letter says.
A spokesperson for Ducey said the governor is weighing a separate response, but questioned the federal government’s sense of urgency in dealing with the situation.
“It took the feds since August to write a letter?” Ducey Communications Director C.J. Karamargin told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday. ”If this is any indication of their sense of urgency, then perhaps that explains the problem we’re having.”
Ducey said in August that he was tired of waiting for the federal government to finish erecting the barrier and decided to fill in the gaps with the containers.
The Yuma area was selected because it is one of the most popular sectors for migrants to cross — recording a 208% increase in the fiscal year 2022 over the fiscal year 2021, according to Customs and Border Patrol figures.
Like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Ducey has been shipping busloads of migrants to cities inside the US, including the nation’s capital.