Work crews are steadily erecting hundreds of double-stacked shipping containers along the rugged east end of Arizona’s boundary with Mexico as Republican Gov. Doug Ducey makes a bold show of border enforcement even as he prepares to step aside next month for Democratic Governor-elect Katie Hobbs
and remains a potent issue for Republican politicians. Hobbs' GOP rival, Kari Lake, campaigned on a promise to dispatch the National Guard to the border on her first day in office. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, recently reelected to a third term, has pushed to keep building Trump's signature wall on the mostly private land along his state's border with Mexico and has crowdsourced funds to help pay for it.
The construction there stretches from oak forests in the Huachuca foothills southeast of Tucson and across the valley's grasslands. As of the middle of last week, cranes had transported more than 900 blue or rust-colored metal containers down a dirt road freshly scraped into the landscape, then double stacked them up to 17 feet high alongside waist-high vehicle barriers of crisscrossed steel. Workers bolted the containers together and welded sheet metal over gaps.
The work in Yuma cost about $6 million and wrapped up in 11 days with 130 of the containers covering about 3,800 feet . The Bureau of Reclamation told Arizona it violated U.S. law by building on federal land. The Cocopah Indian Tribe also complained the state did not seek permission to build on its nearby reservation.
While Ducey's lawsuit does not address environmental concerns, groups like the center say the work in theimperils endangered or threatened species like the western yellow-billed cuckoo and the Mexican spotted owl, as well as big cats including the occasional ocelot.
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