Arizona won’t wait for feds, starts filling border wall gaps

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona began moving in shipping containers to close a 1,000-foot gap in the border wall near the southern Arizona farming community of Yuma on Friday, with officials saying they were acting to stop migrants after repeated, unfulfilled promises from the Biden administration to block off the area.

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 in the coming weeks totaling 3,000 feet (914.4 meters).

“The federal government has committed to doing this, but we cannot wait for their action,” Ratlief said.

“Why can’t governor abbot of Texas do the same thing?”

Using shipping containers and concertina to quickly block high traffic gaps is something that Gov. Abbott started in Texas.

Texas and Arizona have apparently been taking notes from each other, if not directly talking to each other, about how to secure their borders, while the FedGov is not.

They both passed Programs through their legislatures to fund some border wall construction of their own. Of course, they don’t have the kind of money to spend that the Feds could, but they are picking their shots to get the most bang for their buck. Texas put up a billion dollars for the first year, which is a serious effort. Arizona’s new Program is more recent, and about 1/3 the funding. Both will build on State land, or that of willing private owners.

These gaps around Yuma City are by far Arizona’s biggest problem. Historically, Yuma has been the third most heavily trafficked corridor along the Southern border, after the Rio Grande Valley and San Diego.

The Trump Program went on a tear, building top of the line barrier through the Yuma Sector - mostly now walled off hard.

These relatively small (quarter mile) gaps around the Morelos Dam, have urban areas on both sides of the border, making it child’s play to walk across there. People are walking through by the thousands.

It’s Federal land, so this is a gutsy new tactic by a State to control the flow of illegal immigrants. The FedGov recently approved permanent border barrier construction there (that will probably take a year to complete), so they don’t have a strong case to tell the State that no temporary barrier is needed there.

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