On the US-Mexico border, Arizona demolishes the shipping container wall.
Friday saw the deconstruction of a wall of shipping containers that the former governor of Arizona had built just a few months earlier at a cost of $100 million to US taxpayers.
During the final months of his administration, Republican Doug Ducey ordered a massive line of shipping containers to be placed at the border between the United States and Mexico in what he claimed was an effort to stop illegal immigration.
However, Ducey, who has since been succeeded by Democrat Katie Hobbs, agreed in December to remove the containers after Washington sued for placing them on federal land in the Coronado National Forest.
Debbie McGuire exclaimed, “I couldn’t believe that Governor Ducey thought that it was a good idea,” as a truck hurried down a dusty road carrying an empty container.
It is completely absurd. to place containers that would never work to keep people out,” she told AFP.
I simply cannot comprehend why he considered it a good idea. absurd and a complete waste of taxpayer funds.
Beginning in the middle of 2022, Ducey’s effort to construct a container wall quickly sparked opposition, with critics branding it a cynical political move that would harm the environment and have no effect on the number of illegal border crossings.
The opponents claimed that an important conservation area was divided by the corrugated containers, which snaked through federal lands for four miles (or seven kilometers) like a massive cargo train.
Additionally, they said, the terrain is so difficult to navigate that people traffickers have never really used it.
Because of their rigid shape and the fact that they didn’t always line up, the double-stacked containers didn’t work well in practice for keeping people out because the gaps between the boxes were big enough for a person to fit through.
Workmen were forced to leave spaces because the terrain was too steep in some places to accommodate them.
Bill Wilson, who was watching the wall being taken down on Friday from Sierra Vista, said, “It’s just political gamesmanship.”
The 77-year-old told AFP, “It’s a travesty and a waste of government money, tax money, time, and effort.”
Arizona and Mexico share a border that is approximately 370 miles (600 kilometers) long. This border includes military zones, indigenous reservations, environmental preservation areas, and national parks.
There was very little in the way of a physical barrier that separated it from Mexico prior to the arrival of Donald Trump in 2017, who was propelled to power on his pledge to “Build That Wall.”
A fence that is up to 29 meters (or 30 feet) high now covers a lot of the border.
A wire fence marked the border before the containers reached the Coronado National Forest, which is only accessible via dirt roads.
