The State of Arizona agreed to remove miles of shipping containers that were placed along its border with Mexico. The agreement was part of a lawsuit that was filed by members of the Biden administration after Governor Doug Ducey issued an order to place the temporary barrier along the border.
This year, Governor Ducey directed the building of a makeshift border “fence” made of shipping containers. The state funded the project via a $564-million spending bill signed in June. The bill provided money to fund the physical barrier, more police personnel, and additional technological and public-safety equipment in response to the border-security crisis caused by the federal government.
In October, the U.S. Department of the Interior demanded in a letter that Governor Ducey remove the containers that were placed on federal territory.
“The unauthorized placement of those containers constitutes a violation of federal law and is a trespass against the United States,” the letter stated. “That trespass is harming federal lands and resources and impeding [the Bureau of] Reclamation's ability to perform its mission.”
The governor's office replied that the office was “weighing their options.”
“It took the feds since August to write a letter? If this is any indication of their sense of urgency, then perhaps that explains the problem we’re having,” Arizona Governor’s Communication Director C.J. Karamargin told the Washington Examiner.
Within the last month, Ducy’s construction project was still in progress.
As a result of the lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice last week, the State of Arizona agreed in part to “maintain its cessation of activity on National Forest Systems lands within the Coronado National Forest.”
The state also agreed to remove the shipping containers that were previously placed within the Yuma Sector and the Coronado National Forest, the court document that was reviewed by Breitbart Texas states.
The agreement also includes a declaration from the federal government that it will begin to construct an “engineered barrier” near the Morelos Dam area.
The talks leading to the barrier-removal project are set to start next week, the court document states.
