Over 1.9 million illegal aliens have stolen across the southern U.S. border in 2022 — more than ever before in recorded history. Yuma, Arizona, is a particularly high-traffic sector, which has seen a 250% increase in migrant encounters this year, with over 259,895 illegal aliens encountered between October 2021 and July 2022.
Citing “the worst border crisis in over 20 years,” Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed a bill into law on June 30 that would finance the construction of a wall along his state’s border with Mexico. Accordingly, $335 million in state funds were directed to “construct and maintain a border fence, purchase or install border security technologies, and to pay associated administrative costs.” An additional $209 million was allocated to fund “border-related enforcement.”
Although President Joe Biden halted construction of the southern border wall when he took office and ended former President Donald Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy, his administration announced in July that it would complete the Trump-funded U.S.-Mexico border wall, specifically in the Yuma sector.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, part of the administration’s reasoning for completing the project near Yuma was to protect illegal aliens from getting hurt near the Morelos Dam.
Ducey found the Biden administration’s initiative dubious and issued a statement on August 12, asserting that “Arizona has had enough. We can’t wait any longer. The Biden administration’s lack of urgency on border security is a dereliction of duty.” Ducey indicated that he would fortify gaps in the state’s border, using 60 double-stacked 8,800-pound shipping containers, all reinforced with concertina wire at the top.
Despite an allegedly deliberate effort by persons unknown to topple portions of the new build last week, on August 24, Ducey announced that 3,820 feet of open border near Yuma had been filled. Now plugging the gaps in Yuma’s border barrier: 130 containers (70 more containers than originally promised), all double-stacked, linked together, and welded shut.
Concerning the barrier’s completion, Ducey said, “In just 11 days, Arizona did the job the federal government has failed to do — and we showed them just how quickly and efficiently the border can be made more secure — if you want to.”
Douglas Nicholls, the mayor of Yuma, said that the Morelos Dam, now covered with shipping containers, was where 50% of the illegal aliens crossing in the Yuma sector would come through.
Arizona Department of Homeland Security Director Tim Roemer suggested that the containers will force illegals to “go through Border Patrol” and minimize the number of future “gotaways on the southwest.”
Arizona straddles 300 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. Although Yuma is now more secure, Ducey cannot presently run shipping containers the entire length of the border or everywhere install border security technology, since a significant stretch of it is reservation land.
Sixty miles of the Tohono O’odham Nation’s land, for instance, runs along the border. One tribal leader, Chairman Ned Norris Jr., likened the construction of a wall along the border near tribal land to the DHS “building a 30-foot wall along Arlington cemetery.”
Gov. Ducey recognizes the border wall construction at Yuma as a “win for Arizona, our communities, our farmers and our law enforcement,” but stated that “the effort to secure our border is far from complete. Washington must act. Border security is a federal responsibility. They need to fix the border they’ve broken.”
EXCLUSIVE: Border wall built with shipping containers near Yuma complete; here’s what it looks like
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