Arizona to remove shipping container border wall

Arizona Governor Doug Duceyhas agreed to take down a makeshift border wall made of hundreds of shipping containers, according to a court filing in US District Court in Phoenix.

The agreement to take down the wall by Jan 4 was reached on Wednesday between the governor's office and the federal government.

C.J. Karamargin, a spokesman for the governor, said he had agreed to remove the shipping containers because federal officials were taking steps to build new permanent barriers to fill in gaps in the existing border wall.

Ducey, a Republican, in August ordered the state's Emergency and Military Affairs department to use shipping containers to fill in gaps along the US-Mexico border in Yuma, an agricultural town and busy section for migrant crossing.

According to the governor's office, the roughly 9,000-pound and 9-by-40-feet containers are stacked in two rows at 22 feet high, welded together and topped with four feet of razor wire. The project cost at least $82 million and was funded by the Republican-controlled State Legislature.

The Biden administration sued Ducey last week, arguing that the makeshift wall was constructed illegally on federal land, damaged vegetation, bulldozed roads, and blocked seasonal streams in a national forest.

"We're working with the federal government to ensure they can begin construction of this barrier with the urgency this problem demands. Finally, after the situation on our border has turned into a full-blown crisis, they've decided to act. Better late than never,"Karamargin said in a statement Thursday.

According to the court filing, Arizona will remove all previously installed shipping containers and associated equipment, materials, vehicles, and other objects from the United States' properties in the US Border Patrol Yuma Sector by Jan 4.

Arizona citizens are divided over the governor's container wall. Some Republican sheriffs and local officials in border towns praised the Ducey for taking border security into his own hands in defiance of the federal government, but critics called the border wall a waste of taxpayer money, reported The New York Times.

Russ McSpadden, the Southwest conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, was glad to hear that the containers will be removed.

"Ducey has wasted countless millions of taxpayer dollars building his damaging and illegal shipping container wall," McSpadden said in a statement. "Nevertheless, we're very pleased to see him agree to remove his political stunt."

According to the Times, McSpadden and other activists had gathered in the national forest to set up a protest camp and managed to halt construction by standing in front of bulldozers.

The agreement came as officials and thousands of migrants at the US-Mexico border are waiting for a decision by the US Supreme Court whether to end a pandemic-related policy Title 42 which allows for rapid expulsion of migrants at the border.

The Biden administration sought to end the policy effective Wednesday, but it got delayed by the court. It has anticipated a spike in arrivals with the end of Title 42 and has been deploying additional personnel to the border. The Homeland Security Department estimated that it needs $3.4 billion in additional funding to meet the challenge.