The Constitution says we have to have open borders and everyone from everywhere gets to come live on welfare forever while your small son is having gay sex at school.
It’s called democracy, bub, and it’s who we are.
A makeshift new barrier built with shipping containers is being illegally erected along part of the US-Mexico border by Arizona’s Republican governor – before he has to hand over the keys of his office to his Democratic successor in January.
Doug Ducey is driving a project that is placing double-stacked old shipping containers through several miles of national forest, attempting to fill gaps in Donald Trump’s intermittent border fencing.
The rusting hulks, topped with razor wire and with bits of metal jammed into gaps, stretch for more than three miles through Coronado national forest land, south of Tucson, and the governor has announced plans to extend that up to 10 miles, at a cost of $95m (£78m).
Ducey's shipping container wall on the AZ-MX border is worse than I imagined. I went down yesterday to see it myself for a Border Chronicle story. Imagine 10 miles of this through a national wildlife forest. This is happening right now👇👇 pic.twitter.com/mqCjVo59iA
— Melissa del Bosque (@MelissaLaLinea) November 30, 2022
The area, with mountain ranges rising abruptly from the desert and a diverse environment of plants and animals, is federal land maintained by the US Forest Service.
Ducey had first experimented with a smattering of shipping containers in August in Yuma, in the south-west corner of the state, bordering California and Mexico, aiming to stop migrants and asylum seekers.
Since Donald Trump implemented the Title 42 rule in 2020 when he was president, which closed ports of entry to most seeking asylum in the US, people have sought gaps in barriers elsewhere in order to request asylum from border agents. The rule appears still to be on track to end later this month although a long legal battle is taking place.
Ducey issued an executive order in August to erect old shipping containers near Yuma, and 11 days later workers had installed 130 of what he described as “22ft-high, double stacked, state-owned, 8,800lb, 9x40ft containers, linked together and welded shut”.
In October, Ducey filed a lawsuit in which he claimed that the federal land along the border known as the Roosevelt Reservation actually belongs to the state, not the US government, and that Arizona has the constitutional right to protect itself against what he termed an invasion, citing “countless migrants” resulting in “a mix of drug, crime and humanitarian issues”.
US attorneys issued a withering response, refuting the claims.
The US Bureau of Reclamation and the Cocopah tribal nation said that Ducey was violating federal law by placing the containers on federal and tribal land there. In a letter, the bureau demanded that the state remove the containers. But the state has not, and has since been emboldened to embark on the larger project now proceeding apace more than 300 miles to the east.
It’s impressive from an artistic perspective, methinks.
I would hang out there.