The two sides end their legal battle two weeks before Arizona’s new governor, Democrat Katie Hobbs, who had opposed the wall, takes office.
Arizona will demolish its massive wall of shipping containers along the border with Mexico, a week after the US government went to court arguing that the makeshift barrier, which was supposed to keep out migrants, was illegally built on federal land.
The state will remove shipping containers, equipment and vehicles used to “build” the wall in early January, based on the agreement reached with federal authorities on Wednesday.
The two sides end their legal battle two weeks before Arizona’s new governor, Democrat Katie Hobbs, who had opposed the wall, takes office.
Republican Gov. Doug Dassey signed an executive order in August ordering a state agency to close gaps in the 600-mile border wall with Mexico by stacking shipping containers. In its lawsuit, the Justice Department argued that the containers were on federal land and therefore the wall was illegal.
The $95 million project was a third complete.
Overall they were placed 915 out of 3,000 containers, like a huge domino, in a valley in the heart of the Coronado National Forest, a protected area where endangered species such as jaguars and ocelots live. Environmental activists complained that the makeshift wall, 6.7 meters high and topped with barbed wire, was dangerous to the area’s wildlife.
“The biodiversity of this area is unparalleled,” commented Russ McSpadden of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group which has twice taken legal action to have the container wall demolished. Experts estimated that the wall is too far from the zones used by migrants and all it did was stop wild animals, which, however, need to move in order to survive. McSpadden said he had installed cameras that automatically photographed the area and never recorded migrants passing through, only jaguars and ocelots. “We are in a wild valley. There are no urban zones near here. That’s why, even under the presidency of Donald Trump, no wall was built here“, explained.
This wall, however, seemed from the beginning to be a bad idea: on the uneven ground the containers could not fit together, leaving passages through which a person could comfortably pass. In a video that went viral online, a man showed how easy it was to climb, with his bare hands, into two containers, placed on top of each other.
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With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
