Arizona dismantles container wall on border with Mexico 5 months after installation

A container wall that cost US$ 100 million (R$ 519.8 million), installed last August on the Arizona-Mexico border, was dismantled last Friday (21).

The construction, an intervention in the Coronado National Forest, had been ordered by Republican Doug Ducey, then governor of the state, in the last months of his administration. The objective, according to the politician, was to combat illegal migration in light of Washington’s supposed failure to resolve the migration crisis.

The initiative, however, was short-lived. In December last year, Ducey agreed to remove the containers after an open action by the government of President Joe Biden arguing that the construction of the wall, on federal land, damaged the fauna and flora of a national forest.

At the time, Ducey’s spokesman told The New York Times that the state agreed to remove the wall because federal authorities were taking steps to build permanent barriers.

“From the beginning we said that the maritime container program was temporary,” said the adviser, CJ Karamargin. “We’d be happy to remove them if the federal government takes it seriously and does what it’s supposed to do, which is protect the border. Now we have indications that they’re taking it seriously.”

In July, the US Department of Homeland Security authorized the closing of four gaps in a barrier in Yuma, Arizona. The project, it said at the time, was to “implement modern and effective border measures and improve security along the southwestern border”. Ducey was succeeded by Democrat Katie Hobbs, who won the election in November. She was critical of the measure.

The wall idea emerged in 2022 and quickly met with opposition. Critics considered the initiative a cynical maneuver that would affect the environment and make no difference to the number of illegal entries.

The shipping containers, which snaked like a freight train across seven kilometers of federal land, shared a conservation area. Furthermore, the terrain was so difficult to cross, opponents said, that people smugglers never used the stretch to enter the United States. In practice, the row of containers stacked on two levels was not well installed to prevent passage, because it was not sufficiently aligned, leaving spaces between the boxes where a person could pass. In some stretches, the instability of the terrain was so great that workers had to leave holes.

“It’s a political move,” said Bill Wilson, 77, a resident of neighboring Sierra Vista, as he watched the wall being dismantled. “It’s a joke and a waste of money, tax money, time and effort.”

Arizona shares nearly 600 km of border with Mexico, including conservation areas, national parks, military zones and Indian reservations. Until 2017, when former President Donald Trump arrived at the White House with the promise of building a wall, Mexico was separated from the US by a small physical barrier. Now, long stretches have a fence that reaches 9 meters high.

Before the arrival of the containers to the Coronado National Forest, an area accessible only by trail, the border was demarcated by a fence.