Howard Fisher
Capitol Media Services

PHOENIX — Arizona Governor-elect Katie Hobbs plans to halt further work to build a wall of storage containers on the state’s southern border.

“It’s not our land to put things on,” Governor-elect Hobbes told Capitol Media Services.

She said it’s not just a matter of countries doing illegal things. She says lame-duck Gov. Doug Ducey will install a double-height container wall along the border in August after President-elect Joe Biden halted a wall built by former President Trump. He said the strategy was meaningless.

“It’s a political stunt,” she said. “It’s a visual barrier that doesn’t really provide an effective barrier to entry.” increase.”

And there are a lot of dollars.

The governor’s office imposed a $6 million price tax to fill a 3,820-foot void near Yuma. But his 10-mile stretch, currently under construction in Cochise County, will set taxpayers back an additional $95 million.

“I think we can use that money more effectively,” said the governor-elect.

But what actually unloads the container?

That’s another matter for now. Hobbs’ aide said no decision had been made.

And then there’s another complication. It’s money.

The funding Ducey is using for the project comes from a $335 million budget approved by the Republican-controlled Congress.

The only thing is that the restrictive language of that account, known as the Arizona Border Patrol Fund, allows the cash to be used only to erect a barrier. That means the administration (which is still in Republican hands next year) needs to approve new appropriations or amend old laws.

The statement by the governor-elect also comes as Ducey seeks a federal judge to declare that the 60 feet of land along the border where the shipping container is located actually belongs to Arizona.

He argues that President Theodore Roosevelt did not have the legal authority to issue the 1907 edict. And, according to lawyers Ducey hired at the taxpayer’s expense, it would invalidate any claim by the U.S. Forest Service and Reclamation Service that placing containers along the border “is trespassing into the United States.”

Hobbs’ comments put her on the same side of the federal government in the legal battle. And at that point, the state legal battle should be gone.

U.S. District Judge David Campbell has not yet set a hearing in the case.

Ducey has been praised by Republicans like Yuma County Sheriff Gov. Leon Wilmot for the substitute wall, which helped keep Yuma safe and “put an end to the cartel revolving door that was the southern border. It helped me,” he said.

Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dunnells, also a Republican, is supportive.

But Santa Cruz County Democratic Sheriff David Hathaway doesn’t share those sentiments. He argues that claims about the number of people entering the county illegally amount to “a lot of fuzzy mathematics” inflated by counting the same people entering and leaving the county over and over again.

Hathaway said he agreed with both Hobbes and federal agencies that Ducey’s storage containers were apparently encroaching on federal land. He said he was disappointed that so far he had sent only warning letters and had not actually intervened to prevent further construction or remove existing containers.

But Hathaway said he wasn’t going to sit idly by when he reached his county line as construction workers were building the barrier from east to west.

“What they’re doing is illegal,” he said. “It would be my intention to accuse them of illegal dumping.” I said it wouldn’t change.

In fact, according to Hathaway, it’s worse than littering, and worse than having heavy equipment tearing up the ground to create flat spaces and standing storage containers.

The sheriff said there are criminal laws being violated. However, he said it may not be necessary to actually physically arrest someone.

Hathaway said existing law gives him the power to seize everything from earthmoving equipment used in crime to flatbed trailers.

“All of that is facilitating public dumping,” he said. “It would be kind of the easiest way.” I did.”

He said this is especially true when the contractor Ducey hires to dig the land to create a flat and then build the container leases the equipment. Stopping.

And Hathaway, like Hobbes, said he did not support Ducey’s claim that the land really belonged to the state.

Ducey spokesman CJ Karamargin dismissed Hathaway’s comments. He said there are currently no plans to extend the container barrier into Santa Cruz County.

However, enforcement action by the sheriff may not be necessary to bring the project to a halt.

Hathaway said the contracting firm knows Hobbs won’t stop until Ducey leaves the office to finish the project. And that led to the rush, Hathaway said.

What is holding it back, he said, is that protesters are standing in the way of construction, stalling it.

Hathaway said workers tried to get around it by shifting to night shifts this Wednesday. He said it didn’t work.

“It was a Tiananmen-like situation where the protesters ran in front of the earthmoving machinery and stopped it,” he said.