The Arizona Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the state of Arizona for putting shipping containers on U.S. lands as a barrier on the border with Mexico
The federal government sued the state of Arizona on Wednesday for placing shipping containers as a barrier on the border with Mexico.
According to the complaint, Arizona has been warned that it is on federal lands. Damage to the United States is one of the goals of the action.
The suit, which names Ducey and two Department of Emergency and Military Affairs officials, was filed by the Department of Justice in the US District Court for the District of Arizona.
“The number one public safety risk and environmental harm is due to the federal government’s inability to secure the border, with an ever-increasing number of migrants who continue to flow into the state after the January 2021 stop on building the border wall”, according to a letter from Gov.
Ducey’s office said in a letter sent to the Justice Department on Tuesday that the government had made a “series of unfounded and inaccurate claims” in an earlier letter stating the department’s intent to file a lawsuit.
“Arizona stands ready to cooperate with the federal government on construction of a border wall and always has been,” the letter from Ducey’s office said. Ducey’s office directed CNN to the letter when asked for comment on the lawsuit.
The legal spat comes as the Biden administration faces a December deadline to terminate a public health authority, known as Title 42, that took effect at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and allowed officials to turn away migrants encountered at the US southern border more than two million times. A federal judge blocked the administration’s attempts at maintaining the authority last month and set an expiration date for next Wednesday.
A lawsuit filed by Doug Ducey in support of the San Rafael Valley border wall, an illegal border wall that would remove shipping containers and destroy protected national forests
Three weeks before the Republican governor steps away for the Democratic Gov.-elect, who has objected to the construction, the complaint was filed in US District Court.
Ducey told U.S. officials earlier this week that Arizona is ready to help remove the containers, which he says were placed as a temporary barrier. But he wants the U.S. government to say when it will fill any remaining gaps in the permanent border wall as it announced it would a year ago.
“Arizonans and Americans are invited to release a timeline by the U.S., in light of the pending federal complaint,” he wrote.
The complaint was made by the Department of Justice, which wants the court to stop placement of containers in the San Rafael Valley.
The work placing up to 3,000 containers at a cost of $95 million is about a third complete, but protesters concerned about its impact on the environment have held up work in recent days.
The project is harmful to the public and damaging to the land, according to a statement from the U.S. Agriculture Secretary.
Local leaders and communities have to be involved in finding serious solutions at the border. Vilsack said that stacking shipping containers was not a productive solution.
The complaint was applauded by U.S. Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, a Democrat who represents southern Arizona. He called the project an illegal border wall.
Russ McSpadden, Southwest conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the federal complaint “should be the beginning of the end of Doug Ducey’s lawless assault on protected national forestlands and endangered wildlife.”
The complaint was to be filed after being informed that the containers posed serious public safety risks and environmental harms.
Ducey’s move comes amid a record flow of migrants arriving at the border. In the last fiscal year, border officials stopped 2.38 million migrants, up 37% from a year before. The annual total surpassed 2 million for the first time in August and is more than twice the highest level during Trump’s presidency, in 2019.