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| Photo Credit: AP. |
U.S. State of Arizona has rejected a private request by the Biden administration to take down its temporary wall along the Mexican border to let in thousands of illegal migrants most of whom are Venezuelans into the country. President Joe Biden’s request comes with a promise to install a new temporary barrier in 2023, according to a letter obtained by the Washington Examiner.
A
spokesperson for Republican Gov. Doug Ducey told the Washington Examiner on
Wednesday evening that the state will not consider the proposal by the White
House.
“The
suggestion by any federal bureaucracy, that we take action to make the border
easier to cross, is completely unacceptable. Gov. Ducey takes the
responsibility to protect Arizona very seriously — that’s why we put up these
containers,” said Ducey’s communications director, C.J. Karamargin, in a call
Wednesday evening to the Washington Examiner. “What they’re suggesting that we
take them down and make Arizona less safe, is a nonstarter.”
Upon taking
office in January 2021, Mr. Biden canceled all border wall construction
nationwide, a move that has allowed more than 3.6 million illegal migrants to
enter the country and are often arrested by border patrol officers but later
released into the United States under a catch and release scheme promoted by
the White House. The number is more than the total number of migrants coming
from the same point under the Obama administration for eight years, according
to the Washington Examiner.
Having
waited in vain for the Biden administration to close the gaps between wall
projects, the Ducey administration implemented barriers within the gaps, a
previous site for nearly all illegal immigrant entry into the southern states.
After 11
days in August, stacks of shipping containers were placed in the gaps between the
walls to block people and drug smuggling by Mexican cartels into the country.
Responding
to the barriers placed by Arizona, the Interior Department’s Bureau of
Reclamation on October 13 ordered the containers to be removed because they
violated U.S. law and were not approved to be placed on federal land, the
Washington Examiner reported.
The statement
released Tuesday wondered why the Bureau of Reclamation does not know whether a
contract has been awarded to fill in the gaps in the border wall.
“As its
sister agency, and a partner on the southwest border, the fact that the Bureau
of Reclamation (BOR) does not 'know' whether a contract has been awarded to
secure the southern border, let alone land under the control of your agency, is
concerning,” Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs Director of
Emergency Management Allen Clark wrote in a letter shared with the Washington
Examiner.
A copy of the
letter obtained by the Washington Examiner indicated that a federal government
official from the Border Patrol sent a letter to the state informing them of
the federal government intention to close four gaps in the border wall
“They want
us to take down shipping containers and leave gaps open for who knows how long
so they can put up what sounds like a chain link fence,” Karamargin said,
according to the Washington Examiner. “They’re asking to take down something so
they can do something that we’ve already done. What Arizona needs is a
permanent solution.”