Governor Doug Ducey may be violating the law by not following contracting processes to conduct construction on sections of the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Friday, Gov. Ducey announced construction had begun on border gaps within the Yuma Sector of the U.S.-Mexico border, a 126 mile stretch between the Yuma-Pima County line in Arizona and the Imperial Sand Dunes in California. He signed an Executive Order outlining his reasons the state needs to act, saying the state cannot wait for federal action.
The Biden Administration had cleared construction to repair the gaps July 29th.
Myles Traphagen is Borderlands Program Coordinator at Wildlands Network, an environment advocacy organization that conducted a study of the impacts of the border wall along stretches of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Their review mapped areas of environmental damage caused by the wall and the building process to, in part, document the result of sidelining pre-construction impact studies normally required for construction on public lands.
The goal, says Traphagen, was to “look at some of the destruction the federal government was not very forthcoming on, as far as disclosing where and what they did.”
Traphagen says Arizona looks to be bypassing those pre-construction activities as well. And he notes closing gaps near Yuma just pushes migrants to other sections of the border that do not have a wall, including a nearby 8-mile stretch on the Cocopah Reservation.
“It’s simply political theater,” says Traphagen. “To think that closing 1,000 feet of gaps along the border is going to somehow solve our national security issues or deter immigration is very naïve.”
But the Governor’s office says construction on a gap that began Friday will be completed by Sunday.
Traphagen says since state governors generally do not have authority to construct on areas of public land, Arizona’s actions will probably land it in court.
