Latest on the shipping containers at the Arizona-Mexico border as Katie Hobbs becomes governor
PHOENIX - In his last act in office, former Arizona Governor Doug Ducey started removing the shipping containers he began placing months ago along the Arizona-Mexico border.
The project was supposed to cost taxpayers about $120 million to install and 3,000 containers were to be placed in the border wall gaps – it's a project that is no more.
Ducey was given a deadline from the Department of Justice of Jan. 4 of 2023 to remove the containers, and it looks like this removal project is going to cost about $75 million.
As of Jan. 2, Ducey passed the torch to Governor Katie Hobbs, and with it, the responsibility of protecting Arizona's southern border.
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In Ducey's final hours on the job, removal of the shipping containers in the border wall gaps began in Yuma County.
The federal government sued Ducey and the state of Arizona back on Dec. 14 demanding the deconstruction of the containers. Ducey responded in a letter saying the shipping containers were always meant to be a temporary solution due to inaction on border security by the federal government.
Yuma's Mayor Douglas Nicholls had told fox 10 back in September the containers were working, not to stop people from crossing, but to divert them to the ports.
"The shipping containers are working. They're closing the gaps. They've closed off the most active areas," he said.
However, chairman of the Yuma County Board of Supervisors, Tony Reyes, who issued a state of emergency in Yuma a few weeks ago for the migration surge, calls the containers nothing but a political stunt.
"If you're going to talk about the effectiveness of the containers, they obviously didn't work. There's more people that were crossing after those containers than before. They were just crossing at a different location," Reyes said.
The office of Arizona's 24th governor, Hobbs, issued a statement on the matter, saying, "Governor Hobbs has said from the start that these shipping containers are an expensive political stunt that did nothing to address the real issues at the border."
The deconstruction is expected to take at least a week.
Arizona agrees to remove some shipping containers at U.S.-Mexico Border
According to the document, an agreement made between the U.S. Government and Doug Ducey, in his capacity as Arizona governor, will require the state to stop putting up shipping borders along the border within the Coronado National Forest.