Department Of Justice Sues Gov. Ducey Over His ‘Containerland’ Amusement Park on the U.S.-Mexico Border (Updated)

by

Gov. Doug Ducey, who has delusional dreams of running for president in 2024, has to engage in increasingly bizarre behavior to compete with the likes of buffoonish Gov. Gregg Abbott of Texas and Gov. Ron DeSantis of the Fascist state of Florida.

Ducey’s last political stunt as governor of Arizona has been to build a “border wall” out of shipping containers, i.e., a junkyard of multi-colored shipping containers (which are quite easy for any motivated individual to scale and climb over), dubbed “Containerland.”

UPDATE:

Ducey is supposed to be a businessman. As such, he should know that the “highest and best use” of shipping containers is to move freight by rail or truck – particularly during a global pandemic marked by supply chain disruptions, which led to inflation. Ducey is doing his part to exacerbate this problem.

Ducey’s political stunt gets rave reviews in the right-wing media, which has been all-in on demonizing migrants crossing the border for decades as part of their racist “great replacement” theory of white nationalism.

What we do not hear enough of from the GQP-friendly media here in Arizona is what the people who actually Iive along the U.S-Mexico border think of Gov. Ducey’s political stunt. Did you know that they have been protesting Ducey’s “Containerland”?

Tim Steller of the Arizona Daily Star did an excellent commentary on Ducey’s “Containerland” amusement park.

The Nogales International reported, Sheriff warns of arrests if shipping containers installed on border in Santa Cruz County (excerpt):

As a contractor hired by Gov. Doug Ducey continues to stack shipping containers along the U.S.-Mexico border in Cochise County, moving westward into the San Rafael Valley, Sheriff David Hathaway said he’s ready to make a stand at the Santa Cruz County line.

If anyone tries to put the containers in his jurisdiction, Hathaway told the NI on Thursday, they’ll be arrested for illegal dumping.

“I’m just going to make sure they don’t enter our county,” he said.

That work has prompted protests from environmental activists and a warning from National Forest officials. And while no barrier construction has begun in Santa Cruz County, fast-moving trucks are already traveling through an eastern swath of the county with the shipping containers, creating safety concerns among residents, according to one Elgin woman.

[H]athaway has expressed opposition to Ducey’s shipping container project in the past. Speaking to the NI in September, he called the idea ridiculous.

But what’s more, Hathaway asserts that it’s unlawful, too.

“It’s illegal to just go dump a container out there and leave it there,” he said Thursday.

While Hathaway said he can charge the builders for illegal dumping, Ducey’s project also faces federal challenges.

“The Forest Service has informed the state that the presence of the containers is unlawful,” the statement added.

And in October, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation warned against the shipping container project, calling it “a violation of federal law.”

In a long narrative piece, The Intercept reports, How Neighbors In The Borderlands Fought Back Against Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s Illegal Wall — And Won (excerpt):

Ducey, who’s leaving office in January, has committed at least $95 million to this effort, but the Republican governor’s renegade campaign could end up costing Arizonans far more.

Ducey’s Democratic successor, Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs, has said she will stop adding containers to the wall. She has not, however, committed to taking the existing structures down. If Hobbs does take the containers down, it could cost as much or more than it did to put them in. If she doesn’t, it will mean the collapse of a remarkable binational ecosystem, one of the last places in the U.S. where jaguars still roam, and the death of a stunning Sonoran Desert landscape set aside for all to enjoy.

The story of Arizona’s wall of shipping containers is a story about immigration and conservation, of public lands and insurrection, but as the weeks went by, it turned into something more. In the shadow of the governor’s wall, a roughly four-mile stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border became the setting for a remarkable and unlikely story of everyday people who, with no one to count on but each other, stood up against the most powerful lawmaker in their state and won.

[Russ] McSpadden works for the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, where he documents threats to the unique ecosystems of the Sonoran Desert. On social media, he intersperses viral videos of destructive border wall construction with equally popular videos of borderland wildlife. His encyclopedic knowledge of Arizona’s backcountry is matched by his passion for the animals that live there. From iridescent bugs to lightning-fast pronghorn, McSpadden loves them all, but one borderland resident stands above the others: el tigre de la frontera, the jaguar.

[As] part of the center’s legal efforts, the federal government was forced to designate 1,194 square miles in Arizona and New Mexico as critical jaguar habitat in 2014, limiting the kinds of activity permitted there. That habitat included land on the western slope of the Huachuca Mountains in the Coronado National Forest, where Ducey began dropping his containers on October 24.

[On] the Friday before Ducey’s container installation began, a team of private attorneys working on behalf of the governor filed a lawsuit in federal court against the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Reclamation, and top officials at the agencies, along with the secretary of the Department of Agriculture. The lawsuit followed more than a month of warnings from federal officials that the project Ducey was cooking up was unauthorized and thus, illegal.

On September 16, Coronado National Forest officials received a request from the Arizona Division of Emergency Management seeking “authorization to place barriers on National Forest land in all areas that currently have gaps in the federal wall.” The Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, or DEMA, manages a $335 million “Border Security Fund” [slush fund] that the Republican-controlled legislature approved in 2021. The disbursements have been controversial, with the governor’s emergency managers distributing more cash to Republican-led counties and sheriffs — including Cochise County and Dannels, its sheriff — than their Democratic counterparts.

With DEMA showing no sign of plans to abide by the process for the authorization of a massive construction project on federal land, the Forest Service denied Ducey’s request. On October 6, Kerwin Dewberry, Coronado’s forest supervisor, sent a letter to Maj. Gen. Kerry L. Muehlenbeck, the director of DEMA, reporting the sighting of dozens of shipping containers, construction equipment, and private security personal on federal land. “The Forest Service did not authorize this occupancy and use,” he wrote.

[In] his complaint two weeks later, Ducey focused on the so-called Roosevelt Reservation. In photographs, it’s that flattened land that runs parallel to the border wall. Former President Theodore Roosevelt set aside this 60-foot-wide roadway as federal land in 1907, five years before Arizona became a state, so that the U.S. government could forever have an unimpeded view into Mexico.

For 115 years, the agreement that the easement is federal property has been a staple of borderlands jurisprudence. Ducey, however, presented the novel argument that Roosevelt’s declaration lacked authority and the state had jurisdiction over the land, particularly in times of emergency and cases of “invasion;” Ducey declared that both were present in Arizona in August. Under President Joe Biden, the federal government abdicated its obligation to provide security by opening the border to a criminal invasion of drugs and foreigners, the governor alleged. Arizona had the right to defend itself by filling gaps in the border wall that Trump left behind. (The Biden administration was already in the process of filling those gaps.)

Ducey’s reading of the law would grant border governors unprecedented power to sidestep federal statutes that have governed public lands for generations. In his view, he was both empowered and obligated to disregard those time-consuming processes. His lawsuit called on the court to agree.

Until a judge rules otherwise, Ducey has demonstrated every intent to keep doing what he’s doing. The Department of Justice has filed a motion to dismiss his suit.

Ducey selected AshBritt, a Florida-based disaster response company with significant ties to the Republican Party, for the Coronado project. In 2018, the company made a half-million-dollar donation to a Trump Super PAC, in violation of prohibitions against federal contractor political contributions. The firm’s CEO paid a hefty Federal Election Commission fine. Trump’s former White House counsel, Donald McGahn, negotiated the settlement.

The Center for Biological Diversity quickly filed suit against Ducey, citing the threat to jaguar habitat under the Endangered Species Act, but there was a catch. The landmark environmental law gives defendants nearly two months to change allegedly bad behavior before any enforcement activity can commence. That meant nothing was happening right away. So in addition to that suit, the organization also intervened in Ducey’s lawsuit as a defendant. If the feds wouldn’t defend the land, Robin Silver, the group’s co-founder, told me, the Center for Biological Diversity would.

“The Feds” ARE now involved in stopping Gov. Ducey’s “Containerland” amusement park political stunt.

The Arizona Republic reports, Federal government sues over Gov. Doug Ducey’s shipping container wall at border:

The U.S. Justice Department has sued Gov. Doug Ducey and the state of Arizona over shipping containers used as a makeshift wall at the border, which the government contends is illegal, dangerous and interferes with federal duties.

The government is asking for a judge to order the removal of the containers from U.S. land along the border and damages for the state’s “unlawful trespasses, including any costs and expenses incurred by the United States.”

In addition, the lawsuit asks for “a declaration that Arizona’s use and occupancy of lands owned by the United States without the reuqired permits or other authorization constitutes unlawful trespasses.”

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for Arizona on Wednesday.

In a response to the federal authorities earlier in the day, Ducey’s lawyer noted what they view as inaccurate claims but struck a less defiant tone on an issue they view as demanding long-overdue federal action.

The action is the latest move in what has been a high-profile standoff between the governor and the federal government over conditions along the nation’s southern border.

Ducey sued the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in late October, asking a judge to allow the state to continue placing shipping containers at the border near Yuma after officials with the federal agency sought to halt construction days earlier. The governor [wrongly] maintains Arizona has the legal authority to put the containers in gaps where the federal government, though having plans to build a barrier, has not yet done so.

“The State’s actions have substantially curtailed federal law enforcement personnel from freely accessing the border area, and Arizona’s placement of armed guards on federal land risks putting federal law enforcement officials in danger,” the Justice Department Office of Legislative Affairs wrote in an email obtained by The Arizona Republic. “Arizona’s actions have also stymied federal efforts to complete construction of border infrastructure projects in certain locations.”

Officials with the Biden administration characterized the container wall as an unhelpful stunt.

“I think the longer it’s there, the more damage is done and the safety hazard continues to persist,” an administration official said of the container wall. “We need serious solutions with input from local leaders and communities to effectively manage the migration challenge, and stacking shipping containers for a photo op isn’t a serious solution or helpful.”

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the U.S. departments of Agriculture and Interior.

[In] a letter to the Justice Department, Ducey’s lawyer noted that Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., has acknowledged the need for security action along the border. The governor’s letter cites human- and drug-trafficking as a problem neglected by the federal government since January 2021, when President Joe Biden halted construction of the border wall begun under former President Donald Trump.

Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, called the federal response “welcome news and long overdue.”

“We need immediate action to finally address the illegal and useless container wall on federal and Tribal lands,” he said. “Governor Ducey has wasted $95 million in taxpayer dollars, blocked critical wildlife corridors, and manufactured a dangerous situation with unauthorized armed security personnel along our southern border. Governor Ducey is determined to leave office with a mess and unfortunately, it’s now up to someone else to clean it up.”

Ducey has tested the government over the related matter of illegal immigration as well.

This year Arizona has sent more than 2,000 migrants to Washington, D.C., on dozens of bus trips under a program initiated by Ducey and underwritten by state taxpayers. The trips cost about $82,000 each, according to the state’s contract, resulting in a bill to the state that topped $5 million as of October.

Governor Ducey’s lawless political stunt is going to wind up costing Arizona taxpayers millions of dollars in damages, not to mention the environmental damage which may take many years from which to recover. And he will not have to pay for it. That’s an abuse of power.

UPDATE:




2 thoughts on “Department Of Justice Sues Gov. Ducey Over His ‘Containerland’ Amusement Park on the U.S.-Mexico Border (Updated)”

  1. E.J. Montini of The Republic writes, “Humpty Ducey’s disastrous container wall comes to a halt”, https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2022/12/15/doug-ducey-shipping-container-border-wall-halt-protesters/69730041007/

    (excerpt)

    Twenty brave souls camping out at the wet, frigid eastern Arizona border with Mexico have done what all the king’s horses and all the king’s men – meaning, all of the government’s lawyers – could not do. Yet.

    They’ve stopped construction on Humpty Ducey’s baleful shipping container wall.

    Until recently, Gov. Doug Ducey’s farewell scheme to waste more than $100 million of Arizona’s tax dollars on a grotesque, ineffective, environmentally disastrous shipping container “wall” along parts of the border was proceeding just as he’d planned.

    Not long ago, however, a hearty group of protesters took up residence in front of the wall construction in a remote area of the Coronado National Forrest, and have hung in, day and night, through cold, snowy conditions.

    Bless them.

Comments are closed.