Gov.-elect Hobbs will stop border barrier work but hasn't decided on removal

Incoming Gov. Katie Hobbs says she will halt any further work on building a wall of storage containers on the border with Mexico.

“It’s not our land to put things on,’’ she told Capitol Media Services.

Hobbs said this isn’t just a matter of the state acting illegally. She said the maneuver by lame-duck Republican Gov. Doug Ducey in August to put a double-high wall of containers along stretches of the border after President Joe Biden halted the wall being built by former President Donald Trump makes no sense.

“It’s a political stunt,’’ she said. “It’s a visual barrier that is not actually providing effective barrier to entry. And I think it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars.’’

Ducey’s office put a $6 million price tax on filling in a 3,820-foot gap near Yuma. But a 10-mile stretch now being constructed in Cochise County will set taxpayers back another $95 million.

“I feel we could use that money much more effectively,’’ said the Democratic governor-elect.

But as for taking the containers down, that, for the moment, is another question. An aide to Hobbs said there has been no decision.

Money is a complication.

The funds Ducey is using on the project come from a $335 million appropriation approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

The restrictions on that account, known as the Arizona Border Security Fund, allow the money to be used solely to erect a barrier. That means removing the containers would require the Legislature — which will still be in the hands of Republicans next year — to approve a new appropriation or reword the old law.

Hobbs’ statements come even as Ducey is asking a federal judge to declare the 60-foot strip of land along the border where the shipping containers are being erected actually belongs to Arizona.

He contends President Theodore Roosevelt lacked the legal authority to issue the 1907 edict placing the strip under federal jurisdiction. According to lawyers Ducey hired at taxpayer expense, that voids any claim by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Reclamation that placing the containers along the border “is a trespass against the United States.’’

Hobbs’ comments put her on the same side of the legal fight as the federal government. At that point, the state’s legal fight should go away.

U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell has not yet set a hearing on the case.

Ducey has gotten praise for the ersatz wall from Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot, a Republican, who says it has helped keep Yuma safe and “helps put a stop to the revolving door for cartels that has been the southern border.’’ Fellow Republican Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels also is supportive.

But those feelings are not shared by David Hathaway, the Democratic sheriff of Santa Cruz County. He contends claims about the number of people entering the county illegally amount to “a lot of fuzzy math,’’ with the numbers inflated by counting the same people who come and go over and over again.

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Hathaway said he also agrees with Hobbs and federal agencies that Ducey’s storage containers are trespassing on what is clearly federal land. He said he is disappointed the federal agencies have only sent warning letters and not intervened to block further construction or remove the existing containers.

He said he doesn’t intend to sit idle if the construction crews, building the barrier from east to west, reach his county line.

“What they’re doing is illegal,’’ he said. “That would be my intent, to charge them with illegal dumping.” He said it’s no different than if anyone else left something on federal land.

In fact, the sheriff said, it’s worse than littering, since heavy equipment is tearing up the ground to create flat spaces to erect the storage containers.

Criminal laws that are being violated but it may not be necessary to physically arrest anyone, he said.

Instead, Hathaway said, existing laws give him the power to seize everything from the earth-moving equipment to the flat-bed trailers because they are being used in a crime.

“All of that is facilitating the public dumping,’’ he said. “That would kind of be the easiest way. You hit people in the pocketbook. You cost them money.’’

He said that would be particularly true if the contractors hired by Ducey to dig up the land to create flat spots and then erect the containers are leasing the equipment, and then would have to pay for the items without being able to make money as the construction is halted.

And Hathaway, like Hobbs, said he is not buying Ducey’s claim that the land really belongs to the state.

Ducey press aide C.J. Karamargin brushed off Hathaway’s comments. He said there are no plans now to extend the container barrier into Santa Cruz County.

But enforcement action by the sheriff may not be necessary to bring the project to a halt.

Hathaway said the firm doing the contract recognizes it has only until Ducey leaves office to finish the project that Hobbs will halt. That has led to a rush, he said.

Protesters have stymied that by standing in the path of construction.

On Wednesday night, “It was like a Tiananmen Square-type situation where the protesters ran in front of the earth-moving equipment, stopped them,’’ Hathaway said.