(Headline USA) The Biden administration accused Arizona of “trespassing” within its own sovereign border this week after the state’s refusal to remove shipping containers along the southern border with Mexico.
President Joe Biden’s administration demanded earlier this month that Arizona officials remove the shipping containers being used as a border blockade, claiming they are being illegally used.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey responded by accusing Biden of failing his responsibility to secure the southern border, saying Arizona’s makeshift wall will not come down until Biden decides to put up his own wall in its place.
In response, Biden’s regional director for the Bureau of Reclamation’s Lower Colorado Basin sent a letter to the state warning that Arizona is in violation of federal law and could be held accountable for “trespassing.”
“The unauthorized placement of those containers constitutes a violation of federal law and is a trespass against the United States,” administration official Jacklynn Gould said in the letter. “That trespass is harming federal lands and resources and impeding Reclamation’s ability to perform its mission.”
Yuma Mayor Douglas Nicholls, a Republican, hit back by pointing out that hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants “trespass” in Arizona every single month thanks to the Biden administration’s open-border policies.
“They say this is federal land—and it is—but it would be trespassing supposedly to put these containers on there,” Nicholls said. “Well, my contention is that 300,000 people that have come through this year alone, they’ve been trespassing, and I don’t remember seeing a letter going out to anybody to try to stop any of that.”
Ducey previously announced he would sue the Biden administration over its efforts to remove the shipping containers.
The lawsuit names as defendants the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Forest Service, and Agriculture Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack.
“Arizona is taking action to protest on behalf of our citizens,” Ducey said in a statement.
“With this lawsuit, we’re pushing back against efforts by federal bureaucrats to reverse the progress we’ve made,” he continued. “The safety and security of Arizona and its citizens must not be ignored. Arizona is going to do the job that Joe Biden refuses to do—secure the border in any way we can. We’re not backing down.”
