Arizona county sheriff says he’s frustrated with Gov. Doug Ducey sending large containers to the border to build a makeshift fence.
He warned FOX 10 Phoenix that he would arrest anyone who tried to place the containers within 6 miles of Santa Cruz County. He called it “illegal dumping.”
“The area where they’re placing the containers is entirely on federal land, on national forest land,” the sheriff explained. “It’s not state land, it’s not private land, and the federal government has said this [is] illegal activity. So just the way if I saw somebody doing an assault or a homicide or a vehicle theft on public land within my county, I would charge that person with a crime.”
A lawsuit was filed by Ducey against the federal government in October after the government told him not to double stack the more than 100 containers near Yuma on federal and tribal lands.
Since last summer, he has been ordering containers to the border.
“Our border communities are overwhelmed by illegal activity as a result of the Biden administration’s failure to secure the southern border,” said Ducey in a statement at the time. “Arizona is taking action to protest on behalf of our citizens. With this lawsuit, we’re pushing back against efforts by federal bureaucrats to reverse the progress we’ve made. 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.”
Requests for comment were not immediately returned by the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office or the governor’s office.