Above Photo: Jonathan Clark
Nogales is a city of about 20,000 people on the border with Mexico. It is a fraction of the size of its Mexican counterpart, but the US town’s economy is largely reliant on Mexican shoppers and cross-border trade. Illegal crossings in that area have dropped steeply in the past several years but under Trump’s anti-immigration policies, that town has been subjected to living with barbed wire fencing that looks like a prison wall.
Look what the US military deployment did to the border fence in downtown Nogales, Arizona. This makes us look like a nation that’s completely lost its mind: https://t.co/0ui7zBYHsV pic.twitter.com/Godx7INhcp
— Adam Isacson (@adam_wola) February 5, 2019
The border city of Nogales REALLY doesn’t want this creepy AF razor wire in their city. https://t.co/PXdyCerv0p pic.twitter.com/vLBSuf81RD
— Occupy Wall Street (@OccupyWallStNYC) February 7, 2019
So, the good people of Nogales, Arizona now have a dangerous hazard running through streets where kids play and walk.
All for the optics of crisis and deference…
…which only matter until you get far enough out of town for no one to notice.
14/ pic.twitter.com/6ZovZp1saR
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) February 7, 2019
Nogales International is reporting that tensions are mounting with the town and the federal government over barbed wire fencing that Nogales wants removed. They report, “A delegation of city leaders led by Mayor Arturo Garino walked out of a meeting with Border Patrol representatives on Wednesday afternoon after the Border Patrol officials said new barbed concertina wire installed on the border fence in town would not be removed.” Military troops have been putting up rows of concertina wire since Election Day 2018. Rather than taking it down, the military says they are planning to add more wire. Members of the community stood and applauded when the council voted to demand the wire be taken down at a recent meeting.
U.S. Rep. Grijalva (D-Tucson), who represents Nogales and all of Santa Cruz County in Congress, blasted the move to add wire to the fence and called for it to be removed.
“The additional wire is nothing more than a spectacle by the Trump administration to reinforce his twisted narrative of rampant lawlessness at the border,” reported Nogales International.
They also reported how Alan Morga visiting from Paris, France described the wall, “For me, it resembles Israel and Palestine. This wall, for me it’s not normal.”
The mayor of Nogales is considering litigation to have the wire removed.
Arizona city officials want troop-installed razor wire removed from border wall https://t.co/0oWhPRx3of pic.twitter.com/p7eOCcyDJ8
— Military Times (@MilitaryTimes) February 7, 2019
Military Times reports “Soldiers have installed concertina wire at or near several official crossings at the border. In late November, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the military had sent 36 miles (58 kilometers) of concertina for use in California, Arizona, and Texas.” KZ
NOGALES, Ariz. — Officials in this Arizona border city passed a resolution Wednesday night condemning the installation of new razor wire that now covers the entirety of a tall border wall through downtown.
The City Council in Nogales, which sits on the border with Nogales, Mexico, wants the federal government to remove all concertina wire installed within the city limits.
Otherwise, Nogales Mayor Arturo Garino said the city will sue.
City officials say Army troops installed more horizontal layers of the wire along the border wall last weekend.
The council’s resolution, passed unanimously, says the razor wire would harm or kill anyone who scales the wall and “is only found in a war, prison or battle setting” and should not be in downtown Nogales.
The council’s action came one day after President Donald Trump made his case to the American people about the need for a border wall and how he has ordered 3,750 troops to prepare for what he called a “tremendous onslaught.”
Soldiers have installed concertina wire at or near several official crossings at the border. In late November, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the military had sent 36 miles (58 kilometers) of concertina for use in California, Arizona, and Texas.
At the start of November, soldiers in Texas installed lines of wire coils below a major bridge near McAllen.
In Nogales, six rows of concertina wire are now stacked along the approximately two-story wall.
Nogales, a city of about 20,000 people, is a fraction of the size of its Mexican counterpart, but its economy is largely reliant on Mexican shoppers and cross-border trade. Illegal crossings in that area have dropped steeply in the past several years.
Garino said he asked U.S. Sen. Martha McSally, R-Tucson, to help the city have the wire removed during her visit to the border last month.
A spokeswoman for McSally said the senator was working on a response to an inquiry from The Associated Press.
Garino said authorities didn’t tell him why more wire was installed.
He said he was most concerned that children and others could be injured now that it reaches the ground. The downtown area is also residential, and there are homes that stand a few feet from the border fence.
“Aesthetically pleasing — it’s not. It’s very bad. It’s not good for business, it’s not good for what we’re trying to create, a business-friendly community here in Nogales,” Garino said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Defense did not respond to inquiries about why additional wire was installed last weekend.
City leaders were critical of military exercises at the border during the holiday season, saying they believed it scared shoppers.
The resolution the city council is scheduled to vote on says concertina wire is typically something found in battlefields, and that placing it along the border fence is “not only irresponsible but inhuman.”
In a tweet, U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Tucson, called its placement a stunt by the Trump administration, which he said is “trying to create the perception of rampant lawlessness and crime.”
The Nogales measure is among the more direct swipes against one of Trump’s signature initiatives. In September 2017, the San Diego City Council adopted a resolution that said Trump’s walls would be “damaging symbols of fear and division that will increase tensions with Mexico, one of the United States’ largest trading partners and a neighbor with which communities such as San Diego in the border region are inextricably linked culturally, physically, and economically.”
It said Trump’s proposal “could destroy the vitality of U.S.- Mexico relations and act as a separation to our unique, diverse, and beautiful region.”
The San Diego resolution passed 5-3, with Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed. Kevin Faulconer, the city’s Republican mayor didn’t back the statement but didn’t veto it either. The mayor often says the U.S. should focus on building bridges instead of walls.
Other border mayors have also been critical.
“We have a fence here. The fence is fine. It does what it’s supposed to do,” Dee Margo, the Republican mayor of El Paso, Texas, said last year. “I hear the term wall, I think of the Berlin Wall. I think it’s pretty detrimental to the relationships that have lasted more than 400 years.”
The number of arrests by the Border Patrol is the lowest since the early 1970s, while the number of agents has more than doubled.
Over 1.6 million arrests were made by just about 9,200 agents nationwide in the 2000. But those figures tapered off as the government dramatically increased staffing and resources like more surveillance technology and tall, steel fencing.
By last fiscal year, about 19,000 Border Patrol agents made 310,000 arrests.