Officials in a small Arizona border city passed a resolution on 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 borders Nogales, Mexico, wants the federal government to remove all concertina wire installed within the city limits. Otherwise, Nogales Mayor Arturo Garino said the city would sue.
City officials said that US Army trsoops installed more horizontal layers of the wire along the border wall last weekend.
Photo: AP
The council’s resolution 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 US 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, US Customs and Border Protection said the military had sent 58km 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.
Photos published by the Nogales International newspaper show six rows of concertina wire 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 told the newspaper that he asked US Senator Martha McSally to help the city have the wire removed during a visit to the border last month.
A spokeswoman for McSally said that the senator was working on a response to an inquiry from The Associated Press.
Garino said authorities did not 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 meters 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.
Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Defense did not respond to inquiries about why additional wire was installed last weekend.
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