Local Opinion: Shipping containers won't solve immigration issues

On Friday, Gov. Doug Ducey issued an Executive Order titled: “Securing Arizona’s Southern Border.” Using the word “WHEREAS” 37 times in all caps and bold font, much like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum to his parents, Ducey laid out a litany of mostly false claims regarding the border and immigration and his grievances to the federal government.

Used shipping containers, welded together and topped with a serving of razor wire to close the gaps in the border wall in Yuma County was the vehicle of the order. Images of asylum-seeking families walking across the border in this area became a tired old party line playbook ad during the recent Arizona Republican primaries.

But let’s set the stage for this political theater. The issue at hand is four gaps in the border wall near the Morelos Dam west of Yuma along the Colorado River which total less than a quarter mile in length. Closing these small sections of open border adjacent to the productive agricultural fields that exist on both sides of the border, tended by a 99.9% immigrant labor force, is somehow fundamental to the security of our state.

Ignore the fact that just two weeks ago the Department of Homeland Security and the Biden administration announced plans to seal off these same so-called “gaps,” or that more border wall was built in Arizona than any other state, a fact that Ducey ignored when he claimed the federal government “intentionally neglected Arizona’s southern border as it installed barriers on the border.”

If the American people knew the facts regarding the political football game that takes place along the southern border line of scrimmage during election cycles, then maybe the narrative would be elevated to a debate on the reality of the situation, and perhaps a concerted effort could be made to do something proactive to deal with human migration.

Migration is a biological phenomenon that is ingrained in every living thing on Earth. It will never stop. It is vital for life to persist. The irony of using shipping containers to stop international migration is funny at some level, but the reality is grim and devoid of humor.

Just 4 miles to the south of these gaps lies an 8-mile stretch of border that has no wall. Upon my last visit to this area I encountered people from nine nations-India, Ukraine, Colombia, Ethiopia, etc. These families of mostly-masked individuals, carrying papers, vaccination cards and remnants of their former lives, were walking along the banks and levees of the Colorado River and across the spillways of the Morelos Dam in search of freedom and sanctuary. I couldn’t help but hum Neil Diamond’s “America” — “On the boats and on the planes, they’re coming to America.”

To believe that the presence of a few dozen shoddily-welded together shipping containers would force them to turn around and book a return flight halfway around the world is naive. When you see freedom’s light burning warm, nothing is going to stop you from reaching the new place that you hope to call home.

The immigration crisis is real. Drought in Central America is real. Violence and extortion in the Americas, largely brought about by deporting felons educated in organized crime while incarcerated in U.S. penal systems, is real. We cannot ignore these problems.

Ducey and his Republican Party have done nothing to offer any constructive and substantive policies to solve any of these issues. They rely solely upon the symbolism of the 15th century technology that Trump promoted. Can we stop this petty pandering, because the cost of a $15 billion border wall is not petty?

The monument that Ducey and his fellow party members want to keep building, grasping on the shaky heels of Trump, will simply be a monument to failure. Failure to manage the socioeconomic and human crisis that we are so intertwined with. We can do better than this, Gov. Ducey.