Shocking moment 150 migrants are found inside sweltering 18 wheeler in Texas
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has said a makeshift border wall was knocked over by criminals just a day after it was put up.
Last week, Ducey had ordered 60 double-stacked shipping containers with razor wires to be used to complete the border wall in Yuma to stop migrants from coming through, but two containers were blown to the side by Monday.
Although it was reported that the containers were toppled by heavy winds, C.J. Karamargin, a spokesman for Ducey, refuted the theory, the Washington Examiner reported.
‘The idea that it was a weather-related event seems unlikely,’ Karamargin said. ‘The attempt to slow us down that happened late Sunday with these containers being knocked or pulled over, that will not deter us.’
The frustration in Arizona comes as Mexican authorities stopped an 18-wheeler from smuggling 150 migrants sweltering inside the truck before entering Texas.
A makeshift border wall along Yuma, Arizona, was toppled over on Sunday night as Gov. Doug Ducey reportedly blames criminals for the incident
Ducey had ordered 60 shipping containers to be used as walls along the area, which has seen a spike in illegal immigration as migrants cut through gaps in the existing fencing
Arizona had moved to create the barrier despite the Biden administration’s promise to help fill in the fencing. Ducey said the state could no longer wait
The trouble in Arizona comes as Mexican and border patrol officials stopped a truck filled with 150 migrants before coming into Texas
Ducey said he was tired of illegal immigration when constructing the makeshift wall in Yuma.
‘Arizona has had enough,’ Ducey said in a tweet discussing the plan while condemning President Joe Biden.
‘We can’t wait any longer. The Biden administration’s lack of urgency on border security is a dereliction of duty.’
The Yuma sector of the border, 126 miles long, has seen an almost 300 percent increase in ‘border encounters’ – migrants arrested by Customs and Border Protection agents – this year, compared to the same time frame in 2021.
The Biden Administration announced late last month that it had authorized completion of the Trump-funded U.S.-Mexico border wall near Yuma.
Biden had pledged during his campaign to cease all future wall construction, but the administration later agreed to some barriers, citing safety.
Karamargin told the Examiner that the state is committed to keeping the makeshift border wall up to deter illegal immigrantion in the state.
He also claimed that the wall was purposefully taken down by detractors and not by the weather.
‘Some people attempted to dismiss this as a pointless effort because this is not the main route through which people enter the United States,’ Karamargin said. ‘If this didn’t matter, if this barrier that we are erecting was irrelevant, or somehow misplaced, then why would someone make the effort to topple over nearly 18,000 pounds of shipping container?
‘It just doesn’t make sense on its face. It doesn’t make sense.
‘Our goal, of course, is to make Arizona communities safer. We clearly struck a nerve.’
The move by Arizona comes without explicit permission on federal land, with state contractors moving 60-foot-long shipping containers, stacking two of the 9-foot-tall containers on top of each other.
‘The Biden administration’s lack of urgency on border security is a dereliction of duty,’ Ducey said as he gave state construction workers the go ahead to build a makeshift border wall
Pictured: Arizona construction crews setting up the border last Friday. The project was done on Sunday, with workers discovering the downed containers the following morning
The tension in Arizona comes as Mexican law enforcement, assisted by agents with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Del Rio Sector, stopped the truck along the 245-mile-long road that stretched across the Rio Grande and Lake Amistad, Fox News reported.
A photograph of the stop revealed the horrific image of the 150 migrants crammed inside the vehicle, many with their shirts taken off as the weather hit a high of 96 degrees on Thursday.
All the people were reported to have survived the incident, which is reminiscent of when San Antonio police came across a truck carrying migrants in June that had a broken AC unit and resulted in the deaths of 53 people, including minors.
First responders said many of the victims suffered from heatstroke and dehydration, and it is the deadliest human smuggling incident in US history.
Earlier this week, the CBP announced that there were 199,976 migrant encounters in July, totaling nearly 2 million encounters so far this year.
Pictured: the truck caught smuggling 150 migrants headed for Mexico on Thursday
The incident was reminiscent of the one in June that left 53 migrants, including five minors, dead when they were uncovered in a sweltering truck in San Antonio
Arizona has been sending two to three buses of asylum seekers from Yuma to Washington over the last three months to make a political statement as the number of arriving migrants overwhelmed local resources.
Ducey began the program in May and has said everyone on the bus trips is going voluntarily to the capital with intended final destinations in East Coast cities.
Texas also is busing migrants to the East, and the mayors of New York and Washington sought federal help last month to deal with the influx.
Their request brought a gleeful response from Republicans, who say the pleas are evidence the U.S. is in an immigration crisis.
As of August 11, the state of Arizona had sent 1,425 asylum seekers to Washington, according to the governor’s office.
