NOGALES, Ariz. — Officials in a small Arizona border city are decrying 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, is set to consider a proclamation Wednesday night condemning the use of concertina wire.
The vote comes after reports that U.S. military troops installed more horizontal layers of the wire along the downtown border fence over the weekend, and a day after President Donald Trump highlighted border security in his State of the Union address.
Photos published by the Nogales International show six rows of concertina wire stacked along the approximately two-story.
Nogales, a city of about 20,000 people, is a fraction of the size of the Mexican city, 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.
Mayor Arturo Garino told the paper that he asked U.S. Sen. Martha McSally to help the city have the wire removed during a visit to the border last month.
“That wire is lethal, and I really don’t know what they’re thinking by putting it all the way down to the ground,” he said Monday.
City Leaders Critical of Military Exercises at Border
Neither Garino nor a spokeswoman for McSally returned messages from The Associated Press. U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Defense also did not respond to inquiries about why additional wire was installed over the weekend.
City leaders were critical of military exercises at the border during the holiday season, saying they believed it scared shoppers during one of the busiest times of the year.
The proclamation the city council is scheduled to vote on says concertina wire is typically something found in battlefields, and that placing it along the entirety of the border fence is “not only irresponsible but inhuman.”
In a tweet, U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Democrat, called the additional wire a stunt by the Trump administration, which he said is “trying to create the perception of rampant lawlessness and crime.”
Trump ordered troops deployed to the border last year, and the Pentagon said Sunday it was sending an additional 3,750 to install 150 miles of concertina wire. There are now about 4,350 active-duty troops on the border.
Information released by the federal government shows the number of arrests by the Border Patrol is the lowest since the early 1970s, while the number of agents has more than doubled.
In the last fiscal year, about 19,000 Border Patrol agents made 310,000 arrests.
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