If I had to guess, I'd say that outgoing Arizona governer Doug Ducey got up one morning, looked in the mirror, and saw, a future president. Because this stunt is illegal, and there's no other logical reason for it. Via KAWC.org.
Since August, Ducey has been building his own "border wall" by stacking shipping containers along the border. It's like Legos for Republicans! Problem is, the land belongs to the federal government and naturally, they won't give up their own authority over the strip.
[...] The real defect in Ducey's case, Smith said, is failing to recognize that President Theodore Roosevelt declared the 60-foot strip of land along the border to be federal property in 1907, five years before Arizona became a state.
Put another way, he said the land at issue -- land the United States acquired from Mexico through the Treaty of Guadalupe and, later, the Gadsden Purchase -- could not possibly belong to the state because the state did not exist. And Smith said acknowledgment of that federal ownership was a condition on Arizona being accepted into the Union.
Ducey claims because his state is "under attack" by illegal immigrants, they're allowed to defend themselves.
U.S. Attorney Andrew Smith says Ducey is wrong on several fronts -- something he said Ducey should know because the state tried this theory before in litigation over SB 1070, the 2010 law designed to discourage people from entering and remaining in the United States.
That resulted in litigation over whether the state could have its own immigration laws. Arizona officials argued that the state had a right to step into this traditional federal role because Washington failed to protect Arizona from invasion.
But U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton ruled it is settled precedent that the term "invasion'' does not apply to a state's claim based on illegal immigration.
"The term 'engage in war' refers to hostilities between sovereigns,'' Smith told Campbell.
And he said even if Ducey were right -- that the state can use the constitutional power of self defense in immigration issues -- the governor's arguments still fail."That power could not extend to allow the governor to occupy and use federal lands in open contravention'' of constitutional clauses giving the federal government not only supremacy but also "virtually unlimited'' power over property owned by the United States.
And if he loses the suit, as seems likely, the judge will order him to remove the containers.
So. A pointless, illegal performance on the border by an outgoing Republican governor who seems to be gearing up for higher office.
Republicans don't do policy, they do political stunts. After all, the original "wall" was just a political stunt by Trump, and Ducey is following in his footsteps.
