#ContainerWall
[Ongoing thread!] [Edit Dec 18: We won! But read the thread or the story on my website]
On my way to the US-Mexico border, where the Arizona governor is building an illegal shipping container wall. Protesters have shut it down for now. I'll be posting photos, depending on cell coverage. Should be there in about an hour and a half, just before sunset.
We just had a visit from Cochise County Sheriff Operations Commander. He showed up in plain clothes, but did not try to hide his identity. He said he had seen online that there was a "concert" here, and thought he had better come check it out.
The protest camp is right next to all the contractor's heavy equipment. They have a security guard here 24/7.
The Cochise County Sheriff is taking an extremely hands off practice toward the protest, despite supporting the wall.
[minor edits for clarity]
This wall is being built at the request of Arizona's outgoing Governor Ducey on public, national forest, land. No environmental review or permit process of any kind has been done.
The Forest Service has declared it illegal and have filed a lawsuit, but not interfered directly. Only the protesters here have stopped ongoing construction.
According to the protesters, federal investigators have come collecting evidence for use in the lawsuit against the governor.
[minor edits for clarity]
AZ Governor's container wall is a barbaric symbol to racism and terrible border policy. It is meant as a middle finger to Biden for stopping the Trump wall.
It's clearly not even really meant to work to stop people. It's simple enough to walk around where it stops at creek beds and it's full of walk through holes.
#border #BorderLands #BorderWall
Morning update!
At dawn the construction crew came back. They said the had orders from the AZ Department of Emergency and Military Affairs to move their equipment to a nearby staging area and to remove the one single container that was not double stacked.
One of the workers thought the logic was that they wanted it removed because it was a "safety hazard" because protesters have been climbing up on top of it.
The main focus of the protests is the environmental destruction created by the building of the AZ Governor Ducey's container wall. It is being carried out willy-nilly, at breakneck speed with no federal permits, despite being on National Forest land.
Or, rather, they were building it until protesters stepped in, and blockaded the construction.
The construction crews have shown no regard for environmental standards, pushing dirt into streams and bulldozing oak trees. #BorderWall #border
The container wall along the US-Mexico border, looking eastward toward Coronado National Monument. Workers can be seen along the top, stringing razor wire.
Protesters have blockaded new container wall construction and shut it down. For now, they have chosen to not risk arrest by interfering with barbed wire installation on the existing containers.
Container wall protest camp at dawn. Shortly after, the workers removed their equipment down the road to their staging area.
It looks like construction will remain halted as long as the protest camp remains here. This is a major victory for protesters. It is rare for nonviolent direct action to have such an immediate success.
Incoming Dem. Governor Katie Hobbs has said she'll stop construction on Jan. 2 when she takes office.
[edited to fix a mistake]
A private security guard watches the container wall protest camp as protesters keep warm around a campfire. To the right, a large stack of shipping containers is stacked in the contractor's staging area. They have set up a large stadium light to illuminate their equipment.
Many new people have arrived, boosting numbers to over a dozen.
The security guards have been cool. We gave them some hot water for tea. They might be good witnesses in case any right wing counter protesters show up.
Dawn at the container wall worksite. The contractor crew has arrived to continue stringing razor wire (foreground rolls), but no new construction will be done as long as protesters are here.
The containers all had frost on them this morning, but the sun is warming things up quickly.
Each container in the wall has a spray-painted number on it. There are 461 of them, 2- high, for a total of 922.
That's 922 containers that will need to be removed.
#ContainerWall.
#BorderWall
#Border
#ContainerWall update Monday, December 12. No work crews today because of snow and rain with much more snow predicted tonight. Protest base camp is enduring the storm and holding the line. The snow has already started.
I drove up and down the wall road to get some photos and up on the ridge to get cell coverage. After tonight's predicted rain and snow, there are road sections that will become impossible because whole drainages ravines are completely blocked.
The #borderlands looking westward from Coronado National Memorial in Cochise county Arizona. The 3 1/2 mile long shipping #ContainerWall divides the US on the right and Mexico on the left.
I can't see any difference, can you?
The land will ultimately endure this insult we've inflicted on it. But in the meantime, for the sake of the people and animals of the borderlands, this emblem of rotten politics has to go.
Tuesday Dec. 13th. The #JunkWall protest camp endured a night of the snow and temps in the 20s.
Woke up to several inches of snow so, of course we made a snow protester!
The border road is now a quagmire of thick slimy mud, effectively shutting down the possibility of further work for many days. Even the Border Patrol won't try to drive it. Mother Nature has joined the protest!
Aerial view of the #JunkWall #ContainerWall along the US-Mexico border after last night's snowstorm.
Ocelot Camp, the name given to the protest encampment is visible as a collection of tents and vehicles on the left, between the wall and the staging area full of shipping containers.
You can see the heavy equipment in the middle of the container lot, where the contractors left them, watched by security guards in trucks.
Temperatures are supposed to be even colder tonight, but no more snow.
Hi everyone! Thanks so much for all the support!
A reminder that cell coverage is very sporadic. It often takes 10 minutes of trying to get one post uploaded, so I won't be doing much else for the time being but one-way broadcasting protest updates.
When I get back to regular internet access, I'll follow up, do more boosting, following, etc.
Early morning campfire foot warming at Ocelot Camp. Temperatures are expected to drop even lower tonight. I went up to Montezuma Pass to get cell coverage to do a few posts and already it is in the 20s just after sunset.
There has been a steady stream of people coming and going from Tucson and other parts of Arizona, bringing supplies and occupying the camp. There are never fewer than four or five people.
We are not leaving till the #JunkWall is officially stopped.
#protest #BorderLands
Dawn this morning at Ocelot Camp on the US-Mexico border where the #JunkWall #ContainerWall has been stopped by protesters for over a week now.
The snow has turned the construction road along the wall into an impassible quagmire, making any further work all but impossible for at least the next several days.
#Protest #BorderLands
News update! Just north of Huachuca city, on Hwy 90, there is a massive shipping container storage yard. There is a frantic effort being made right now to remove all the containers. Road crews have even blocked off one entire lane of traffic to allow trucks to come and go unimpeded.
The containers are being taken to the Arizona State Prison Complex at Tucson, according to someone who followed one of the trucks.
Media: contact for image licensing.
A great editorial that, appropriately, credits protesters with stopping the wall while the legal process goes through. As some of us feared, the state and feds may try to compromise by removing the container wall and replacing it with an official wall.
Neither is acceptable and protesters at the camp have vowed to resist any attempts to further bisect the borderlands with unnecessary, ineffective and destructive barriers.
Took a town day and got a bunch of photos up on my website, with short captions. This was all done hurriedly, so I'll be adding more soon, with more descriptions and detailed explanations.
December 16 Ocelot Camp #ContainerWall protest update! We still have a great turn out and support is building. At this point, it looks like we have permanently stopped this phase of construction just by being here ready to blockade.
The next phase will be making sure that this travesty wall is not replaced by another "official" one.
As the #NoWall #protest movement here builds, we are planning ahead for the next phase. The Forest Service has informally told us that they consider this environmental mess an emergency situation and are committed to remediating it as soon as they have the legal go ahead.
Unfortunately, there has already been talk of replacing it with a Trump-era mega wall or other barrier. This is completely unacceptable, ineffective, wasteful, destructive, and completely unnecessary for #border security.
@Aerik
922
But if there is ever any will to build small houses for homeless people, there are plenty of shipping containers widely available. There is just not the will.
Honestly, for the amount of work, it takes to turn these things into houses, it's cheaper to stick-build them from scratch. Advantage of shipping containers is that they are portable.
The waste is the point. It's a flex. "Look what we can get away with, Biden. Neener neener, whatcha gonna do about it?"
Like Trump's fence, it also serves as a triumphalist victory monument to themselves. It's the new version of a Confederate statue.
Yeah, especially the blocked creeks. But nature has a way of handling things that block water... We'll find out next big rainstorm.
@SirHungerhurst
No, it has to go. No one traveling across the desert wants to stop anywhere near the border. They stop in caves or under large shrubs in canyons. I work with a local desert aid group further west, so we walk the migrant trails often leaving water. We leave it as their secluded rest areas.
Also, the containers are basically junk and need to be cleaned up. The ones in the creek beds will blow out next big rain storm.
Yeah, it's temper tantrum border politics. It's 100% designed as a political stunt to rile up Ducey's rabid right GOP base, not to be at all effective at stopping immigration or smuggling.
Everyone knows that. The hypocrisy is the point. They can blow millions of dollars as a stunt and they flaunt that fact.
Yeah, we've been talking about the possibility of AZ making them into tiny cheap/free houses for homeless people. Thing is, by the time you totally remodel them to be suitable for the AZ climate, it's probably cheaper to stick-build from scratch. The only advantage to containers is they are strong and portable.
@markrvickers
Yeah, we've been joking about putting up a basketball hoop, squash court, etc. because that's all it's good for.
Realistically, the containers have to be removed. They block Border Patrol view, they block water flow in stream channels (and will eventually blow out in big rains), they are on soft dirt, not foundations, so they are unstable and will eventually sink and shift, etc.
@markrvickers Something like $90 million to put up, so assume at least that to remove.
Yeah, how many beneficial uses could that money have gone to 🤦
@Mikal
That's so absurd.
Like a satiric, #latecapitalism reenactment of the construction of the Chinese Wall or so.
But at the same time it's very sad, seeing so many resources put into "protecting from the others"
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