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News > U.S.

US: City Council Condemns Nogales Razor Wire Border Fence

  • People wait at the entrance booth of Nogales, Arizona, U.S., Apr. 1, 2014.

    People wait at the entrance booth of Nogales, Arizona, U.S., Apr. 1, 2014. | Photo: EFE file

Published 7 February 2019
Opinion

Placing coiled concertina wire in a non-war zone is irresponsible and inhuman.

Authorities in the city of Nogales, Arizona, demanded Wednesday that the U.S. federal government withdraw barbed wire, placed by the Army, on a border fence with Mexico in order to increase security.

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"Concertina wire has sharp razor-like blades that are coiled [and] designed to entangle its victim as the razors slice/cut deeply into the flesh and causes indiscriminate injury... placing coiled concertina wire strands on the ground is typically only found in a war, battlefield, or prison setting and not in an urban setting such as downtown Nogales... placing coiled concertina wire... in the immediate proximity of our residents, children, pets, law enforcement and first responders is not only irresponsible but inhuman," the Nogales City Council stated in the preamble to its resolution.

"No in Nogales," Arturo Garino, mayor of Nogales, said and added that "we have children who play with their balls, with their pets and who may be in danger if they approach the wall."

The resolution was approved after U.S. soldiers placed additional lines of barbed wire on the steel fence which covers part of a city, whose population is just over 20,000.

In Nov. 2018, the U.S. Army placed two horizontal barbed wire lines in the highest part of the wall, but a few days ago four lines, which cover from tip to floor, were added.

Last weekend, the Pentagon announced the dispatch of 3,750 additional soldiers to the border with Mexico to place another 241 kilometers of barbed wire and provide support to agents of the Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP).

The Nogales mayor said that, during a meeting with the border patrol, he was assured that the wire fence could remain indefinitely, since it prevents criminal immigrants from "jumping the wall."

The resolution passed in Nogales requests that no use of force or military tactics designed to cause indiscriminate damage is to be permitted within the demarcation of the city, unless there is a Declaration of War by Congress or a National Emergency Declaration.

Tuesday, in the 2019 State of the Union address to Congress, President Donald Trump said his administration has sent to Congress a "common sense" proposal to end the U.S. border crisis.

The U.S. began to officially implement a policy of "zero tolerance" towards illegal immigration in April 2018, when authorities started to criminally prosecute adults who arrived irregularly in the country, which led to the separation of about 3,000 children from their parents.

In recent months, several Central American migrant caravans have tried to enter the United States, which has exacerbated President Trump's anti-immigrant discourse.

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