Amid calls from local officials to remove the existing concertina wire attached to the border fence, U.S. Army troops on Saturday installed new rows of wire on the fence near downtown ports of entry and in residential neighborhoods of Nogales, giving the barrier top-to-bottom coverage in some areas.
“I don’t know what to say, I don’t think it’s good,” said José Corralez, a 54-year-old taxi driver from Nogales. “It looks ugly.”
The installation of the wire began downtown on Election Day 2018, and in recent weeks, military personnel have installed additional coils on remote sections of the fence, including south of Kino Springs, east of city limits. On Saturday, they added up to four new rows of concertina wire to the two rows that were hung on the 25-foot-tall bollard fence in November.
Elected officials in Nogales were left in the dark about the plans.
The Army had previously strung two rows of wire at the top of the border fence at East International and Nelson streets in downtown Nogales. Now there are six.
“They never had the courtesy of talking to the administration here,” said Mayor Arturo Garino, who asked Sen. Martha McSally (R-Tucson) during a visit on Jan. 22 to do her part to help get rid of the existing wire, then re-affirmed his plans to fight for its removal in a story published last Friday in the NI.
“We reached out to Border Patrol and we reached out to CBP and they would not meet with us,” he added.
A Border Patrol spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment about the additional wire installed Saturday, but in a statement released last week, Agent Felipe Jimenez called the wire “absolutely beneficial.”
Speaking by phone Monday morning, Garino said he’s concerned for residents’ safety.
“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.
That afternoon, Garino added an item to Wednesday’s city council meeting that would have the municipal government pass a resolution condemning the wire and demanding it be taken down.
U.S. Rep. Grijalva (D-Tucson), who represents Nogales and all of Santa Cruz County in Congress, blasted the move to add wire to the fence and called for it to be removed.
“The additional wire is nothing more than a spectacle by the Trump administration to reinforce his twisted narrative of rampant lawlessness at the border,” he said Monday in an emailed statement.
“Border residents know that this mischaracterization couldn’t be further from the truth, and will not stand for the lies perpetrated by the Trump Administration,” he said. “This wire must be removed, and the Trump Administration must take responsibility for the humanitarian crisis their policies have created at the border.”
Army troops affix additional concertina wire to the border fence on a hillside above Nelson Street in downtown Nogales on Saturday, Feb. 2.
‘Not normal’
“The bars are already high,” said Bernardo Ventura, 41, of Nogales, Sonora, after walking through the DeConcini Port of Entry on Monday.
“I think we’re moving towards an era of inquisition.”
Nearby, Yesenea Leal was opening the Casa Noemi store on Morley Avenue, which occupies the last storefront before the border fence.
“It’s all the same,” she said of the additional security measures. “They’re going to jump.”
A rope tangled in the wire atop the fence next to the Morley Avenue pedestrian border-crossing suggests an effort to pull it down.
Leal pulled up a photo on her phone that she said was taken last week, showing a carpet that had been thrown over the barbed wire near the Morley Port of Entry.
Beatriz Cerezo Sanchez, 52, of Nogales, Sonora, said that, “each person thinks differently.” But, she added, “for me, the image looks bad.”
Lucero Vargas, 26, who works at Nogales Tactical on Morley Avenue, wasn’t bothered too much by the latest development.
“I’m accustomed to it because I have lived here all my life,” she said of the new wire installation, but added: “Other people who come from further away, (it could) impact them more.”
One person visiting from far away – 53-year-old Alan Morga of Paris, France – was walking around downtown Nogales with his wife on Monday morning.
“For me, it resembles Israel and Palestine,” Morga said. “This wall, for me it’s not normal.”
Army troops unload coils of concertina wire to mount on the border fence in downtown Nogales on Saturday, Feb. 2.
