24 Yuma organizations oppose CBP’s new border barrier project

A little over 6 miles of the current vehicle barrier in Yuma County at the Colorado River, is expected to be replaced with an 18 to 30 foot steel-barred wall.

However, good fences don’t always make good neighbors, which is the case for community members who don’t support the proposal.

24 community organizations in addition to some Yuma residents, ultimately feel blindsided by the news of this wall along the Colorado River.

On April 8th, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol released a letter asking for the public’s input on the proposal.

But with that input came restrictions. All comments had to be fact-based and backed up with research, then submitted within 30 days of the notice.

These organizations believe that the notice wasn’t widely distributed to community members and within 24 hours, a construction contract had already been secured.

Isaac Russell, a Yuma resident, said, “It’s almost a $200 million project that will impact the community…a lot of communities. And it should be discussed with the people who live here. That notice came out on April 8th and I didn’t find out about it until last week.”

Fred Brown, the facilitator of Yuma County Indivisible, added, “The fact that a proposal has been made, the rules have been followed to allow for public comment, and within 24 hours of asking for public comment… apparently a decision had been made to proceed without public comment.”

Both residents only found out about the letter because they’re apart of a community organization email list.

According to them, the letter used complicated language that didn’t clearly state how the wall would be constructed and wasn’t distributed in Spanish either.

The comment period issued by CBP ends May 8th, and Yuma community members are requesting a 30-day extension to try and provide data that would show the wall is detrimental to the environment and unnecessary.

Meanwhile, there are other members of the community who believe the wall is necessary and should have already been built.

In fact, according to CBP, illegal immigrants come into the country daily right where the new barrier wall is expected to be constructed.

The 24 community organizations listed below:

ACLU Border Rights Center, Animal Legal Defense Fund, Center for Biological Diversity, Coalicion de Derechos Humanos Colibrí, Center for Human Rights Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, 3 Friends of the Sonoran Desert, Fuerza del Valle, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, GreenLatinosm, HOPE Border Institute, Indivisible Tohono, National Parks Conservation Association, NM CAFe, Northern Jaguar Project, Sierra Club – Grand Canyon Chapter, Southern Border Communities Coalition, Southwest Environmental Center, Tucson Audubon Society, Tucson Samaritans, Western Watersheds Project, Wildlands Network, and Yuma County Indivisible.