Whetstone locals mixed on seeing border shipping containers

SIERRA VISTA, Ariz. (AP) - Some residents of Whetstone, just north of Sierra Vista, are not too keen that their community is being used as a staging area for shipping containers being used as barriers at the Mexico border.

The Sierra Vista Herald/Review reports some locals find the containers make for unsightly views being near residents and visible from State Route 90.

An emergency management contractor is temporarily leasing a property just east of State Route 90, north of Huachuca City, to ready the containers.

It's part of an effort by Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey to use shipping containers to close a 1,000-foot gap in the U.S.-Mexico border wall near Yuma.

Cochise County Deputy Administrator Sharon Gilman said the county issued permits for the contractor to clear the property of any vegetation. But she declined to comment further since it is a state project.

C.J. Karamargin, Ducey’s spokesman, says the shipping containers have proved very effective.

Officials with Ducey’s office say they are acting to stop migrants after repeated, unfulfilled promises from the Biden administration to close the border gap.