This makeshift border wall made of hundreds of shipping containers has sparked a federal feud between the US government and the administration of Arizona's outgoing Republican governor.
GOP Gov. Doug Ducey — who is leaving office because of term limits — ordered his state's Department of Emergency and Military Affairs in August to start making a haphazard wall along the state's border using empty shipping crates.
"Arizona has had enough," he said at the time of his request. Arizona crews started stacking the shipping crates on top of one another and lining the top with barbed wire. The wall — expected to top out at 3,000 containers and $95 million in cost — runs through federal land and conservation areas and is about a third of the way completed.
Federal officials with the US Forest Service and the Bureau of Reclamation demanded in October that Ducey stop building the impromptu wall. But Ducey instead sued both the agencies and said in a complaint that he was taking actions to "defend" the state and fill gaps along the border.
NBC News reported that over the last few weeks, Arizona residents and environmentalists have protested against Ducey's decision at the wall, and plan to stay until the containers are removed.
Meanwhile, according to the Associated Press, the government sued Ducey and the state on Wednesday for placing the wall on federal land.
Ducey previously said he was ready to remove the crates, the AP reported, but wants the government to fill gaps along the border.
Ducey is set to be replaced in early January by Arizona's Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat. She told Arizona PBS earlier this month that the shipping crates were a "political stunt" and are "not effective as a barrier," but that she is "looking at all the options" with how to approach the issue.
"I think what we need to do is look at how we can cooperate with the federal government on border security issues," she said in the interview.