Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey said the state will halt placing shipping containers along the Arizona-Mexico border, and begin removing hundreds of the 8,000-lb. steel boxes from federal lands by Jan. 4, according to a court document filed late Wednesday. Read more»

Officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers called the claims contained in a lawsuit over border wall construction near a ranch in Cochise County "fantastic," and defended the Trump administration's efforts to build a 4.7-mile section of the wall through remote terrain at a cost of $42.2 million per mile. Read more»

Cochise County ranchers have sued the Trump administration, claiming contractors "trespassed onto and destroyed private property" while building a new section of the 30-foot-tall border wall, and sent "shrapnel, and car-sized boulders" into the ranch during blasting work. Read more»

Conservationists expressed anger over the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear an appeal to stop construction of the border wall. But they’re moving ahead while monitoring construction as it chews through land marked by towering saguaros and habitat of the endangered jaguar. Read more»

For much of 2019, the borderlands endured the fallout from decisions made years earlier, as the Trump administration pursued the Migrant Protection Protocols, attempted—and failed—to prosecute a humanitarian volunteer for harboring two men in the country illegally, and continued to pursue the president's quixotic promise to build a wall along the southwestern border. Read more»

The Interior Department announced it will transfer 560 acres of public land to the U.S. Army, including nearly 230 acres along the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, for the construction of 70 miles of border wall. Read more»

The construction of the border wall in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument will threaten 22 archaeological sites, according to an internal National Park Service report. Read more» 2

Contractors put up the first 30-foot panels of a new border wall on a two-mile stretch of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument this week, the first of three projects that will add "bollard" walls along Southern Arizona's wildlife refuges. Read more»

Contractors began replacing border fencing along a two-mile stretch of the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument this week, the first of three projects that will add 30-foot high "bollard" walls along three of Southern Arizona's wildlife refuges. Read more»

The Trump administration is forging ahead with new border barriers in wildlife refuges in Southern Arizona despite environmentalists' objections, telling a court that one project will begin Monday with the removal of older fencing. Read more» 1