Shipping containers are put in place along the U.S.-Mexico border in Cochise County.
In 2022, Arizona spent $196 million on a border wall built by stacking about 2,200 shipping containers – about half to install it and the rest to take it down five months later.
On Thursday, House Republicans approved $12 billion to reimburse states for border security spending during Joe Biden’s presidency. That move could allow Arizona to recoup some of the money spent on that short-lived barrier installed – and dismantled – by former Gov. Doug Ducey.
Leaders in many states from both parties have complained about footing the bill for border security because Biden wasn’t doing enough.
Ducey’s successor, Gov. Katie Hobbs, billed her fellow Democrat for $513 million in late 2023 to cover Arizona’s spending on border security in the nearly three years since he’d taken office.
The $12 billion pot is part of the massive measure that President Donald Trump and House Republicans refer to as “One Big Beautiful Bill.” The House approved the bill by a single vote, 215-214, with no Democratic support.
It’s unclear how the funds would be divided among Arizona and other states. The measure doesn’t specify a formula, leaving that to the Department of Homeland Security.
States would submit requests for repayment for outlays starting Jan. 21, 2021 – the day after Biden became president.
Texas will probably get the most, having spent more than $11 billion.
Ducey ordered the state’s border barrier in August 2022 to plug gaps in the wall built during Trump’s first term. Biden halted construction of that wall.
A contractor hired by the state stacked 40-foot shipping containers in Yuma and Cochise counties and near Nogales.
The barrier drew national attention when a Univision journalist posted a photo showing two containers on their side near Yuma. That was one day after the governor declared a gap there had been successfully filled.
The U.S. Departments of the Interior and Agriculture warned that Arizona was using federal land without permission. Eventually the Justice Department asked a court to step in.
In December 2022, two weeks before leaving office, Ducey agreed to take down the barrier. The state also paid the Forest Service $2.1 million to repair environmental damage.
Hobbs’s office did not respond to requests for comment on the House bill and the prospect of federal reimbursement.
The six Arizona Republicans in the House supported the bill, though Rep. David Schweikert of Fountain Hills missed the vote, held around 7 a.m. Thursday after a rare overnight session.
The bill exceeds 1,000 pages. Other provisions would extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, expand work requirements for Medicaid, cut food stamp spending and add $5 billion for border security and deportations.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott and other leaders routinely slammed Biden for failing to seal the border.
Two months into Biden’s term, Abbott launched Operation Lone Star, deploying state troopers and the National Guard. Texas installed razor wire along the Rio Grande and a buoy barrier.
House Republicans from Texas, notably Rep. Chip Roy, a leading holdout on the overall “big beautiful bill,” insisted on the reimbursement provision.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, lauded the House bill as “a good starting point.”
“The state of Texas spent more than $11 billion taxpayer dollars to protect and defend the southern border in the Biden administration’s absence,” he said in a statement.
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