Southern Arizona city mayor: Trump’s border wall is waste of taxpayer money
Feb 20, 2017, 5:11 AM | Updated: 1:58 pm
A section of the border fence is shown, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017, along the U.S.-Mexico border in Brownsville, Texas. (Jason Hoekema/The Brownsville Herald via AP)
(Jason Hoekema/The Brownsville Herald via AP)
PHOENIX — The mayor of an Arizona border city said President Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border is a waste of money.
Douglas Mayor Robert Uribe said there are a number of better ways to spend the $21.6 billion that the Department of Homeland Security estimates it would cost to build a series of fences and walls along the southern border.
“We can do so much even with a little bit of those funds,” he said, adding he could use the funds to improve his city’s roads, schools and infrastructure.
Uribe pointed to the city’s port of entry as one of the areas that needs the most improvement, adding that he’d like to see two ports of entries to reduce overcrowding: One for trade and commerce and the another for cars and pedestrians.
“This is an important asset to us that we still haven’t been able to develop because of funds,” he said of the port of entry.
Uribe added that rather than building a wall, a better way to strengthen border security would be by adding more agents along the border.
