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Arizona border town residents condemn ‘disgusting and lethal’ razor wire

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American residents of a small city near the southern Border of Mexico are angry with the government for putting up razor wire along the border, calling it “disgusting.”

Nogales City Council unanimously voted to pass a resolution condemning the use of concertina wire, calling it an indiscriminate use of lethal force usually reserved for battlefields and high-security prisons.

Speaking to Reuters.com, 68-year-old resident Sheri Nixon condemned the wire as “lethal.”

They’re turning our town into a military base. It’s like the front lines of some kind of war zone. Please take a stand and at least have them get rid of the razor wire. It’s a public nuisance, it’s lethal.

Nogales is a city with a population of 20,000 which borders a Mexico city of the same name. The razor wire was installed by US military troops as horizontal layers along the border fence.

Mayor Arturo Garino told the Nogales International paper on Monday:

That wire is lethal, and I really don’t know what they’re thinking by putting it all the way down to the ground.

The city’s anger comes as Donald Trump announced this week during his second State of the Union that he has instructed the US military to send 3,750 troops to the border in order to provide in a support capacity to local law enforcement and Border Patrol as migrants make they way to the border to request asylum.

In November the US announced that some 58km of wiring had been sent to be set up in California, Arizona, and Texas. During that same month, US troops were seen installing the wiring in McAllen, Texas underneath a border bridge on the American side of the border.

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