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Arizona Sen. Wendy Rogers wants to use $700 million in state funds for a border wall

An Arizona state senator wants to appropriate $700 million in state funds to pay for a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. 

The proposal came in a  bill from Sen. Wendy Rogers of northern Arizona, one of more than two dozen she introduced ahead of the new legislative session this month. 

The Trump administration erected a 30-foot steel bollard wall across just over 450 miles of borderland, some 230 miles of which was in Arizona, according to an estimate provided by Customs and Border Protection in January 2021. 

Roger’s bill is the latest attempt to build a border wall at the state level. In January 2020, a bill sponsored by then-State House Majority Leader Warren Petersen could have cleared permit barriers standing in the way of privately-funded barriers, but it narrowly failed in the House. 

State Bill 1032, the measure introduced by Rogers for this coming legislative session, would put a chunk of the state’s nearly $13 billion 2022 budget toward the construction and maintenance of a "physical border fence." She didn’t respond to questions about where it would take place or how the cost could be justified. 

Last month, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it would begin construction to fix gaps and other issues in the wall built by the Trump administration. 

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Alisa Reznick is a senior field correspondent covering stories across southern Arizona and the borderlands for the Tucson bureau of KJZZ's Fronteras Desk.