By Katelynn Richardson

  The Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped its lawsuit against Arizona over its placement of shipping containers on the Mexico border, it announced Thursday.

Then-Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey issued an executive order in 2022 to fill a gap in the border wall with double-stacked shipping containers, and filed a lawsuit for Arizona’s right to do so against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Forest Service when told to stop, according to AZ Family. Arizona removed the containers and “completed extensive remediation work on National Forest lands that had been damaged” after the DOJ filed its own lawsuit in December, according to the DOJ.

Arizona also paid $2.1 million to remediate the damage, the DOJ announced. Both lawsuits were dismissed voluntarily on Sept. 15.

“When Arizona unilaterally placed hundreds of shipping containers on tribal and federal land back in 2022, it made the border less safe,” U.S. Attorney Gary Restaino for the District of Arizona said in a statement. “The containers have now been removed and the land restored.”

The state spent $95 million to install the shipping containers and about the same to remove them, according to AZ family.