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Photo by Tim Steller/Arizona Daily Star via AP

Soldiers have installed concertina wire at or near several official crossings, or ports of entry, at the U.S.-Mexico border. In late November, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the military had sent 58 kilometres of concertina wire for use in California, Arizona, and Texas.

At the start of November, soldiers in Texas installed lines of wire coils below a major bridge near McAllen, Texas, along the U.S. side of the border.

Photos published by the Nogales International show six rows of concertina wire stacked along the approximately two-story wall.

Nogales, a city of about 20,000 people, is a fraction of the size of the Mexican city, but its economy is largely reliant on Mexican shoppers and cross-border trade. Illegal crossings in that area have dropped steeply in the past several years.

Mayor Arturo Garino told the paper that he asked U.S. Sen. Martha McSally to help the city have the wire removed during a visit to the border last month.

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

Photo by Tim Steller/Arizona Daily Star via AP

Neither Garino nor a spokeswoman for McSally returned messages from The Associated Press. U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Defence also did not respond to inquiries about why additional wire was installed over the weekend.

City leaders were critical of military exercises at the border during the holiday season, saying they believed it scared shoppers during one of the busiest times of the year.