Thread: AZ - Border family calls for more agents after ranch overrun by drug smugglers

Posted: May 06, 2016 8:12 PM PDT
Updated: May 06, 2016 8:15 PM PDT
Written By Aalia Shaheed
Written By Anthony Victor Reyes

(video at source link)

TUCSON -
Border Patrol agents are the first line of defense for southern Arizonans who live in border communities.

One family said their ranch is being overrun by drug smugglers. They claim there are not enough agents on the border.

Jim and Sue Chilton have lived in an Arivaca ranch for decades. It is their dream home, but Mexican cartels have turned it into more of a nightmare.

“To have 'druggers' coming through our ranch all the time and we have absolute evidence of it,” said Jim Chilton. “It’s just outrageous.”

Border Patrol operates forward operating camps, which place agents from the Tucson Sector in various hot spots along the border.

The Chiltons said there simply are not enough of those camps because agents are too busy working checkpoints away from the border, leaving their backyard wide open to drug smugglers.

“We live in no man’s land and that’s intolerable,” said Jim Chilton. "The U.S. government should secure the international boundary at the boundary.”

Sue Chilton recently spoke about life on the border in front of a house subcommittee on border security.

“What needs to happen is we need a wall on the border, but a wall without patrolling is useless,” she said.

Some southern Arizona residents like environmentalist Nan Walden said a border wall would affect the desert landscape of the area.

“We don’t want to destroy the features of these lands and the flora and fauna that make them so special,” said Walden.

Bother side agree, something has to be done to better secure border communities.

http://www.kvoa.com/story/31914493/b...drug-smugglers

Cactus and land mines are quite effective.

We need the wall. I wish we didn't, but the plain simple fact is we do.