A hard life 
on the border: Sheriff, state rep. visit Cochise County, Ariz.
Arizona county is hotbed for illegal immigration along U.S.-Mexico boundary.

By Josh Sweigart, Staff Writer Updated 12:03 AM Sunday, May 23, 2010

COCHISE COUNTY, Ariz. — For more than a century, people have come to this arid expanse of land seeking their fortunes. Some found it; many others discovered hardship and danger.

In the 1800s, it was prospectors seeking silver. Cochise County is the home of Tombstone, a boomtown known best for legendary lawmen and daring gunslingers.

Today, it is the scene of a stream of immigrants crossing over illegally from Mexico, with which the county shares an 82-mile border.

“Fifty percent of all the illegal immigrants that are apprehended every year are coming through southern Arizona, through the Tucson sector (which includes Cochise),â€