Action 4 Investigates: Fixing The Broken Arizona Border

WITH VIDEO


The orange, purple rays from the sun begin to set over the hills of the Sonoran Desert.

Though it is reminiscent of the Rio Grande Valley's Starr County, a combination of saguaro cacti and mesquites trees are native to Santa Cruz County, the heart of the Arizona-Sonora border.

There you’ll find Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office deputies Jose Bustamante and Luis Martinez.

That night, their patrol takes them to Buena Vista Ranch, a place so desolate and dangerous, that they are required to patrol it in pairs, and where bulletproof vests are mandatory.

"One thing that's really helping us out is this barrier fence you see right behind me here, which stops these people, illegals," Martinez said.

He has worked for the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office for over a decade.

Since then, human and drug smuggling have become such a major problem that stronger, impenetrable fencing has started to replace the old one.

Throughout many miles of the Arizona boundary, large, horizontal steel beams supported by X-like structures.

They are vehicle barriers, set about 10 feet apart.

But for a person walking, the challenge of crossing it does not exist. It is as simple as walking under the horizontal beam.

And in yet more remote areas, barbed wire makes up the international border.

Given the ease it takes to cross them, Federal and local agencies must then rely on manpower to help protect the line.

"For us it’s difficult, almost impossible to be able to do that,â€