Free Republic

Thousands of illegal immigrants cross the U.S-Mexico border into Arizona every day. “To better yourself, for your family, and for a better life,” says Alfonso Miramontez, who’s from Los Mochis, Sinaloa, a town that's about an 8-hour bus ride from Nogales. Miramontez says, once he heard the U.S. might be sending National Guard troops to the border, he immediately headed north, and was planning to illegally cross into Arizona Monday night. “It’ll now be much harder to cross through the desert," says Miramontez, ”but the Army (National Guard) on the border won’t stop me.” Like Miramontez, Eduardo Reyes, an immigrant...

TUCSON — Apprehensions of illegal immigrants in Cochise County in March is down by more than 50 percent, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector. The reduction is about 7 percent sectorwide, Shannon Stevens said Thursday. The emphasis in the county is paying off, she said, adding the number of agents, use of unmanned aerial systems and other technology also will be used to establish operational control in the Tucson Sector’s west desert area. The West Desert Corridor is now absorbing the most illegal immigrant traffic. “We’re concentrating as many assets as we can (in the...