Ranchers amid illegal entrant tide

By Pauline Arrillaga
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Photo by Matt York / The Associated Press

PALOMINAS — Bud Strom knows darn well how outsiders have pegged Southern Arizona ranchers like him, those whose land serves as America's front porch to illegal immigration.

When reporters flock in from their big-city offices, they want to know:

Is he packing heat? Can they get the pistol on camera? (Even if it's loaded with snake shot meant for vermin.) Then, when he answers "no" to the second question, they ask: Isn't he ticked off about all the "illegals" traipsing through his brush?

A few statistics about Cochise County.

Residents: 117,755. Nonresidents caught crossing illegally since October: 52,885. Border Patrol agents who do the catching: 750.

Strom's ranch, the Single Star, is sandwiched between Mexico and Arizona 92, a good two-hour drive southeast of Tucson. He figures hundreds of immigrants a week make the three-mile trek from the border to the highway, through his straw-tinted grasses, past the Simmentals nursing their calves, under the tower that operates four Border Patrol cameras.