Reaction & Commentary
ARIVACA, Ariz. — An Arizona rancher has seen massive numbers of migrants cross through his ranch, which he blames on not only the ongoing border crisis, but the Biden administration’s refusal to finish Trump-era wall construction.
Jim Chilton, with his wife Sue, own a massive cattle ranch which includes land along the U.S. side of the U.S.-Mexico border. When Former President Donald Trump was in office, he built more than 450 miles of border wall, including both new construction and the replacement of prior fencing and other barriers.
Some of that construction occurred on the Chilton ranch with plans to keep building. However, when President Biden took office in 2021, construction stopped abruptly. Contracts were canceled and a stretch of land on the Chilton ranch was left either open or with Normandy barriers which are easy to traverse. There has been some construction under the Biden administration, but it has been largely limited to repairs and some small gaps.
The end of border wall construction on the Chilton ranch. (Adam Shaw/Fox News Digital)
Chilton is furious.
“I am personally outraged that President Biden stopped the wall. The wall works,” Jim Chilton, who spoke at the Republican National Convention in July, told Fox News Digital at his ranch.
“It’s 32 feet high, and it’s got a solid five feet of metal on top, extremely hard to get over. Each of these [bollards] have cement inside. And it’s extremely hard to cut it,” he said.
Border wall stretched along much of the Chilton ranch, but not all of it. (Adam Shaw/ Fox News Digital)
“Biden stopped Trump’s wall. Hopefully, in my opinion, Trump gets elected so he can finish the wall and secure the border,” he said.
After the administration took office, the crisis at the southern border erupted, with record high apprehensions across the border. Those levels have come down this year, but Chilton says he has tracked over 3,560 suspected illegal immigrants on cameras set up in his ranch. He has caught a large number of them on camera.
He says it isn’t the migrants, who turn themselves in to either Border Patrol or a humanitarian group that sets up near the wall gap, that concern him, but those coming in in camouflage and seeking to avoid detection. Backpacks are left on the Mexican side of the wall apparently in preparation for the next group planning to come across.
This image shows migrants caught on camera at a ranch in Arivaca. (Jim and Sue Chilton.)
“People are going north in camouflage and carpet shoes. These are serious hombres,” Chilton said “They want to be in the United States without being detected. The Border Patrol rarely catches them. And many of them are packing drugs or other contraband. Some are MS-13 gangsters trying to get into the country. They don’t want to be apprehended.”
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The dangers for the migrants are severe. In the intense Arizona heat, migrants can quickly get dehydrated, disoriented or fall and hurt themselves — and the vastness of the environment means someone may be unlikely to find them. Chilton, who opposes illegal immigration but doesn’t want people to die on his ranch, has set up a number of taps on the water sources for his cattle, so migrants can get clean water if they reach them and avoid dehydration.
Trump has promised to launch a mass deportation operation and to finish wall construction if re-elected. The Biden administration has said that walls are ineffective, and have promoted a strategy of expanding lawful pathways while implementing “consequences” for illegal entry.
Jim Chilton has called for the border wall to be completed. (Adam Shaw/ Fox News Digital)
While numbers hit record highs in 2023, numbers this year have dropped sharply, with a drop by more than 50% since June when President Biden signed an executive order limiting entries into the U.S.
Chilton isn’t too concerned for his own safety, given he knows that most migrants who get deep into the ranch are seeking to avoid detection, but he carries a gun — and drew it when approaching certain areas when he patrolled parts of the ranch with Fox News Digital.
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Chilton, who has owned the ranch since the early 1990s, accused Biden and Vice President Harris of having “welcomed people to come into the United States, and they’ve done everything possible to make it very desirable.”
He pointed to reports of free travel, bank cards, medical care and housing that migrants can get in some parts of the country.
“Why aren’t we creating jobs for people here like veterans and bringing in more people that will need jobs? Why are we providing housing for the undocumented when our own people aren’t getting free hotels? I ask the question, why?“
