(WATCH) Arizona Border

A recent study finds that the 20 million known illegal immigrants cost US taxpayers more than $150 billion a year in government services— dwarfing what some of them pay in taxes when they work illegally. Taxpayers in the border state of Arizona, spent $3.2 billion last year alone. Arizona happens to be a vital political battleground for Trump versus Harris.. as Scott Thuman reports.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

Jim Chilton is a fifth-generation rancher in southern Arizona with 50,000 acres stretching to the US-Mexico border.

He’s always happy to see the border patrol at work because while his cattle roam this land, so do illegal border crossers and cartel smugglers.

Scott: So in one month, you had more than 5,000 people come through your property seeking asylum?

Jim Chilton: That’s correct. Most of them, it’s economic asylum, they don’t qualify under the law as true asylum seekers.

As we’re talking, a Border Patrol helicopter flies overhead because suspects have been spotted. The chopper tries to direct agents on the ground to make an arrest.

Chilton: They must have spotted a group coming through, and they sent the helicopter out.

Scott: This is not unusual, you say.

Chilton: Not unusual. No.

Chilton set up security cameras on the ranch; they prove thousands have crossed here.

Chilton: The Obama administration built this wall.

While sections of the wall here started under President Obama and were dramatically extended under Trump, it all came to a grinding halt at President Biden’s request when he took office in January 2021.

Scott: The day you say that Biden took office, you could physically see a change?

Chilton: Absolutely, all the construction workers got in their trucks and went home, and since President Biden stopped building the wall, there are five times as many people coming through who are just trying to sneak into the country, not be apprehended.

While the total number of encounters recorded by Border Patrol is down this year from last year’s record, December of 2023 saw a quarter million in just one month.

Making the issue a hot topic in Arizona’s scorching 115-degree heat.

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance recently visited the Arizona/Mexico border, outlining a key marker of political attack in this year’s campaign.

JD Vance: It’s just unbelievable, it is unbelievable what we’re letting happen at the southern border, and we’re letting it happen because Kamala Harris refuses to do her job.

That job, according to Republicans, included coordinating border policies for the Biden administration.

The Democrats say the ‘Border Czar’ label isn’t true or fair for the Vice President, but in a sign of how seriously they take the issue’s impact this year, they’re offering more border resources in a Harris administration.

But no mention of what she would do about the tens of millions illegally in the US already. President Trump has promised to deport most of them.

Public opinion across the nation and in Arizona suggests more Americans trust Republicans when it comes to the border. In a poll earlier this year by the Pew Research Center, 79 percent of Americans said the US government is doing a bad job managing migrants at the border.

Our next stop: the Arizona border town of Douglas. Here, they’ve had a barrier long before Trump’s wall was built, a reminder that illegal crossing have long been a problem.

Mayor Donald Huish is a registered Republican, but he doesn’t like partisan labels.

Scott: How effective is the wall here?

Donald Huish: it slowed things down, but it hasn’t a hundred percent taken care of things. When the Biden administration took over, they stopped total funding on the wall.

Scott: I sense frustration.

Huish: It’s very frustrating because we’re left here not knowing. I honestly think that the Biden administration got overwhelmed. I think when they came up with their policy, of allowing the border to be a little bit more open, that they were overwhelmed on the response that they got.

Scott: Do you think a lot of that changes if in November Donald Trump returns?

Huish: Well, promises are cheap by both parties, but he at least showed in the past that he did funnel down and stop the border.

Back at the Chilton ranch, we meet Jim’s wife Sue. The two have been married for 60 years.

Sue Chilton: We have gotten calls saying don’t go down to your southern pastures because they are currently having a shooting warfare between two factions of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Chilton believes it’ll take another Trump term to secure the part of the border on his property, but keep in mind, for decades, administrations have been trying and failing to do just that.

From California to Texas, America’s long border has long been a problem. This year, both leading candidates say they have the solution, but if the past is any guide, voters shouldn’t expect miracles.

For Full Measure, I’m Scott Thuman in Arizona.

Watch video here.