HEREFORD, Ariz. (KGUN) — Former Vice President Mike Pence came to Southern Arizona to see border issues first hand. Pence says the Biden Administration squandered the Trump Administration’s work on the border.
First stop for the former Vice President was a community forum at Cochise College in Sierra Vista. Then he set out for the border itself up a steep mountain road into the Coronado National Memorial in Hereford.
Pence said the Trump and Pence administration policies and agreements with Mexico made the border the most secure it’s ever been. He says the Biden Administration replaced border success with crisis.
“We know what works. It worked before and it's time for President Biden to turn aside from the open border voices within his party and put back into place the policies that worked in our administration.”
That includes resuming construction of the border wall and policies that made it much harder to claim asylum in the U.S.
Immigration advocates complained those policies under Trump led to immigrants stalled in dangerous conditions on the Mexico side of the border.
Pence talked to ranchers as part of his visit. Jon Ladd says in the past year Border Patrol and a Special Unit of the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office have been busy on his ranch.
Ladd says, “They're catching 100 A day right now. And that's two thirds of getting away. But my cattle are everywhere. My fences are shot. Had a drive through it, my gate coming from the highway. It's back worse than it's ever been as far as my privacy and my private land ownership. I have none.”
Pence says help is on the way, in the form of new leaders he’s working to elect to the House and Senate.
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Craig Smith is a reporter for KGUN 9. With more than 40 years of reporting in cities like Tampa, Houston and Austin, Craig has covered more than 40 Space Shuttle launches and covered historic hurricanes like Katrina, Ivan, Andrew and Hugo. Share your story ideas and important issues with Craig by emailing craig.smith@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook and Twitter.