How should Arizonans feel or think about the fact that the busiest and most successful illegal border crossing is concentrated in an county where the Santa Cruz County Sheriff, Tony Estrada, is an anchor baby? The fact that he was raised by illegals should not be lost when assessing his opinion on the border issue.

I wonder if it is a coincidence that every time we voters want tighter borders, Tony wants exactly the opposite.

I also wonder why his bio (that indicated that fact) was removed from the Sheriff website yesterday when he was getting so much attention...

It's starting to sound like the only thing that will keep the right happy is to put up a border similar to that between East and West Berlin during the Cold War. Do we really, honestly, need a wall topped with razor wire, seeded with land mines, and dotted with sniper towers every few yards? I thought we lived in a land that stood for freedom and liberty, not a totalitarian police state that shoots first and asks questions later, if at all.

It is not the border patrol that has been doing the shooting. Only the dying.

And your solution? Maybe bring in the military to line the border and shoot on sight? That would be lovely, except for the fact that they are all tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even if they were here, I somehow don't think America wants to be known as the country that has the military repelling unarmed illegals with deadly force. And of course, if you are going to use the military to guard the southern border in that manner, you must also do the same at the Canadian border. In these days where repubs are looking to slash budgets for everything except tax cuts for the rich and multinational corporations, and for the Pentagon, don't expect anyone to happily advocate spending a few billion more each year on increasing the size of the military and creating militarized borders similar to the DMZ in Korea along both borders of the US.

Nope! Nothing so filled with drama, just build a fence and monitor the foreigners that are in our country. The same as almost every organized country in the world. Nothing more. LEGAL just about sums it up.... No razor wire, torture chambers. Just green cards. Similar to what Mexico does when an American enters their country. Give them a visa and keep track of when it is time to leave.

Even Mexico can figure it out! Of course there are not millions of Americans trying to jump the fence to get into Mexico because the wealth does not drift down to people in Mexico...

Border Patrol agents are dying? I did a quick search on that, and found a BP agent killed in July 2009, and it was the first death in more than a decade. You make it sound like Border Patrol agents have been dying at rates like we see US troops die in Iraq or Afghanistan. Far more police officers are killed each year in America by Americans. Maybe we need to deport all Americans from America, as they are obviously all violent criminals!

I can count 5 people that have been shot within the past 60 days. At least one rancher killed, two deputies shot in the desert around phoenix. Also, I have been told the dead illegals found in the desert this year is far more than our average. (myself having found one about 2 years ago) So, if I made an incorrect statement re; border patrol, then my point still stands. It is not the illegals being shot at, it is my friends and neighbors.

And who did the shooting? As I recall, there was a big story recently about a rancher supposedly shot by illegals...only to find out it was just one of us peaceful, morally superior Americans who committed the murder. And of course, statistics from the police also show that illegals are far less likely to commit crimes of any sort than Americans, because they don't want to become the focus of law enforcement.

Is illegal immigration a problem? Yes. Is it a problem bigger than our wheezing economy, global warming, the decline and extinction of the middle class? Not even close. It's just a lot more fun to find someone to blame for all your ills than to admit that you are part of the problem, and have no interest in the hard choices that need to be made to turn things around. So, by all means, concentrate on illegals as being the reason your home is worth less today than it was 3 years ago. Blame the illegals for a soaring national debt. Heck, blame them for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan if you wish. After all, none of those could possibly be the fault of superior Americans, right?

What exactly are my ills that I blame others for:

Our schools are up to 50 students in a class.

My daughter can't get into the emergency room at the hospital because of the anchor baby mothers crowed into the waiting room.

I fear a hit & run every time I drive in Tucson because illegals don't have insurance.

Every week I witness needless deaths in the desert or rollovers with a dozen people killed or injured. It hurts my heat to see this kind of desparation.

My property taxes are going up again for no other reason than there are too many takers in the system and not enough givers.

Now... if they all registered and we keep track of who belongs here (border fence), we would all be paying taxes and happy.

The new citizens would have a drivers license, insurance, pay taxes, pay health insurance just like I do.

I'm wondering, Tucson 11, why your daughter is going to the emergency room. If you have health insurance, then you surely have a private Doctor. Your superiority is showing. And, so is your conservative attitude.

I live in an area where there is a Mexican population. They are hard working, very nice, but also very timid people, and they make the best tacos I have ever eaten. Some of them are here all year, but a lot of them come in for the vineyards and orchards. They live in their own community, but they mingle at the fairs and homecomings. The one thing I have noticed is their attention to family. That is really all they have, and their joy with their kids is very obvious.

I don't know the problems that have been exploited in Arizona, but I do think your mindset is more of a problem than the Mexican people.

I might be more willing to listen if you had some actual statistics to back up your assertions. What percentage of students in AZ are "anchor babies"? What percentage of visitors to emergency rooms are illegals?

As for uninsured drivers, you can find that here in America with American drivers. I grew up in New York State, and we had a real problem with folks from PA coming across the border and getting into auto accidents. At that time, you didn't need to have insurance to own and drive a car in PA, so it was common for someone wrecked by a PA resident to find out after the wreck that the Pennsylvanian had no insurance. Tough luck in that situation. We were lucky enough to avoid that curse....while we lived in NY. When we moved to AZ, we hadn't been there 9 months before my dad's truck was totalled by a guy who ran a stop light. Guess where the guy was from? Mexico? Nope, PA! When I lived in VA, you didn't need auto insurance either. If you paid $500 when you registered your car each year, you didn't need insurance.

Class size is going up here in MN, as are the property taxes. Is this due to illegals? No, it's because our repub governor, Pawlenty, has kept cutting taxes for the rich, leaving big budget gaps that he filled by cutting education funding and funding for local governments. As a result, teachers have been laid off, and localities have had to raise their property taxes in a losing effort to balance their budgets.

When you say there are too many takers in the system, and not enough givers, you don't need to look across the border to find the reason. Look to corporations who use tax breaks, tax shelters and incentives to pay an effective tax rate of 2.3% last year. Look to politicians who cut your taxes and say that they don't need to pay for them with budget cuts elsewhere. Look to citizens who constantly clamor for lower taxes but are unwilling to give up services they have come to expect.

The 'Fear the Mexicans' right wing campaign is obviously working if you look at the comments from Tucson 11. No facts, just a lot of fear and anger. It is not as bad as the right wing is making it out to be. I know, as I visit Tucson almost every year to visit family.

Now on the Mexico side along the border, that is a whole different story. There is a LARGE amount more of crime in Mexico along the border, but it hasn't really leaped over to the US due to the amount of enforcement that is along the border.

Our economy is not in poor condition because of the illegals, it is in poor condition because of the top 5% of the country making horrible decisions for short-sided profits.

Seig Heil! Tuscon 11. There's nothing that can't be made better by scapegoating minorities. When you found that dead illegal, did you keep the skull for a souvenier? Put it on a stake in your fron yard with a sign under it saying "No illegals!"

My great grandfather was from Mexico. You get no sympathy here.

I can feel for Tuscon...hell his taxes are going up because of the alleged number of illegals in his community. This is the only thing that he really can complain about and no one responding to this issue can have a complaint about.

It does cost more in property taxes to take care of more people. Legal or illegal and if you can't admit it you're crazy.

The Fed's should subsidize the border states and help them manage the extra cost. I'm sure the rest of the country would pony up money to help these states because it would be only fair to assist them with the extra expenses.

Randy, my response was that illegals may not even be the reason his property taxes are going up. Here in MN, and probably in many places around the country, taxes are going up because of repub fiscal mismanagement. Reagan and his successors got tax cuts passed, and as a result, the feds put unfunded mandates on the states, such as No Child Left Behind. States, feeling the budget pinch, and also hopping on the tax cut bandwagon, made their own cuts to local governments. The result was that the localities were at the bottom of the pecking order, and so had to absorb the costs that were passed on to them by those above them. They had to raise property taxes to pay for the things that the state and federal governments used to help pay for.

Here in MN, we have seen that happen for the past few years. I have friends who have seen their property taxes double in less than 5 years, and guess what? It wasn't due to a huge invasion of illegals.

If Tucson feels bad because his taxes are going up, take it up with local, state and federal officials. Illegals are a convenient scapegoat, but that's all they are. Does it cost more to provide services for them? Yes, but then again, they do pay some taxes, such as sales tax when they buy things at the store, so it's not as if they get a totally free ride. Of course, if the people who employ them were honest, which they most certainly aren't by hiring illegals in the first place, those illegals would be paying taxes like everyone else, by having money taken from their paychecks. Then again, that would require they pay minimum wage, which they don't, along with the rest of the things that legal workers get. I can't have a whole lot of sympathy for someone who seems hell-bent on punishing the illegals and not the people who employ them.

Cogent. Very cogent.

She is stealing our jobs and our tax dollars! Mercy me, what ever shall we do? Shoot her and deport her, in that order? Or just build a massive wall between us and Canada, and pass laws to ask for the papers of anyone who likes hockey and says "aboooot"?

Shoot her in the kneecaps and leave on just the other side of the border as a warning to others.

I'd heard that right wing blog groups, Fox etc, had been asking for horror stories regarding illegal immigrants. I can't help want to find one of those e-mail addresses and send them something about illegal aliens cooking and eating babies over a fire made from burning bibles in the middle of mainstreet while obstructing traffic. Do you think they would run with that, take it seriously? Would it be worth it to find out?

Of course I think of stuff like that 'cause I'm such a hateful bastard.

Oooooooh! I like that! Only fly in the ointment is that companies that employ illegal immigrants can also usually buy law enforcement, local and state politicians. ICE just swoops in and clears out the ones who have been there long enough to start asking for raises. Corruption is expensive and criminality starts with the ones who can afford it. Who will turn on someone who has just forked over a big juicy contribution? Quid pro quo.

No solution will even be attempted that would inconvenience business, at lease until this country shakes off the rule of corporations, and returns to "We the People", not "We the Corporations". It's frustrating, and more than a little frustrating, to see that the US is seeing more income inequality than it has seen in history. In fact, according to historians and economists who have done the studies, when the income disparity between the top and the bottom reaches the level we see in the US today, there is always a revolution. As usual, those at the top either don't see it, or choose to believe it can't happen here. My answer to that is that if all the folks who talk about "second amendment solutions" to their problems finally see that it is big corporations, not government, that is the real problem, that revolution could happen at any time.

Ah the wonderful glories of Astro-turfing.

Right, let's make the southern border the new Berlin Wall. Let's do the mines and fence, make sure there are guard towers and machine guns. Then world leaders can stand at the wall and yell "Mr. Obama, tear that wall down!".

Your fear and paranoia is incredible. Do you spend your entire life cowering in fear from everything and everyone? Better yet, do you have any statistics about illegals getting raped, or is this just right wing hyperbole and fearmongering again? Most importantly, are you really an American, because the things you are saying sound more like something that was spouted by the Soviets as justification for building that hated wall.