by Will Racke
Arizona rancher John Chilton’s 50,000-acre spread along the U.S.-Mexico border is allegedly ground zero for human smugglers, drug cartel members and illegal immigrants, and he has videos showing trespassers sneaking through his property.
A fifth-generation cattleman, the 79-year-old Chilton has long warned the government about the dangers of leaving lengthy stretches of the southwest border secured by nothing more than a barbed wire fence. To prove his point, he set up surveillance cameras throughout his property to document the comings and goings of trespassers from south of the border.
Chilton shared hours of video footage with Daily Caller News Foundation reporters, who are in Arizona to document life and crime in the southwest borderlands. Tim Foley, the founder of Arizona Border Recon, also shared his group’s surveillance footage with TheDCNF.
The surveillance videos, which are mostly from 2018 but also date back to 2016, show an unrelenting stream of alleged cartel scouts, drug mules and human smugglers — known as coyotes — using secret trails to work their way into the interior of the state. Many of the trespassers tote long guns and sport military-style camouflage, posing a threat Chilton knows from firsthand experience.
A U.S. Border Patrol agent was shot by smugglers in a remote section of Chilton’s ranch in June, according to The Washington Times. It was the latest in a long line of violent incidents that prove border security is not a priority for the government, according to Chilton, who is a prominent supporter of President Donald Trump’s efforts to build a border wall.
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Will Racke is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation. Follow Will on Twitter. Check back for more exclusive reporting from the U.S.-Mexico border, and subscribe to TheDCNF’s YouTube channel to never miss out on original videos.
