Veteran journalist and Trump campaign operative Steve Cortes released a documentary this month, Deport the Danger: Arizona’s Border Crisis Exposed.” He visited the state and interviewed journalists, elected officials, and relatives of the victims of the Biden administration’s open border policies, exposing how bad crime had become related to illegal immigration.
Cortes said during the documentary, “It is a true bipartisan failure with the open borders radicals, co-opting both the Dems and the Republicans, with the leftists seeking masses of new voters and the supposed conservatives bowing down in supplication to the business magnates who demand a constant flow of cheap labor to undercut American citizens in the job market. Of course, Joe Biden accelerated all of this madness to a record degree, and his radicalism was assisted by allies across the country, mayors and governors who prioritize an extreme agenda over the safety of U.S. citizens, corrupt governors like Katie Hobbs right here in Arizona.”
Cortes went over recent deaths caused by criminal illegal immigrants. He said Joel Hernandez Anaya killed two people in a fire in Arizona, which was “100 percent preventable.”
Cortes interviewed journalist Julio Rosas of The Blaze about his investigative work on the issue. Rosas said when Joe Biden took office, it was “the beginning of a four-year-long crisis.” He said illegal immigrants brazenly walked up to the Yuma Border Patrol office, cheering and taking photos, then entered the office, where the agents helped them with processing and transitioning them to wherever they wanted to go.
Rosas said the dangerous Tren de Aragua gang from Venezuela “did not have a footprint in the U.S.” prior to 2021 when the Biden administration started. Recently, in Glendale, which is located on the west side of Phoenix, he said their gang members took over a street and stole a police car.
Rosas discussed a tour he was given at a hospital on the border. He said the hospital was “$23 million in debt for services rendered to these illegal immigrants.” He said it wasn’t just “treating cases of dehydration. They were doing heart transplants. They turned an entire floor into a maternity ward because they didn’t have prenatal care.” Rosas said the residents of Yuma were told to drive two and a half hours to Phoenix for serious medical appointments due to the backlog.
He said, “When I enlisted into the Marines, it wasn’t into the Mexican Marines, it was the United States Marines. When I swore an oath to the Constitution, it wasn’t to the Mexican Constitution; it was to the United States Constitution. I think it’s actually the most pro-Latino thing to want to get the border under control, to keep the bad people out of my country.”
Cortes pointed out how things have changed with the new administration, “Since President Trump took office, the U.S. Attorney in Arizona indicted over 500 illegals. All of them have records, all of whom pose clear and present dangers to this American community.”
He continued, “Through the new commitment of President Trump to protect Americans, the bad guys and the serious criminals — and we can’t be afraid to use those phrases and to speak those truths, because there are legions of bad guys who have been allowed to just ignore our laws and procedures for far too long. They’ve been hiding in plain sight in so-called sanctuary cities and sanctuary jurisdictions.”
Cortes said one of the victims killed by an illegal immigrant, Sandra Duran, “like many of the victims, like the victims here in Phoenix, she was Hispanic. Sadly, that circumstance is normally the harsh reality of illegal alien crime. They mostly terrorized the people near them, which is why Hispanic citizens of this country saw the ravages of this radicalism disproportionately steamroll.” The illegal immigrant who killed Duran with his car had been previously deported five times.
Cortes interviewed State House Speaker Steve Montenegro (R-Glendale). He asked him, “Did you ever believe that a boy from El Salvador could become the Speaker of the House of one of the most important states in America?”
Montenegro responded, “I believed it because I was told from the moment I arrived here by my parents that this is the greatest nation on Earth, and that you can dream as big as you want to, as big as you can. You just have to be willing to work just as hard or even twice as hard to achieve those dreams and goals.”
Montenegro denounced Hobbs as “reckless” and criticized the Biden administration’s border policies.
“It’s not just heartbreaking, but it’s infuriating, because here you have men and women that you have recruited to serve on the front lines of freedom, whether it is the military, whether it is the border, whether it is our county’s sheriffs or law enforcement in our cities and towns, you’ve asked them, please keep us safe,” he said. “But on the other hand, you’ve told them, but you can’t use any tools to keep us safe. Please walk into the line of fire for us, but you can’t defend yourself. It’s reckless and criminal. It’s infuriating to have politicians that are willing to use these subjects. And at the expense of law enforcement, it’s unacceptable.”
Cortes responded, “This reality unmasks the complete lie of the leftists, OK, who pretend that enforcement is race or ethnicity.” He cited a “detailed statistical analysis of violent crime rates, right here in Arizona” [by scholar John Lott which revealed that] the crime rate for illegals was more than twice the demographics of native born citizens of Arizona.”
This echoes a study conducted by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office several years ago, which found that while Arizona’s population in 2008 was comprised of approximately 9 percent illegal immigrants, 21.8 percent of felonies sentenced in Maricopa County Superior Court were committed by illegal immigrants.
Cortes interviewed Josephine Dunn, who lost her daughter, Ashley Dunn, to a fentanyl overdose. The angel mom said her daughter had only taken half of one pill, but due to the strength of the fentanyl in the counterfeit Percocet pill, she overdosed and died. She said it had “five milligrams of fentanyl, enough to kill two and a half people.”
The Arizona Legislature passed a law that was signed into law by Hobbs that increases penalties for selling fentanyl. Sponsored by State Representative Quang Nguyen (R-Prescott), the Ashley Dunn Act sets a minimum sentence of five years and a maximum of 15 years for at least 200 grams, roughly equivalent to 2,000 pills, and potential sentences of 10 to 20 years for repeat offenders.
While the Trump administration is aggressively combating illegal immigration, Hobbs has expressed her opposition to the efforts. Hobbs publicly stated she will not support or participate in Trump’s deportation operations, describing them as “misguided policies” that harm communities. During a November 2024 press conference in Nogales, she said she would not tolerate policies that “terrorize communities,” citing Trump’s deportations.
In January 2025, Hobbs announced that Arizona would not use state resources to assist ICE in arresting illegal immigrants who “aren’t causing harm. … We’re going to stand up to the administration just like I have from day one when they’re not getting it right for Arizonans,” she said.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
