Over the Line: Fighting Corruption Along the US-Mexico Border Sharyl Attkisson - CBS News
go to original January 13, 2013

When it comes to securing our southern border, at least a few border agents have been stepping OVER THE LINE, ethically speaking, which leaves some Americans living near the border feeling not very secure. (CBS News)

John Ladd owns 14,000 wild acres in southern Arizona squared up against the Mexican border. It's land that's become extremely valuable for something besides ranching: For Mexico's illegal immigrants and drug cartels, it's a golden pathway into the U.S.

"The easy part of getting across here is you got three miles to walk, and that's it," said Ladd. "You get picked up at the highway and you're gone."

Five generations of Ladds have lived here. The family journeyed west over gritty trails in covered wagons in 1894.

More than a century later, Ladd watches from his kitchen window as new immigrants - the illegal kind - regularly march across his land, oddly undeterred by the border fence, government surveillance cameras, and Border Agents patrolling the property.

When asked how many illegal immigrants he estimates have crossed his property, Ladd replied, "I say about a half a million people have been caught on the ranch. And that's what's been caught - that's not what's got through."

The past few years, the sheer number of Mexicans and those of other nationalities caught on his property IS down.

But Ladd says there's more illegal traffic coming in trucks, filled with drugs. He showed Attkisson where a wall on his property has been cut three times since February: "They sets ramps up on top. They have ramp going into Mexico, have a ramp coming in here. They drive the loaded trucks over the ramps, get 'em in. Come up and cut all of my fences going to the highway."

Read more at CBS News

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