John Ladd’s family has been raising cows in the high desert of Southern Arizona for 130 years.
His San Jose Ranch has sweeping views of Mexico. The grass, high after a heavy rain, runs all the way down to the international boundary.
“It used to be a seven-strand barbed-wire fence,” said Ladd, referring to the barrier between the two countries.
A lot has changed.
Within the next month, the rancher expects construction to begin on a second 30-foot steel wall that will run parallel to an existing wall that went up in President Trump’s first administration.
“It’s coming,” said Ladd, who supports the new infrastructure. “You know when you climb this wall, you’re in the U.S., so you’re illegal.”
Across the border region — from Texas to California — the Trump administration is rushing to finish an ambitious and controversial construction project.
Last year, Republicans in Congress approved $47 billion to finish hundreds of miles of new barriers. The Department of Homeland Security calls it a “smart wall,” which also includes new technology like sensors, lighting and cameras.
It hasn’t been popular with everyone.
A federal judge ordered construction to stop in the Big Bend region of Texas, after opposition from ranchers, businesses and environmental groups. On Wednesday, the administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
In Arizona, about two hours west of Ladd’s ranch, protestors shouted in horror this month as workers tore down the last of four towering cottonwood trees to make way for steel bollards.
People like Kate Scott had been camping by the trees for months, desperate to stop construction.
Then, one morning Scott told Here & Now that federal agents came in, dispersed the activists with tear gas and ripped the 150-year-old cottonwood from the ground.
“If they think they have crushed us, they have done the opposite,” said Scott, a few hours after the tree came down. “They have also electrified the country that has followed us and supported us. So I feel this is our moment in another three or four weeks. Make it count.”
Scott was referring to the election, which is now less than two weeks away.
Border security was a winning issue for Trump and Republicans in 2024.
But two years later, cracks have emerged. Voters now care much more about high gas prices and inflation, said Samara Klar, a political scientist at University of Arizona.
“In fact, I think most of the concerns with immigration today are the flip — that they feel the federal government has come down too hard, that there’s been too much enforcement,” Klar said.
The president’s strict immigration and border enforcement policies have sharply reduced migration.
Early this year, the Pew Research Center said the number of people Border Patrol encountered crossing from Mexico hit the lowest level in more than five decades. The federal government last week reported a 95% drop in Southwest border apprehensions last fiscal year compared to the Biden administration.
“It’s just night and day,” said rancher John Ladd, in the shadow of the border wall. The steel bollards are newly covered in menacing curls of razor wire.
A Border Patrol truck drives by with two people shackled in the back seat, and an agent stops and tells Ladd the men in the truck had tried to jump the fence.
Like many ranchers and farmers in the U.S., Ladd is feeling the effects of high diesel prices and inflation. But he remains loyal to Trump and Republicans. If Democrats win control of Congress in November, the president has warned the border region will revert to the way it was when former President Joe Biden was in office.
“The first thing they’re going to do is try to impeach Trump,” the rancher said. “Even if we don’t lose, he’s already a lame duck for the next two years, and that’s sad.”
Here & Now’s visit to the Arizona-Mexico border continues Friday with a rancher who does not support wall construction.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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