We are now down along the border south of Tucson for a couple of stories. I will expand on each story as we present it live, with the first one on cactus wranglers airing all day Wednesday. It is warm here per a normal June day and the desert is a arid and beautiful as ever. Meantime, I get a regular update from Customs and Border Protection Tucson Sector and they had a couple of interesting pictures from a recent rescue and bust. It seems marijuana smuggling is only getting bigger and I’ll ask agents about this on Thursday for our Friday live reports. This SUV was packed with 100-bundles of dope and the driver was caught as he attempted to take a back road and avoid a checkpoint. The rescue came as illegal immigrants try to cross the desert at the most dangerous time of the year. Temperatures here are consistently triple digits and the land is unforgiving. This man was carried out of a canyon by agents and then flown to a hospital. Both photos were taken by Agents in the Field and show some of the good work being done on our southern border. 

The Dallas bureau is working on a story about the process it takes to become a U.S. citizen. One of the most interesting parts of the story for me was learning about the naturalization test that applicants must take.

Think you could pass? Here are a few of the questions to test yourself:

1. Name two senators from your state.
2. How many voting members are in the House of Representatives?
3. Who becomes president if the president and vice president die?
4. What were the original 13 states?
5. What was the 49th state added to our Union?
6. Who was the main writer of the Declaration of Independence?
7. Who wrote the Star Spangled Banner?
8. How many times may a senator or congressman be re-elected?
9. Name one of the purpose of the United Nations.
10. What is the most important right granted to United States citizens?

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I get updates from the Hoover Institution at Stanford University since I was a media fellow there on two occasions. They are very involved in the whole immigration debate, like most think tanks, and I think the varying opinions is interesting and adds to our ongoing discussion on this blog. So…what do you think?

Hoover senior fellow Russell Roberts argues that, despite the number and type of jobs immigrants perform, the United States would, if necessary, survive without illegal workers. “If we closed our borders, all the things that immigrants do now would either be done by ‘native’ Americans (presumably at higher wages with resulting higher prices) or be done by machines or would not be done at all,” Roberts states. “The country would not collapse. We’d just be poorer, on average. And so would the people who come here in search of work.”
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This picture comes from the dangerous and lawless border town of Sasabi. Human smugglers mark the path to the United States with this bottle and others like it. The paths are getting narrow and more crowded as we crack down in the border states. We have covered stories in recent months about increased violence now aimed at our border patrol and even local police forces inside the United States. Now what many have warned, more violence aimed at Americans, the percentages are growing and most of the victims have family, friends or businesses south of the border. When we spoke with Mexico’s Attorney General, both times he agreed that they have a battle in their northern states and for that matter across Mexico, against drug cartels and human smugglers. After the link…an AP write up. Keep Reading …

A very good contact of mine sent me an e-mail that I received on my blackberry as my plane landed. He is very well conected in Mexico amongst law enforcement and the government and he says the hunt for Laurean is very hot right now.He says the Mexican government believes he is in the Guadalajara area and are working with U.S. and international officials to hunt the man down.

I can tell you from being in Mexico and speaking with the new Attorney General on two occasions, this Mexican government is different than when Vincente Fox was in charge.I have been told the same by detectives from several different police departments here in California that have to work with Mexican authorities south of the border to hunt down their fugitives. Here’s more Keep Reading …