After Years of Dealing With Illegal Immigration, ‘Maybe This Issue Is Actually Going to Get Tackled,’ Border Rancher Says

LUNA COUNTY, N.M. – A Border Patrol helicopter flew overhead in a sight Russell Johnson said was a rarity over his ranch until President Donald Trump returned to the White House. 

Johnson says he would like to see an even greater Border Patrol presence along New Mexico’s border with Mexico, but agents “have at least some presence on the border, [and] it’s just so reassuring that maybe this issue is actually going to get tackled,” Johnson told The Daily Signal as he drove his truck over the dirt roads on his ranch.  

Just up the hill, a Border Patrol agent sat in his marked vehicle, stationed to overlook the last remaining gap in the border fence on Johnson’s ranch.  

Today, there is a gap of about three-quarters of a mile in the wall that leads onto Johnson’s ranch. The panels to fill the gap lay about 50 yards away. 

“In the coming months, I’d love to see this gap finished, because our ranch takes up about eight and a half miles of border that we share with Mexico, and this is the only gap that we have left,” Johnson said as he faced the gap.  

With the wall unfinished, Johnson continued to deal with illegal immigration across his property under the Biden administration.  

“The people crossing in our area are not the people that are coming in and wanting to go to court … and try to get asylum into the United States,” Johnson explained. “These are the people that are packing stuff in, that have criminal histories, that know that they’re not going to get granted access or entry into the United States through the legal system, so that’s why they’re sneaking through here.” 

Johnson’s family has been ranching the same piece of property along the Mexican border in Luna County, 240 miles south of Albuquerque, for more than 100 years. They have dealt with the issues of illegal immigration through their property long before the border crisis was making major headlines.  

Even in the early 2000s, the rancher says the Border Patrol estimated there were days when hundreds of illegal aliens crossed through the ranch. The flow of illegal immigration across the cattle ranch has created safety concerns and financial burden for the Johnson family.  

Several year ago, a man crossed onto Johnson’s ranch on horseback attempting to steal some of his cattle. Fortunately, the illegal alien did not succeed before Border Patrol apprehended him, but not before the man cut 18 fences on the Johnson’s property.  

“All this damage that he caused, we had to go back and repair it,” Johnson said, “but he was never held accountable for it, he was just deported for being here illegally.” 

Illegal aliens discard backpacks, clothing, and other trash on the ranch, and while Johnson says he wants to clean it up, he does not touch it for fear the items could have come in contact with fentanyl. Even just two milligrams of fentanyl can be deadly to an adult.  

For a while, Johnson never left home without his gun. Due to limited cellphone service on the property, the family began carrying radios so they could communicate if there was a problem. Thankfully, the husband and father says he has never found a dead body on his ranch, but is always worried his children will discover a body while they are out riding.  

For years, Johnson and his family maintained a barbed-wire fence along their property with Mexico, a fence that illegal aliens and smugglers constantly cut to cross the border. The Johnsons repaired the fence at their own expense to prevent their cattle from wandering into Mexico, or to prevent Mexican cattle, which can carry diseases, from commingling with their cattle.

When Trump announced during his first administration that he would build a wall along the southern border, relief appeared to be in sight for Johnson and his family.  

Panel after panel began going up, and building efforts continued until President Joe Biden took office in January 2021. Biden signed an executive order stopping all wall construction and the panels to fill the last gap in the border wall on Johnson’s ranch have been lying on the ground ever since.   

When the wall construction originally began on his property under Trump’s first administration, there was talk of stadium lighting being installed along the wall and sensors that would alert Border Patrol if migrants were approaching, Johnson said, adding: “I’d love to see that technology put into place.”  

Johnson said he has seen panels of unused wall being hauled to another section of open border to fill a gap in the wall further down the border, but says he remains optimistic the large hole on his own property will be filled.  

Further down the border between New Mexico and Mexico, there are huge gaps in the wall, or only barbed-wire fencing, but Johnson says he thinks “once things get rolling … we’ll start seeing more wall construction and getting these gaps closed up.”  

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