Cowboys Call for Immigration Compromise

Joaquin Morales, 12, plants a Mexican flag in the ground before a Cinco de Mayo immigrants' rights rally at Chicano Park in San Diego on Friday, May 5, 2006. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy) (Denis Poroy - AP)

PALOMINAS, Ariz. -- Bud Strom knows darn well how outsiders have pegged ranchers like him, those whose land serves as America's front porch to illegal immigration.

When reporters flock in from their big-city offices, they want to know:

Is he packing heat? Can they get the pistol on camera? (Even if it's loaded with snake shot meant for vermin.) Then, when he answers "no" to the second question, they ask: Isn't he ticked off about all the "illegals" traipsing through his brush?

The answer to that one: Well, yes and no.

Along the same stretch of border where Strom raises cattle, father and son ranchers Jack and John Ladd have played host to politicians promising a get-tough approach to immigration. The Ladds show them piles of clothes and water jugs left on their land, the gaping holes slashed in their fences. But talk of a wall, or any so-called "enforcement-only" solution, is flat-out absurd, the ranchers say.

Then there's Paul Palmer. Feedlot operator. Died-in-the-wool Republican. A good Baptist. "Papa" to the grandson he keeps watch on while sorting cattle. And, oh yeah, he supposes "criminal" is fitting, too.

For years, Palmer employed illegal farmhands until their fear of working in a region swarming with Border Patrol agents drove them elsewhere. Now he'll preach to anyone who will listen about America's need to legalize its illegal work force.

"I'm conservative right down to the bone," he says, "but I think that sometimes we have to do the right thing."

These fellows don't just talk about illegal immigration, they live it by making their homes in the heart of the nation's busiest illegal crossing corridor, the mesas of southern Arizona. They own the land that gets trampled, feed their wives, kids and grandkids from the money they eke out of it. And they'll endure the repercussions of whatever Congress does or does not devise to rectify the problem.

They don't care for outright amnesty; the recent migrant marches make their stomachs turn.

They also don't want immigrants branded felons, rounded up and shipped out, and insist a sealed-off border isn't the answer either.

But they do have a message: