The unsolved murder Saturday of a soft-spoken rancher in southern Arizona has become a new flashpoint in the debate over illegal immigration, with conservative media and politicians demanding increased border security.
Less than two days after authorities found the body of 58-year-old Robert Krentz, political bloggers and talk-show hosts began denouncing the federal government for a perceived failure to protect U.S. civilians from violent smugglers and other illegal border crossers.
Cochise County Sheriff's spokeswoman Carol Capas said detectives have no information on the assailant, including a nationality.
After deputies and U.S. Border Patrol agents tracked footprints from the crime scene nearly 20 miles to the Mexican line, however, border policy critics declared that the killer was an illegal immigrant.
Two U.S. senators and a House member from New Mexico called for increased enforcement, according to published reports. And Tom Tancredo, an outspoken former Congressman from Colorado challenged Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to send in the National Guard.
U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Tucson, offered condolences to the family in a news release and said the federal government "must respond appropriately" if the homicide was tied to smuggling. "All options should be on the table," she added, "including sending more Border Patrol agents to the area and deploying the National Guard."
More than half of all undocumented aliens arrested along the border last year were caught in the Tucson Sector, which covers most of southern Arizona. Omar Candelaria, a Border Patrol spokesman, said he is not aware of any U.S. citizen being murdered by illegal immigrants in that sector for more than a decade.
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