FLORENCE, Arizona — “Nobody does,” Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu told Breitbart News when asked who has operational control of this region of the United States of America.

Babeu was on a helicopter tour of Mexican drug cartel scout locations in caves in the side of mountains throughout the desert about 70 miles inside the U.S. border. Essentially, that means U.S. sovereignty is gone for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of square miles throughout the American southwest.

Babeu was leading the helicopter tour with Dr. Ben Carson, a GOP presidential candidate, after briefing Carson on everything happening at the border.

Among other things that Babeu showed Carson and Breitbart News on this helicopter tour were how this far inside the border on high ground there are scores of scout sites where cartel operatives serve as lookouts for smugglers bringing drugs, people and other contraband into the country.

“If they can operate up to this degree, 70 miles north of the border, in law enforcement we call that a clue,” Babeu said in a brief exclusive interview outside the helicopter after landing back at the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office. The lack of United States sovereignty this deep into the country is highly concerning to Carson, who told Breitbart News that this shouldn’t be happening.

“We should stop them at the border,” Carson said. “They shouldn’t be 70 miles inside the border. We should stop them at the border. As the sheriff indicated, if we were to take like 6,000 troops and put them at the border, you wouldn’t have those people coming inside the border.”

From here, Carson is taking his presidential campaign bus down to the border—and Breitbart News is accompanying him, his campaign team, and a couple other reporters along the way. More details will be forthcoming throughout the next several days from this exclusive tour.