Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “Your World With Neil Cavuto,” Pinal Co., AZ Sheriff Paul Babeu said drug cartels armed with AK-47’s “control many areas on American soil” noting that they are only 30 miles from Phoenix.

Babeu detailed touring the border yesterday with Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson and said, “We flew him in our helicopter, showed him the drug smuggling routes, the actual caves—these cartel scouts live on top of mountains, 30 days at a time. And how on mountain top to mountain top, over a 50-mile swath of land, and this is only 30 miles from Phoenix.”

He continued, “This is literally an unsecured border. We have cartels that think they own the place. They control many areas on American soil and this how they freely move billions of dollars of drugs and hundreds of thousands of illegals into our country.”

Echoing Carson’s call for drones and national guard troops on the border, Babeu continued, “We don’t have drones ourselves. We have a couple helicopters and this is why there shouldn’t be one county fighting the drug cartels. We had a three billion dollar drug bust. We arrested 76 in one day. They were carrying 108 weapons, including AK-47s. Ben Carson mentioned absolutely use drones and maybe have the idea of a missile strike to blow up these cartel lookouts where they live in. Some members of the media were aghast he said such a thing. He said, ‘Look we’re fighting a war here. We should talk to military leaders and law enforcement leaders to see what we need to do.'”

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