Long before the March murder of Douglas rancher Robert Krentz, southern Arizona ranch hands warned of the dangers presented by what they call the lax security of the U.S. Border Patrol.

As Arizona battles with the federal government over the authority to enforce immigration law, many residents and lawmakers are challenging the state to send National Guard troops to secure the border and cover the costs of completing a border wall.

President Barack Obama is asking Congress for $600 million in emergency funds for 1,000 more Border Patrol agents, 160 new federal immigration officers and two unmanned aircraft to beef up security on the U.S.-Mexico border.

You wouldn't know it from the public debate, but the U.S.-Mexico border is more fortified now than it was even five years ago. Far more agents patrol it, more fences, barriers and technology protect it and taxpayers are spending billions more to reinforce it.

The fence rises from the rock and hardscrabble of the desert floor, a formidable 15-foot-high curtain of corrugated metal that stretches into the mirage of heat and distance. Newer sections feature 20-foot high steel columns, deeply planted, narrowly spaced, so no human slips between.

U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona plans to introduce a proposal Tuesday that would add 3,500 new agents to the Border Patrol in an attempt to improve security along the US-Mexico border and keep drug violence in Mexico from spilling into the United States.

Assistant Police Chief Roy Bermudez shakes his head and smiles when he hears politicians and pundits declaring that Mexican cartel violence is overrunning his Arizona border town.

Government officials overseeing the construction of a "virtual fence'" along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border hope to turn over the first segment to the Border Patrol in January, while beginning construction on a second stretch in coming weeks.

In response to the loss of his agreement with the federal government that authorized his agency to enforce immigration law on the streets, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio pushed up the date of his next crime suppression sweep to Oct. 16 and said he would deliver any illegal immigrants found by his deputies to the Border Patrol. Federal officials aren't saying how they will react if he makes good on his vow.

"You said some nasty things about me. I take it that way." That's how my conversation with Sheriff Joe started. He was offended that I had said on television that he was trying to use a non-existent federal law to justify the continuation of his crime-suppression sweeps.