Wyoming
“Every State Is A Border State”: Border Wall Visit Eye-Opening For…
YUMA, Ariz. — If there’s one lesson that was pounded into the heads of three Wyoming legislators and a state Senate candidate during their trip to the southern border Thursday and Friday, it’s that the situation here has become untenable and seismic for Americans living on the border and the rest of the United States.
All of the legislators said they plan to support legislation that would give money specifically for law enforcement efforts at the border in Arizona. During the last legislative session, $750,000 was earmarked to help Texas with its immigration efforts.
Although this kind of money is a drop in the pond compared to the $19.9 billion U.S. Customs and Border Protection budget, Yuma County Supervisor Jonathan Lines said sometimes just raising awareness about the growing immigration crisis is important.
“I want to make sure I’m doing everything I can making sure the story is being told,” Lines said. “The federal government is not doing its job, the cartels are in control.”
With immigration one of the biggest issues of the 2024 campaign season, more state-level officials like the Wyoming contingent are visiting border towns to see the crisis for themselves.
At the border near Yuma a little after 1:30 a.m. Friday, they witnessed Border Patrol agents detain a group of illegal immigrants who had walked into the United States through a gap in the border wall.
The phrase “every state is a border state” can be hard to conceptualize for people who live far away from the southern border and don’t see what the people of Yuma, Arizona, deal with every day.
Senate District 6 candidate Kim Withers said this is exactly why she made the trip. When going door-to-door for her campaign this summer, she said the issue of illegal immigration came up with surprising frequency with Wyoming voters.
“Of course, the drugs and criminal activity is going to eventually be seeping up to Wyoming,” she said. “I think it’s a real issue I can get behind.”
Withers said she also wants to make sure local law enforcement is fully funded for the increasing pressures they will likely face. She mentioned how the small town of Guernsey, Wyoming, recently lost one of its two police officers because of lack of funding.
“Getting back to the root causes,” said state Rep. Jon Conrad, R-Mountain View. “Showing our support would be demonstrable. This isn’t a Yuma issue, this impacts all of us.”
Escalating Crisis
The southern border has been a problem area for decades, including under former President Donald Trump’s watch, but illegal crossing increased significantly after President Joe Biden took office. After Biden took office, he halted work on Trump’s border wall and has faced increasing political pressure as the immigration crisis continues to grow.
During Biden’s administration so far, there have been more than 8 million encounters with migrants, as well as 1.7 million “getaways,” or illegal immigrants who slip past the Border Patrol and are living in the U.S. without any contact with immigration officials, according to a report from the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
Noted in the report is a statement from Tom Homan, former director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who said Biden is the only president ever to “unsecure the border on purpose” and that his “open border polices have created the greatest national security crisis since 9/11.”
Sometimes the impacts of these crossings come in ways that the rest of the world may not consider, Lines said.
“The woman and children are really why I do this,” Lines said.
In addition to the rampant funneling of fentanyl through the border and into America’s communities that’s caused an increase in overdose deaths, there’s also the trafficking of people — specifically children — that’s nearly just as prevalent.
The Mexican crime and drug cartels are becoming more active, bold and dangerous.
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Seen here are what Border Security Alliance Chairman Jonathan Lines estimates to be at least $2 million in wall materials left unused when President Joe Biden took office. (Leo Wolfson, Cowboy State Daily) -
Yuma County Supervisor Jonathan Lines, right, explains to state Rep. Jon Conrad, R-Mountain View, how people can more easily cross from Mexico on the left side of the wall in the background, over to California on the right, rather than travel across the Colorado River to Arizona where they stand. (Leo Wolfson, Cowboy State Daily)
‘Total Disregard For People’s Lives’
Lines said he was told by Arizona Republican congressman Andy Biggs that there are around 85,000 missing children in the Office of Refugee Resettlement database.
While touring the Wyoming delegation around the border wall built under the direction of Trump, Lines showed them where the rape of a 10-year-old boy had happened.
“These people are absolute animals, they have total disregard for people’s lives,” he said.
Although many people point to the genuine desire many immigrants have to start new and productive lives in America, he believes that not a single person crosses the border these days without the blessing of the cartels, thereby making themselves indentured servants.
“They have no idea what people are actually doing and submitting themselves to to get here,” he said.
Besides horrible acts like these, Lines said the cartels have also assisted with letting state-sponsored terrorists into the United States from places like Iran.
“Are we going to face another 9/11 because of this?” he questioned.
A former sheriff’s deputy, Rep. Tony Niemec, R-Green River, said he worries about what some of his former co-workers will face in the near future.
Also scattered around the base of the wall were various articles of clothing. Lines explained that these were from people who had discarded them after swimming across the Colorado River to get to America.
At one juncture, the borders of Arizona, California and Mexico convene at the Colorado River. Lines said this convergence point leads to many issues as California authorities have a policy to not assist Border Patrol agents with apprehending people who illegally cross the border.
How It Works
When people are detained at the border, they are documented, but almost always are sent on into the United States as long as they claim asylum from their home country, Lines said. These asylum hearings can take years to take place, to which only about 5% immigrants show up for, he said.
Still, Lines said most of these people are coming to the U.S. with relatively positive intentions and have no problem being detained as they are actively also seeking food and medical assistance.
Withers said she has no issues with immigrants who pursue the legal routes to achieving citizenship.
“If they come in the right way and want to do good work, that’s a good way to do it,” she said. “I’m concerned people are not doing it the right way.”
Facilitating this medical assistance has led to difficult decisions for local health care workers, Lines said, as they have often had to prioritize serving immigrants who recently crossed the border over permanent residents. Despite the community receiving around 200,000 snowbird vacationers per year, he said 85% of the patients at the hospital make an income below the poverty line.
Those who do get through undocumented are doing so strategically and specifically so their presence won’t be known by authorities, Lines said.
“The Border Patrol’s biggest concern is people who don’t want to be detained,” he said. “The people who want to go don’t necessarily want to do that. They want to do us harm.”
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Wyoming Senate candidate Kim Withers, from left, state Reps. Jon Conrad, R-Mountain View, Tony Niemec, Sen. Stacey Jones, R-Rock Springs, stand near a plaque commemorating the southern border wall built by former President Donald Trump. (Leo Wolfson, Cowboy State Daily) -
The southern border wall stretches around 400 miles and is about 30 feet tall, but a roughly 8-mile gap exists in the wall in Yuma, Arizona. (Leo Wolfson, Cowboy State Daily)
Oppositional Forces
Lines sees the Mexican cartels as the root source of most of the border problems.
Combating their efforts is a little like playing whack-a-mole, he said. When a change is made, their only goal is to work around it.
“They’ll just deploy resources somewhere else,” he said.
He also feels frustration with the Biden administration, which he believes doesn’t have a legitimate interest in improving border security.
He said there are countless examples large and small that prove his point. One of the small signs, he said, were cameras installed under Trump at the border that were never turned on by the Biden administration.
Niemec saw the difference in policies between the two administrations showing up in the form of completely different infrastructure and management choices as one of the most eye-opening parts of the trip.
“They call this portion the Trump wall, and it was such an improvement on some of the other legacy portions of this wall,” he said. “Then on this portion, there’s no wall. It looks real secure until you get to the end of it.”
When former Arizona Gov. Greg Ducey started stacking up shipping containers at the border in 2022 in response to Biden’s refusal to continue building Trump’s wall, Lines believes it reduced illegal crossings.
When Biden came to a compromise over restarting construction on the wall due to immigrants drowning in the Colorado River and local tractors being stolen near an opening in the wall, Biden built his own section of metal wall.
Lines said this still wasn’t sufficient to prevent people from trying to get across. There were other locations where Biden installed chicken-wire fences.
Many people argue that walls don’t work as an effective deterrent for people illegally crossing into America. A 2022 study from the conservative-leaning Cato Institute found that Trump’s wall did not reduce crossings after major portions of it were built.
The former chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, Lines helped start the Border Security Alliance (BSA) to help pass policy around the nation that he believes will secure the border, but he believes revamping America’s overall immigration system is the ultimate solution. BSA plans to ramp up their efforts for the upcoming election season.
“This is my home, this is my country here,” Lines said of his motivations.
The state legislators and Withers shot ads for their respective reelection campaigns with BSA while at the wall.
Agricultural Shut Downs
Lines also explained how bacterial contamination to local farm fields such as E. coli can lead to drastic consequences for their local economy and the country as the Yuma area produces 93% of the nation’s leafy green vegetables. Some of these lettuce fields come right up to the border wall.
To prevent risks like these, Yuma County has paid to install porta potties around the outside of the border in expectation of the many people who illegally cross.
“It prevents people from walking in the fields,” Lines explained.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
Like many rabbit holes, it all started with a simple question.
About two years ago, Jaye Wells was at a small gathering in Cody when the topic of the 2026 centennial anniversary of the Dude Ranchers’ Association came up.
Wells asked how many dude ranches in the country had a comparable 100-year legacy to the Cody-based member organization.
“Nobody in the room knew,” said Wells, co-founder of the True Ranch Collection, with a portfolio of dude ranches around the West, including the Blackwater Creek Lodge and Guest Ranch in Cody.
Thus began a yearslong and, at times laborious, project of tracking down the number of dude ranches in operation since 1926, which are commemorated in “100 Years of Dude Ranching,” a coffee-table-style book published by Wells in December.
Though it took a lot of digging through records at the Wyoming Historical Society, old newspaper clippings and cross-referencing family records, the team behind the book finally identified a fitting answer to Wells’ question.
Of the 94 dude ranches that are members of the association today, 26 were in operation and accepting guests a century ago.
“That shocked us,” Wells said. “Every ranch has got its own little curiosity.”
The team behind the book was strict about the criteria it established: To be included in the book, a dude ranch must have been accepting guests in 1926. Had they expanded their criteria, the list would have been even longer.
“There are a lot of ranches that are 97 or 98 years old,” Wells said.
A Tribute To Hospitality
As much as the book celebrates the long legacy of dude ranching, it also serves as a tribute to a unique way of life — particularly in Wyoming.
The state is home to half of the 26 centennial ranches: A Bar A Ranch (Encampment), Absaroka Ranch (Dubois), Blackwater Creek Lodge and Guest Ranch (Cody), CM Ranch (Dubois), Crossed Sabres Ranch (Cody), Darwin Ranch (Jackson), Eatons’ Ranch (Wolf), the Hideout Lodge and Guest Ranch (Shell), Medicine Bow Lodge and Guest Ranch (Saratoga), Paradise Guest Ranch (Buffalo), Rimrock Ranch (Cody), Shoshone Lodge and Guest Ranch (Cody), and Triangle X Ranch (Moose).
As the book details, the origins of dude ranching trace back to the 1880s, when a ranch near modern-day Medora, North Dakota, began charging guests from back East room and board when they’d come out West to hunt bison and other big game.
The word “dude” had become a popular term by that time for a man with fancy duds.
More and more ranches started opening up to guests in the 1900s, including welcoming many young men whose parents had sent them West to dry out and stay out of trouble.
“You had to be wealthy to stay at a dude ranch back in the day,” Wells said.
But life on these ranches today might look surprisingly similar to a century ago.
Ranch hands might start rounding up horses at 4:30 in the morning and preparing breakfast so it’s ready for guests when they awaken, Wells said. In addition to historic photos of the ranches, photographer Scott Baxter spent four months on the road capturing how the ranches look now.
While still offering a vacation that’s more expensive than a typical tourist might be able to afford, Wells said one of the constants at the centennial ranches spread across four states is the service and experience they offer.
“The strongest element that’s kept dude ranching going all that time is a common denominator,” Wells said. “It’s the desire to offer great hospitality.”
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It was while kicking around ideas for the 100-year anniversary of the Dude Ranching Association that Jaye Wells asked how many ranches have a similar legacy. “Nobody in the room knew,” Wells recalled. That’s how the new book “100 Years of Dude Ranching” was born. (Courtesy Scott T. Baxter) -
As much as the book celebrates dude ranches, it’s also a tribute to a unique way of life, particularly in Wyoming. “It’s such a tough business, but it’s such a joy,” said Jaye Wells, who owns the Blackwater Creek Lodge & Guest Ranch in Cody. (Courtesy Scott T. Baxter) -
As much as the book celebrates dude ranches, it’s also a tribute to a unique way of life, particularly in Wyoming. “It’s such a tough business, but it’s such a joy,” said Jaye Wells, who owns the Blackwater Creek Lodge & Guest Ranch in Cody. (Courtesy Scott T. Baxter)
Pressures To Modernize
Even so, dude ranch owners do feel some pressure to modernize to appease guests who have become downright uncomfortable unplugging.
Such changes have seen ranches offering Wi-Fi, say, or packing days with lots of activities.
Even though guests will quickly learn that riding a horse all day is exercise in and of itself, Wells said he’s felt that pressure, too. “We have a full-blown exercise room at White Stallion Ranch,” he said of one of his ranches near Tucson, Arizona. “You have to have it now.”
What’s more, even though guests will rave about how relaxing they find their stay or how much they appreciate the quality time with loved ones, they’re booking shorter and shorter stays.
In the 1920s, people from out East might come to a ranch for months at a time, and there was a time not so long ago when a one- or two-week stay was the norm.
“Now, guests only want to stay three nights. That’s the number one trend in the business we see,” Wells said. “We forget we’re so connected now, it’s almost too much. We’re being bombarded by information 24 hours a day.”
‘It’s Such A Joy’
Putting this book together gave Wells a newfound appreciation for the diversity of Wyoming’s topography and landscapes.
The project also offered constant reminders about why he loves dude ranching so much and how pivotal the business was to shaping the West.
Of course, he’s also reminded of how unique this business is while conversing with guests over the years — including tourists from abroad who marvel at the idea of being able to shoot a gun, spend a week bonding with a horse or simply get to decompress in a way they haven’t been able to do since childhood.
“I would venture to say it’s one of the most iconic symbols in the world,” Wells said of dude ranching. “It’s such a tough business, but it’s such a joy.”
CASPER, Wyo. — There was magic, or something like it, in the air on Saturday as the Central Wyoming Fairgrounds presented the 2026 Casper Holistic Expo, Casper’s longest running holistic expo and a hallmark of the beginning of spring in Natrona County.
Countless vendors from Casper and beyond gathered with their goodies to present them to eager customers searching for something a little different.
The holistic expo featured crystal and metaphysical shops, tattoo and body piercing studios, henna and glitter tattoo studios, holistic shops, tarot readings, fortune tellers, magic and so much more. There was truly something for everyone, and Christina Kuhn, the lead organizer, said that nobody who came to the expo would leave disappointed.
“This actually started over 20 years ago,” Kuhn said. “I’ve been doing it for years. My mom did it for seven years before me. And Judy Ick, who actually does our photography, she did it before that. So it’s been a very long, very longstanding and growing event.”
Kuhn said that the Holistic Expo has grown exponentially over the years.
“When Judy passed it down to mom, there were 38 booths,” she said. “After mom passed it down to me, there were 78. Now I think we’re up to, like, 98.”
The booths are as eclectic as the people who run them. There’s magic, mysticism and moonlight; storytellers and palm readers; conversationalists and creators. There are CBD products, organic teas, energy testing, and even fudge.
“Some of this is kind of a special niche,” Kuhn shared, “but some of it is not. We’ve got a chiropractor. We’ve got people that are working with healing modalities. Some of it’s spiritual stuff. We’ve got crafts, too.”
There’s a wide variety of vendors and customers as the Holistic Expo, and Kuhn said she wouldn’t want it any other way. The most important thing they do, Kuhn said, is donate to local nonprofits.
“People can either pay the $5 door fee — anybody that’s 13 or over — or they can donate five nonperishable goods,” Kuhn said. “We started donating that to poverty resistance, and then we did City Park Church. This year we’re donating to the Wyoming Food for Thought Project.”
Kuhn said this was just a simple way to give back to the community, a community she and her business have been a part of for years. Kuhn owns a store in downtown Casper called A Place for Passion, and the Holistic Expo also allows her to bring some merch from her store and put in on display with a variety of other items. It’s a fun way to spend a weekend, she said, and she’s proud to be a part of it.
“Good lord, I’ve been doing this for a long time,” she said. “I helped my mom with it for ages and she wanted somebody that would carry on and keep expanding and doing well with it. Before I was helping run the show and managing it, I was a booth. I started sharing a booth with my mom because I only had a few things and I wasn’t sure how well they’d sell. But then it just expanded and took off, and now here I am.”
Kuhn said it means a lot that she’s able to continue the Holistic Expo for her mother.
“It’s nice to keep expanding something, especially something that contributes so much to the community,” she said. “There are so many people that come out and enjoy everything that they get here. And it’s a big opportunity for them to connect with others, to connect with people that have stuff they want to offer them.”
That, Kuhn said, is her favorite part of the Holistic Expo — meeting people.
“It’s just nice connecting with people and helping them out in any way that you can,” she said. “Everybody’s got their own knowledge, gifts, products that they’re putting out — services, whatever it is. So being able to share that with others is awesome. You’ve got to come check it out. It’s an awesome experience. There’s a little something for everyone.”
The Casper Holistic Expo is happening Saturday until 6 p.m. and on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Industrial Building at the Central Wyoming Fairgrounds.
Photos from the Holistic Expo can be seen below:
Related
A 6-inch megalodon shark tooth was found by a Wyoming teen during a dive trip off Manasota Key, Florida earlier this week.
Sixteen-year-old Aiden Andrews and his father Brian were on a guided dive with Fossil Junkies, a local fossil-hunting tour company.
Captain John Kreatsoulas told FOX 13 Tampa Bay reporter Kimberly Kuizon that while finding small megalodon teeth isn’t uncommon, finding one that size is quite rare.
Video captured the moments when Aiden and his father celebrated underwater after making the remarkable discovery.
Popularized by Hollywood monster movies, the Carcharocles megalodon was the largest shark to have ever lived, according to the Smithsonian Institution.
Scientists believe the largest megalodon reached up to 60 feet in length and weighed up to 50 tons.
And as Andrews can attest — they possessed teeth the size of a human hand.
According to the Smithsonian, megalodon lived between 23 and 3.6 million years ago across all of Earth’s oceans.
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