McCain tweet
Sen. John McCain posted this message to Twitter on Wednesday after he and a number of others witnessed a woman scale a fence and enter the United States illegally near Nogales, Ariz. Twitter/@SenJohnMcCain

Arizona Republican Senator John McCain tweeted as an undocumented immigrant crossed the border Wednesday between the United States and Mexico ... right in front of him. The play-by-play of the immigrant's crossing made for instant immigration reform fodder.

McCain's tweet read: "Just witnessed a woman successfully climb an 18-foot bollard fence a few yards from us in #Nogales [Arizona]."

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who was with McCain at the time, later said his firsthand experience of an illegal border crossing would be an example to his fellow legislators of the urgency of immigration reform: "I'll be able to explain this to my colleagues ... many of [whom] say 'Why do we need to do anything more on the border.'"

McCain tweeted while ostensibly en route to the border near Nogales, Ariz., while on the border witnessing the immigrant's crossing and finally afterward when the woman was detained by U.S. Border Patrol Agents.

McCain was joined on the trip by Schumer, Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and fellow Arizona Republican Jeff Flake. Bennet said he was "surprise[d]" by the incident, occurring a mere feet from where he and the other members of the "Gang of Eight" were standing.

McCain lamented that Americans must delineate between members of the violent gangs and drug cartels crossing the border and those individuals escaping poverty and the danger of violence in Mexico.

"Most of those people who jump over the fence [just] want a better life," he later told reporters.

The immigration battle adds up to quite the expenditure for taxpayers. The government employs 22,000 Border Patrol Agents, and has constructed over 650 miles of fencing along the nearly 2,000 mile border.

Potential 2016 presidential candidates have made immigration a paramount issue in their budding platforms, most notably former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, as the Latin Times previously reported.

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