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NOGALES - Congressional representatives from four states visited Nogales Friday. The group, put together by District 7 Representative Raul Grijalva, was hoping to gain insight from residents, law enforcement and other leaders from Santa Cruz County.

Representatives Silvestre Reyes from Texas, Michael Honda from California and Luis Gutierrez from Illinois participated in the border hearing.

Sheriff Tony Estrada told the congressmen that law enforcement had located more than 70 tunnels in the community of Nogales, Arizona, yet it continued to be one of the safest communities in the country with more than 1,000 law enforcement personnel in Santa Cruz County.

There are approximately 45,000 people living in Santa Cruz County and more than 450,000 residents in the neighboring border community of Nogales, Sonora.

Dr. Gregory Hess, the Chief Medical Examiner from the Pima County Forensic Science Center told the panel that his office processed the bodies of approximately 1,755 immigrants between 1999 and 2009.

Representative Luis Gutierrez said he and his colleagues had hoped to take the information they learned from Friday's hearing back to Washington to share with their colleagues, "we want to see the border. The things in which people are suffering from. We're going to go advocates of human rights so we can talk to the. And we should expand commerce but we shouldn't expand it at the expense of people's lives."

According to Representative Raul Grijalva, the ports of entry in border towns need the most attention to continue carrying a steady flow of trade between the United States and Mexico. Rep. Gutierrez said, "we should make sure commerce and industry continue to prosper. I mean, what's the one thing that terrorists want to do? They want to destroy America, they want nothing better than to handicap our economy."

On Friday the congressmen toured an area near the border with the group No More Deaths and then held a rally at San Miguel High School in Tucson.