U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., author of a bill creating the Mexican-American border fence, traveled to a town that aroused national attention over the issue of illegal immigration.

But his appearance on the presidential campaign trail at Skate Zone attracted only about 30 people on a Wednesday afternoon.

Hunter said the U.S. should follow the lead he set in San Diego County, where a double border fence 15 feet high, 59 miles long, with a high-speed U.S. Border Patrol road next to it, reduced the smuggling of people and drugs by 90 percent. He boasted the crime rate in San Diego fell by 53 percent.

Hunter then authored a bill mandating the extension of the double border fence 854 miles across the rest of the Mexico border. It was signed by President Bush Oct. 26, 2006.

But he complained the government only built about 100 miles of it, and only 5.15 miles of it is double-fenced. The final bill allowed the federal government to decide how much to build.

"As president of the United States I will complete that border fence, all 850 miles, in six months," Hunter said.

The border fence was credited with solving a litany of problems from job losses to national security.

When some people say there's certain jobs Americans won't do, Hunter points to the dry wall contractor who pays his employees $27 per hour including benefits, who is being undercut by competitors hiring illegal aliens.

"You can deport somebody at two in the afternoon and they're back by six. We're like a boat. We're all bailing water out of the boat, but it's got a big hole in it," he said. "Now to plug a hole in the boat, that means if you build the border fence then when you deport somebody they're not going to come back in two hours."

The San Diego area at one time had half the U.S. border patrolmen in the country. Hunter said they can now disperse to patrol other areas, or conduct immigration raids, because of the border fence.

A federal judge Wednesday ordered the city of Eagle Pass, Texas, to allow the federal government easements to build the fence. Hunter said the building of the San Diego fence wasn't popular either, but said land owners can't determine who enters the country. Especially after the 9/11 terrorist attack, Americans need to know who's entering the country and what they're bringing with them, he said.

On military matters, Hunter said he's the only presidential candidate to be the chairman of a major military committee. He was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee for four years. Hunter said he's also the only congressman with a son who served in two theaters, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I've added over $400 million worth of body armor for our troops, new upgraded trucks and vehicles that are stronger and more protective, jammers to protect against roadside bombs in Iraq, I've done everything I can to make sure our guys have the right equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan," Hunter said.

"I've also increased the size of the U.S. Marine Corps to 380,000. I've worked with the Senate and my fellow House members to make the army bigger. We put a lot of money over the years into equipment and into the right type of pay and personnel packages so that our military families have a high quality of life," he said.

The U.S. is losing its industrial base and Hunter recalled when Detroit manufactured a bomber aircraft every 60 minutes during World War II and turned out thousands of tanks.

"That's one reason we won World War II. It's also a reason we won the Cold War. Because when President Reagan started to match the Soviet's military equipment for military equipment, after a while they realized they couldn't keep up with us," Hunter said.

Recently, he found there was only one American company that still made high-grade armored steel plates for Humvees in Iraq.

"The rest of those companies had already left. Now one reason they're leaving is because China is cheating on trade. Communist China has devalued their money by 40 percent. Now what that means is every product they make that's purchased in dollars is 40 percent cheaper than it should be. It undercuts the cost of the price of every American product," Hunter said. "I would put countervailing duties on their goods to bring their prices up to where they would be if they weren't cheating on trade and manipulating their currency."

More alarming, Hunter said China is using American trade dollars to build fighter aircraft, is producing three times as many submarines as the U.S. and about 100 ballistic missiles a year, including one with nuclear warheads that can reach the United States.

"Some of those missiles will be aimed at American cities. So China is emerging as the next military superpower," he said.

Hunter said Republican candidate Ron Paul is taking credit for a bill to eliminate taxes on tips, but he was the congressman who first sponsored it.

While Hunter finished with less than 1 percent of the vote in Iowa and New Hampshire, he urged supporters in Pahrump to stand up for him in each precinct, during the Republican caucus Saturday. Hunter mentioned his A-plus rating from the National Rifle Association, 100 percent voting record with the Right to Life organization and 100 percent rating from the campaign for working families.

Hunter supports a constitutional amendment to protect the rights of the unborn.

"I can tell you as a president I would not appoint a federal judge who can look at a sonogram of an unborn child and not see a valuable human life," he said.