Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson speaks in Phoenix

Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson delivered a speech at the Phoenix Convention Center on Tuesday night, drawing a large audience.

The gathering outgrew its original venue, Grace Community Church in Tempe. Chairman of the Arizona Republican Party Robert Graham said more than 10,000 people were in attendance.

Amazing @RealBenCarson event for primary voters in PHX. 10,000 plus attendees. @AZGOP #meetthe candidates pic.twitter.com/gkTOuGWjm9

— Robert Graham (@RobertSGraham) August 19, 2015

Carson’s first visit to the Valley this election season follows stops made by two other presidential candidates — fellow Republican Donald Trump and Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders.

Carson spoke on a wide variety of topics including education, taxes, the national debt and immigration. He said even though he has not been extremely vocal about the issue, it is important to him.

“And my view is that illegal immigration is a problem and that we need to fix it,” Carson said. He would tour the border Wednesday with Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu.

Carson said while he is not in favor of amnesty he does like the idea of a guest worker program.

“That provides them a way to live above ground. They need to pay a back tax penalty and they have to pay taxes going forward,” Carson said. “Does not give them voting rights, does not make them a citizen. If they want to do that, they need to go through the same process as everybody else.”

As far as spending and taxes, Carson said not spending for three to four years would help to balance the federal budget. He believes passing the federal debt onto to the next generation is immoral. Carson also advocated lower corporate taxes and a flat tax for all incomes.

Carson also said minimum wage needs to be adjusted and indexed. He also suggested trimming the Department of Education, as education funding in this country is not a problem. He said this would make sure children are not stuck in a bad system.

Carson additionally laid out his stance on how to handle ISIS. He said the U.S. needs to take their land and oil to stop the source of their funding and wipe out ISIS fighters.

After his speech, Carson retweeted an attendee’s post stating the audience around 12,000 all sung along to “God Bless America.”

We the People stood strongly holding the banner of freedom high for all to see tonight. #HealInspireRevive https://t.co/5xrVnDrwyk

— Ben & Candy Carson (@RealBenCarson) August 19, 2015

Wednesday morning Carson took a brief helicopter tour of the Arizona-Mexico border.

Before the tour, Carson sat for a detailed briefing, which included discussion of drug smuggling and scouts for cartels who live in caves on mountains in Pinal County.

(KTAR Photo/Jim Cross)

Carson asked deputies, “If you had a drone, that was equipped with a missile, and you shot it into (caves, mountaintop hangouts) and it blew it up, what would be the consequences to you?”

The deputy told him they would go to prison.

Carson will also spend some time Wednesday in another border area, Cochise County, to meet with Sheriff Mark Daniels.

Sheriff Paul Babeu briefing @RealBenCarson about border here in Pinal County Sheriff's Office. pic.twitter.com/Y9hlly5mUT

— Matthew Boyle (@mboyle1) August 19, 2015

KTAR’s Cooper Rummell and Jim Cross contributed to this report.

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