Arizona creates border task force to counter cartels

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has signed an executive order to combat drug and migrant smuggling and gun-running in four counties bordering Mexico.

Operation Desert Guardian creates a state partnership with municipal police departments, county sheriff’s offices and federal agencies to disrupt transnational criminal organizations’ operations in Yuma, Pima, Santa Cruz and Cochise counties, Hobbs said in a Feb. 25 statement.

The state will contribute resources from the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, the Department of Public Safety and the Arizona Department of Homeland Security.

“I’m proud to launch Operation Desert Guardian to combat the cartels, stop drug smuggling and human trafficking, and secure Arizona’s border,” said Hobbs, a Democrat. “My administration has been in contact with the federal government and local sheriffs about the operation, its critical objectives, and our shared commitment to keeping criminals and drugs out of Arizona’s communities.”

The task force will identify vulnerabilities along the 370 miles of shared border with Mexico, focus on “border-related crimes,” which might include drug and people smuggling and gun-running to Mexico, and disrupting supply drug supply chains to major cities like Phoenix.

Operation Desert Guardian will be funded by the state’s Border Security Fund currently standing at $28 million.

The executive order drew mixed reaction from border sheriffs.

Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot told KPNX he was not consulted by Hobbs and expressed concerns about personnel deployment now that illegal border crossings have drastically decreased.

Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels told KNXV the operation — politics aside — is “a plan that’s got common sense all over it.”