Regional directors for two federal agencies — Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection — fielded questions from reporters Wednesday in the agencies’ first local news conference in months.
The conference came at a time when CBP’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, is pushing ahead on plans to build new border barriers in communities ranging from eastern Santa Cruz County to the Tohono O’odham Nation.
Meanwhile, a separate DHS agency — Immigration and Customs Enforcement — has continued to arrest tens of thousands of people each month, including hundreds of U.S. citizens, according to a recent ProPublica investigation.
Directors at Wednesday's conference, however, asked journalists to limit their questions to operational issues within CBP.
“Can you tell us more about the construction of the border wall in the Nogales area?” asked J. Hiram Gonzalez of Telemundo.
“We’re happy to take that question via separate correspondence with our border wall team in Washington,” replied Landon Hutchens, a CBP Public Affairs Officer. “They’re the ones that manage the construction of the border wall.”
CBP and Border Patrol officers did, however, take questions on a number of other topics, ranging from new upgrades at land ports of entry to the federal government’s recent decision to deny permits for a humanitarian group that places water stations in the Arizona desert.
Fentanyl: More seizures, less weight, and an overall decline
Overall, agents said they’re seeing less fentanyl, both at Arizona’s land ports of entry and along the border.
Technically, customs agents are logging more seizures of the drug at the ports, said Roque Caza, the director of Tucson’s CBP field office. But there’s a “caveat,” he added, noting that between Fiscal Year 2025 and Fiscal Year 2026, the overall weight of those seizures declined by about 30%.
Historically, the vast majority of fentanyl is smuggled through official ports of entry, and Arizona’s land ports remain an active hub for the opioid — accounting for 30% of all fentanyl seizures nationwide, Caza said.
Still, between ports along the border, where the drug is less abundant, agents are finding less fentanyl, according to CBP data.
“We're not seeing it at the checkpoints. We're not seeing that much backpacked out in the desert. We're just not seeing it,” said Stephen Cristinzio, acting deputy chief patrol agent of Border Patrol’s Tucson sector.
As CBP works to intercept fentanyl at the border, it collaborates with another entity — ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit, or HSI.
In August, a report from the Office of the Inspector General found that HSI is prioritizing immigration enforcement over fentanyl-related investigations. That shift, coupled with other factors, “hindered” HSI’s ability to counter fentanyl entering the United States.
“As ICE shifted priorities toward immigration enforcement, (Homeland Security Investigation)’s level of effort on fentanyl declined from fiscal years 2024 to 2025,” the OIG report stated.
During that period, the number of hours ICE’s investigative unit spent on counter-fentanyl efforts dropped by 31%. At the same time, hours spent on immigration enforcement increased by 800%.
Asked about the report at Wednesday’s press event, Cristinzio deferred to HSI.
“We're just not seeing it,” he said of fentanyl. “So, I think you could draw a correlation there. If it's not there, perhaps HSI is focusing on other things, but we would defer to them to answer that question.”
Border crossings down, aid in the desert ‘an absolute must’
CBP officials noted Wednesday that border crossings remain down — a trend that began in 2024, after the Biden Administration passed an executive order limiting access to asylum. Unauthorized border crossings continued to drop under the current Trump administration.
“In the last two fiscal years, we've seen a 96% decrease in encounters,” said Cristinzio of Border Patrol.
While border crossings have plummeted, the journey has continued to prove deadly. The Pima County Medical Examiner, in collaboration with the humanitarian aid group Humane Borders, has logged 89 deaths in the southern Arizona desert so far this year.
Humane Borders also maintains water stations for people crossing the desert. Earlier this month, however, the federal government denied permits for nearly one-third of those water stations, according to the organization.
“To remove water from that area is truly cruel. And the only thing that our work is doing is placing these water stations as a humanitarian act of last resort. If you can find our blue flag and our blue water barrel, this can be a matter of life and death for you,” the group’s executive director, Octavio Fuentes, told KJZZ this week.
Asked about feds’ decision to deny Humane Borders’ permits, Cristinzio of Border Patrol said the agency hasn’t “had any discussions of actually putting water out” in place of Humane Borders.
Still, he added, with “less apprehensions out there … We're able to respond to things differently, right? We have the time and the space to do those things. And so, we have the opportunity to go out there, if people are in need. If you do make the decision to cross the border illegally, which is very dangerous, call 911. We are there,” Cristinzio said.
Then, faced with additional questions about the Humane Borders permits, Cristinzio noted that it hadn’t been CBP’s decision. Three other federal agencies — the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — made the call.
“So, I don’t have the answer, as far as restricting it. But yeah. I can’t argue with you,” Cristinzio said, responding to a question from Emily Bregel of the Arizona Daily Star about whether the move would cause more deaths.
“Water — any aid that is provided to anybody that’s in distress anywhere is an absolute must,” Cristinzio added.
