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See also

Border Patrol, U.S.;

Deportation;

Homeland Security Department;

The Secure Fence Act.

Issues in U.S. Immigration

Shadow wolves (Native American INS tracking unit)

by Heather Hummel

The Law: The “Shadow Wolves” is a designated Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactical patrol unit comprised of Native American trackers. Their unit plays a significant role in tracking smugglers through the Tohono O'odham Nation territory, a federally recognized Tribe. Covering a 76-mile (122 km) stretch of land, their territory runs along the Mexico and United States border in southern Arizona. This patrol unit makes up part of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Shadow Wolves unit is authorized by Congress to enlist up to 21 agents.

Date: In 1972, an act of Congress formally established the law enforcement unit “Shadow Wolves.”

Immigration Issues: With Native American land spanning the Mexican-American border in southwest Arizona, there was a need to secure the border from drug smugglers. The “Shadow Wolves” fill the need with tracking skills that have been passed down from generation to generation.

Significance: “Shadow Wolves” is adeptly titled to reflect the way in which their unit hunts like a pack of wolves. Governing four separate parcels of land that total 2.8 million acres (11,330 km2) in southern Arizona, the Tohono O'odham Nation is the collective government body of the Tohono O'odham tribe. Located in the Sonoran Desert, the Tohono O'odham Nation is the size of the state of Connecticut and is the second largest Native American land holding in the United States. The Capital, Sells, Arizona, is the Nation's largest community. The Nation itself has approximately 28,000 enrolled members; however, most of them do not reside on reservations. Organized as twelve local districts, the Nation employs a tripartite system of government, which ascribes to French Enlightenment political philosopher Baron de Montesquieu. In The Spirit of the Laws (1748), Montesquieu describes the separation of political power among a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary.

As trackers, the role of a Shadow Wolf officer is to locate aliens and drug smugglers who are attempting to smuggle illegal commodities across the Mexican-American border in the Tohono O'odham Nation. The unit was officially founded in 1972 as an initiative by Congress to track drug smugglers on Southwestern Native American lands. Yet, the trait of tracking has been passed down among Shadow Wolves for generations. It is an art that involves hours or days searching for signs such as fresh footprints, clothing, tire tracks, materials, and more. According to a 2007 story in the New York Times, “The Shadow Wolves hone in on drug smugglers, who use less-traveled cattle tracks, old wagon-wheel trails and barely formed footpaths to ferry their loads to roads and highways about 40 miles from the border.

There is noted opposition regarding the drug runners who are called out for tramping through the ancient cemeteries and holy places. Kevin Carlos is one such agent who is especially inspired to track the drug runners due to the menacing havoc they wreak on sacred land. In an interview with Brian Bennett for the LA Times, Carlos states:

“That peak up there, [Carlos] says, speeding toward the reservation's border with Mexico. That's where the creator lives. His name is I'itoi, the elder brother. He created the tribe out of wet clay after a summer rain. Tribe members still bring him offerings — shell bracelets, beargrass baskets and family photos—and leave them in his cave scooped out of the peak.

”But the drug smugglers don't know that. On their way to supply America's drug markets, they use these sacred hilltops as lookouts, water holes as toilets and the desert as a trash can.”

Carlos is one example of the authorized 25 agents who are motivated to both protect the United States from an influx of drug smugglers, but also to protect their sacred lands and habitats.

When the act came into place in 1972, the United States Customs Service recruited seven Native American trackers from the Tohono O'odham tribal police. Part of their role was to chase smugglers who tread on tribal lands and who penetrate the closed society of the reservation. Bennett also interviewed one of the first agents hired, Stanley Liston, who was born in Sells, Arizona, the capital of the reservation, but who was raised on the ranchlands just south of the border. Bennett reports:

“As a child, [Liston] learned to read the signs left in the desert by stray horses and cattle that slipped through his father's fence.

‘In the 1970s there were very few border patrol. We were the only people chasing drugs on the reservation,’ said Liston, now 73 and retired. He lives in Santa Rosa on the reservation.

Liston could walk into a campsite where smugglers were sleeping, count their weapons and walk out without being noticed.

Customs officers started calling him ‘the shadow man,’ and his fellow trackers ‘the shadow wolves.’”

As a community that most people in the United States probably don't even know about, their imprint on protecting the United States from drug smugglers is a powerful and respectable one.

Background

Tohono O'odham translates as “desert people.” The United States federal government agreed to the demands of the Tohono O'odham Nation to have the patrol officers for their border comprise of at least one-quarter Native Americans. Therefore, the Shadow Wolves became the first federal law enforcement agents allowable on Tohono land.

In 2003, the Shadow Wolves became part of the Department of Homeland Security; yet in October 2006, they were transferred back to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from the United States Custom and Border Protection (CBP) border patrol.

In a 2007 story in the Washington Post, journalist Randal Archibald interviewed Rodney Irby, a special agent in Tucson for the immigration agency who helps supervise the Shadow Wolves, who stated:

“Detecting is one thing, and apprehending is something entirely different. I applaud the technology; it will only make the border more secure. But there are still going to be groups of people who penetrate the most modern technology, and we need a cadre of agents and officers to apprehend them.

“The Shadow Wolves have seized nearly 30,000 pounds of illegal drugs since October, putting them on pace to meet or exceed previous annual seizure amounts. They routinely seize some 100,000 pounds of illegal drugs a year.”

Archibald further reports that the then fifteen-member unit was also responsible over forty-three criminal arrests of smugglers and the seizure of 16 vehicles.

Legislation

In 1972, an act of Congress formally established the law enforcement unit “Shadow Wolves.”

Further Reading

1 

While there are no specific books on the Shadow Wolves, a film about them titled Call of the Shadow Wolves centers on their work to protect the U.S. borders from criminals and terrorists.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Hummel, Heather. "Shadow Wolves (Native American INS Tracking Unit)." Issues in U.S. Immigration, edited by Carl L. Bankston III, Salem Press, 2015. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=IUSI_0196.
APA 7th
Hummel, H. (2015). Shadow wolves (Native American INS tracking unit). In C. Bankston III (Ed.), Issues in U.S. Immigration. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Hummel, Heather. "Shadow Wolves (Native American INS Tracking Unit)." Edited by Carl L. Bankston III. Issues in U.S. Immigration. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2015. Accessed September 15, 2025. online.salempress.com.