ON THE CUTTING EDGE: On The Right Track
Harold Thompson, is one of 15 Native American officers who comprise the Shadow Wolves unit of the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). While infrared cameras, sensors and unmanned drones are increasingly being pressed into service to help the border patrol interdict illegal aliens crossing into the US from our Southern border, this 50-year old Navajo uses an age-old technique to find and apprehend drug smugglers crossing into AZ via the Tohono O’odham reservation. Thompson is a tracker who follows footprints of drug smugglers for miles through the Sonoran desert until he catches up with, and apprehends, them.
The Shadow Wolves have seized 30,000 pounds of marijuana and other illegal drugs since October, and routinely seize 100,000 pounds of drugs a year, according to an ICE spokesperson. The agency may replicate the program to patrol the border separating Canada and the Blackfeet reservation in Montana, as there has been increased drug trafficking on that section of our Northern border as well.
In the tradition of the Navajo code-talkers of WWII, The New York Times reports that "the Departments of State and Defense have arranged for the Shadow Wolves to train border guards in other countries, including some central to the fight against terrorism. Several officers are going to train border police in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, which border Afghanistan, and in several other countries."
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