Fire restrictions are in place as the Sand Stone Fire burns near Highway 87 on Aug. 1, 2024, in Fort McDowell, Ariz.

PHOENIX ‒ The Customs and Border Protection aircraft circled the desert northeast of Phoenix until agents spotted their target getting into a white sedan. Officers on the ground converged and arrested the driver. His crime: shooting a rifle within the boundaries of Tonto National Forest.

After he was stopped, the man, Alejandro Antelo Corrales, admitted to being in the country illegally.

He would become one of 15 people arrested since May and charged with having a firearm or ammunition while being in the country without authorization, a federal felony. Each person likely faces deportation after their criminal case is done.

Across the country, immigration agents have targeted restaurant kitchens. In California, agents have picked up day laborers waiting for work outside Home Depot stores.

National forests represent a unique hunting ground for immigration patrols.

U.S. Forest Service officers would typically be on the lookout for target shooters who could spark a forest fire, but it is not clear why immigration authorities would be involved in such an operation.

The archives of The Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network, do not contain an account of a similar immigration enforcement action centered on target shooters.

Immigration agents part of joint federal operation

All but one of the arrests since May took place in the Tonto National Forest, an area popular with off-road enthusiasts and target shooters. Six of the arrests took place on weekend nights, with one as late as 11:55 p.m.

Spanish-speaking off-road enthusiasts have planned desert parties on social media, with some fliers making clear that weapons are prohibited. It is not clear if these arrests came in the aftermath of one of those events.

Neither the Border Patrol nor Homeland Security Investigations would comment on the extent of the agencies’ patrols in the area. Neither would the United States Department of Agriculture, the agency that oversees the U.S. Forest Service officers who have made some of the arrests.

An attorney who is representing one of the men arrested said the patrols turned Forest Service officers into quasi-immigration agents.

“It’s creative, I’ll give them that,” said attorney Joshua Kolsrud, who spent 14 years as a prosecutor before becoming a defense attorney in 2021.

Kolsrud said the arrests would be used to bolster fears of dangerous immigrants on the loose within the community.

“They’ll make that argument going forward,” he said. “We’re not just removing or deporting regular Joe Blow, but dangerous people because they’re possessing firearms.”

Kolsrud said his client, Adalberto Contreras-Regalado, was not dangerous. He was a husband and businessman who, like many Arizonans, enjoyed target shooting in the desert on his days off.

Contreras-Regalado joined other men who have been arrested in joint operations involving the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, Homeland Security agents and Border Patrol agents, according to court records.

The criminal complaints say the men arrested first captured the attention of law enforcement because they were shooting recklessly in the desert.

It is not clear why immigration authorities were in the area, waiting to take the shooters into custody.

Shooting restrictions meant to limit forest fires

Certain activities in Tonto National Forest were restricted starting May 1 because of severe drought. Among the prohibited activities were campfires and target shooting. Signs saying so were placed near the entrance to the recreational area.

Bullets can cause blazes.

Someone firing a weapon started the Bullet Fire in June 2023, which charred 3,240 acres in Tonto National Forest. That blaze, which took place in the same area where these immigration arrests are taking place, briefly closed the state highway and necessitated the evacuation of two camping areas.

Forest Service rangers, officially called law enforcement officers, have the primary mission of protecting natural resources and visitors, according to the agency website. Other parts of their job, according to the website, include investigating timber theft, enforcing traffic laws on forest roads and aiding with search and rescue missions.

Their job would naturally extend to patrols to enforce shooting restrictions put in place to prevent forest fires.

It is not clear why immigration authorities have become interested in people whose initial crime was target shooting.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the air support was provided at the request of the U.S. Forest Service but would not say why.

A fact sheet for the air unit says it concentrates on preventing acts of terrorism and stopping the flow of contraband. Another section of the website says it aids in search and rescue operations and events designated as national security priorities. The website contains a photo above a stadium hosting a Super Bowl.

A spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe, said that the agency partnered with other federal agencies since it was created “in furtherance of public safety.”

She did not specifically comment on a July arrest made by what was described in a criminal complaint as a “joint patrol” of the U.S. Forest Service and Homeland Security Investigations.

The U.S. Forest Service released a statement that said it routinely notifies other agencies if it comes across violations. The office did not address how often it has conducted joint patrols with immigration authorities.

The enforcement comes during a year when President Donald Trump has vowed a mass deportation effort with a goal of 1 million deportations this year. Trump and immigration officials have vowed to prioritize public safety threats.

Target shooters face arrest, trial, likely deportation

The first immigration-related arrests for target shooting came May 3. Four officers with the U.S. Forest Service saw a group of five people target shooting on pits created by recreational users for that purpose, according to court papers.

One agent told the men, in Spanish, that target shooting was prohibited because of an order that had taken effect two days before. The men said they had used the area for target shooting several times before, according to the complaint.

When questioned, each man told the agents what guns they owned, according to the court papers. Each, when asked, also handed an agent a Mexican identification card when asked for ID, the court record says.

Each man also told the agent they were in the country illegally, the court record shows, with two of them volunteering that they had been deported before.

Each was taken into ICE custody and subsequently charged with a felony for illegally possessing a weapon.

Another arrest came after agents with the Bureau of Land Management in February reported seeing a man shooting weapons in what they described in court papers was an “unsafe manner.”

That man showed rangers the five rifles he had in the bed of his pickup truck, court papers say. Rangers seized one, and let him leave the area, located outside of Phoenix, with the other four.

Nearly three months later, agents from three agencies ‒ the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the FBI and the IRS ‒ converged on the man’s Glendale home.

The man, Contreras-Regalado, opened a safe for agents, who seized the eight weapons inside, according to the criminal complaint filed in court. Asked why he had so many weapons, the man said that he “enjoyed shooting.”

Contreras-Regalado’s attorney, Kolsrud, said that the government likely trained so many agencies on the house expecting to find a kingpin committing financial crimes.

“But it didn’t turn out that way for them,” Kolsrud said. “There’s no reason to bring out every three-letter agency to search someone’s house unless you think he’s a high-level operative.”

Contreras-Regalado was charged with illegally possessing a firearm. His trial is scheduled for September.

More arrests took place on patrols on separate nights in July and August. The criminal complaint in each of the cases mentioned a joint- or multi-agency operation. Court records related to three arrests on Aug. 2 mentioned use of a Customs and Border Protection air unit.

Another man wanted for possessing a weapon despite being in the country illegally has a warrant out for his arrest. On May 25, Forest Service rangers saw the man shooting near the dry creek bed in the Tonto National Forest.

Rangers spoke with the man’s girlfriend, who allowed a search of their vehicle. Rangers, according to court documents, found ammunition she said her boyfriend purchased earlier that day.

Months later, a grand jury presented with the evidence returned a two-count indictment against the man. But he has not faced the charges.

As rangers approached, according to a court document, he walked into the desert and could not be found.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: These ICE agents have a new way to target and capture immigrants

Reporting by Richard Ruelas, USA TODAY NETWORK / Arizona Republic

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