A person who was being held in custody near the United States border with Mexico in Arizona was in critical condition after a shooting involving the U.S. Border Patrol on Tuesday, the authorities said.
Teams from the Santa Rita Fire District of Green Valley, Ariz., and American Medical Response, which provides medical emergency services, were dispatched to the reported shooting around milepost 15 on West Arivaca Road, just after 7:30 a.m., the fire district said in an emailed statement.
Crews found “one patient in custody and in critical condition,” and provided medical care before the patient was airlifted to a regional trauma center, the fire district said.
No further details about the episode or the patient were provided. Law enforcement agencies are investigating, the statement said.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Office said it was working with the F.B.I. and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol, on the “shooting involving U.S. Border Patrol in Arivaca.”
The Border Patrol and its parent agency, Customs and Border Protection, did not immediately provide a comment on the shooting.
Arivaca Road is about 25 miles from the international border and about 20 miles from the center of Arivaca, an unincorporated community in Arizona. The region and its checkpoints have been a focus of border enforcement for decades.
In 2023, Customs and Border Protection said that a Border Patrol agent “was involved in a use-of-force incident while investigating a human smuggling event” near the Santa Cruz and Pima Counties line.
In 2003, a shooting by a Border Patrol agent wounded one person near Arivaca, one of two shootings in a week that capped a string of drug seizures by the patrol, The Arizona Daily Star reported that year.
Scrutiny of the nation’s immigration debate has been heightened in recent months with the Trump’s administration crackdown turning violent in Minneapolis, including the fatal shootings of two people by federal officers.
Kitty Bennett contributed research.
Christine Hauser is a Times reporter who writes breaking news stories, features and explainers.
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