U.S. Customs and Border Protection is moving forward with plans to build a new Border Patrol station near Three Points in Pima County, according to a scoping letter obtained by LOOKOUT.

The letter, given to LOOKOUT by Pima County Board of Supervisors Chair Jen Allen, is dated Aug. 21, 2026, and signed by John Petrilla of CBP's Office of Facilities and Asset Management. It notifies the county that the agency is preparing an Environmental Assessment (EA) to study the impacts of building, operating and maintaining a new station on a roughly 87-acre parcel of Bureau of Land Management property along State Route 86.

CBP says the station is meant to accommodate additional Border Patrol agents and personnel in the Tucson Area of Responsibility, with the stated goal of "increasing the probability of apprehension of those that have entered into the U.S. illegally," according to the letter.

The proposed station would add capacity in a region where immigration arrests have already climbed sharply. The proposal is in addition to plans to expand a Border Patrol checkpoint on I-19 south of Tucson. Border Patrol has also come under fire since the start of the second Trump administration for its use of violent tactics in Los Angeles, Minneapolis and elsewhere.

While Border Patrol's presence in major American cities has diminished since the murder of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis — the latter killed by Border Patrol agents — southern Arizona residents have long been accustomed to invasive, and sometimes deadly, immigration enforcement.

Allen told LOOKOUT that she found the possibility of a new Border Patrol station just outside of Tucson deeply concerning, “especially if it contains a holding facility.”

“There is a gross lack of oversight of these agencies and their aggressive tactics targeting moms, children, students and other community members. Building more infrastructure for this agency that operates as though it is above the rule of law is not welcome here,” she said. 

The letter about the proposed new Border Patrol station outside of Tucson was addressed to Melissa Manriquez of Pima County and gives the county 30 days to respond with input on potential environmental effects, as well as any state or local permitting requirements CBP should factor into siting, construction and operation of the facility. 

A handwritten clerk's note on the letter shows it was circulated to county staff, including the Development Services Department and Department of Environmental Quality, on Aug. 31.

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CBP notes that a separate, formal public comment period will open later, once a Draft EA is released — meaning the greater Tucson community has not yet had a chance to weigh in.

Community Concerns

Federal data from the Deportation Data Project reveals that Arizona logged 11,671 immigration arrests in the roughly 13 months after President Trump's second inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025 — an average of nearly 898 arrests a month, compared with about 414 a month over a comparable stretch of the Biden administration. That’s an increase of about 117%.

Nationally, DHS announced ICE made a record 50,925 arrests in August, the third straight month the agency set a new monthly high — part of a surge documented in a New York Times article published in late August. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin touted the figures as fulfillment of the administration's deportation agenda.

The buildup has come with mounting questions about oversight and use of force. House Homeland Security Committee Democrats said in July that ICE had received 56 complaints of excessive force against its officers since the start of the administration; 32 were cleared and just one was referred for discipline, with no discipline handed down at the time. The briefing followed a pair of fatal shootings by ICE officers, in Maine and Houston, of immigrants agents were trying to arrest — part of at least 10 deaths in encounters with immigration agents since the enforcement surge began, according to reporting cited by lawmakers.

The proposed new station is less than 10 miles away from the Tohono O'odham Nation, where in 2023, Border Patrol agents shot and killed Raymond Mattia.

“The Trump Administration’s border-area immigration enforcement approach reflects profound disregard for humanitarian, ecological, and broader constitutional interests,” John Mitchell, an immigrant rights attorney with American Civil Liberties Union - Arizona, told LOOKOUT.

“The border area is not a ‘constitution-free zone, despite any contrary assertions, or the reckless impunity that DHS officials so regularly display across the country,” Mitchell added.

The tactics used to identify who Border Patrol agents stop and arrest have also drawn scrutiny. In September 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a lower-court order that had barred immigration agents in the Los Angeles area from weighing physical appearance, language and location when deciding whom to question. Critics have described the approach as blatant racial profiling.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh argued that factors like "apparent ethnicity," limited English proficiency and work in jobs such as day labor, landscaping and construction could constitutionally support reasonable suspicion of illegal presence. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissenting, wrote “We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job.”

It's against that backdrop — record arrest numbers, unresolved excessive-force complaints, and a Supreme Court-sanctioned openness to profiling based on ethnicity, language and occupation — that advocates are likely to scrutinize CBP's plans for a new station near Tucson.

“Our public lands and rural communities are already paying a terrible price for the Trump administration’s ever-expanding militarization of the borderlands,” said Russ McSpadden, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity.

“CBP’s infrastructure projects have caused enormous damage to the Sonoran Desert,” McSpadden added. “The agency needs to answer basic questions about this new station, including how much water it will use, how many agents will be stationed there, and how much lighting and helicopter traffic is expected. Residents deserve to know what this project will mean for their homes, their water, the surrounding desert, and imperiled wildlife.”

CBP did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the project's cost, construction timeline or projected staffing increase.