Shadow Wolves

The "Shadow Wolves" is an elite unit of Native American trackers. The law enforcement unit is part of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Shadow Wolves's primary task is tracking smugglers through a 76-mile stretch of the Tohono O'odham nation territory that runs along the United States-Mexico border in the state of Arizona.

History
This special law enforcement unit was created in 1972 by an Act of Congress, after the U.S. federal government agreed to the Tohono O'odham Nation's demand that the officers have at least one fourth Native American ancestry. The Shadow Wolves became the first federal law enforcement agents allowed to operate on Tohono land.

The unit is congressionally authorized to have as many as 21 members but, as of March, 2007, it consisted of only 15 members. Members of the unit come from seven tribes, including the Tohono O'odham, Navajo, Sioux, Lakota, Yurok, Kiowa, and Blackfeet.

In 2003, the Shadow Wolves became part of the Department of Homeland Security when ICE was merged into Homeland Security. ICE officials are also considering creating a sister unit of the Shadow Wolves to patrol the Blackfeet reservation in Montana, on the U.S. border with Canada.

Global training missions
In addition to tracking smugglers on the U.S. border, the Shadow Wolves have also been asked to train border guards and customs agents around the world tracking smugglers, in nations including Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Estonia, Kazakstan, and Uzbekistan. The unit is also being used in the effort to hunt terrorists along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan by training regional border guards in Native American ancestral sign-reading methods.