FBI Director Kash Patel traveled to southern Arizona this week to meet with law enforcement partners from the Pascua Yaqui and Tohono O’odham nations, saying the gatherings are central to the bureau’s effort to reduce violent crime in Indian Country.
“Great meeting with the Pascua Yaqui and Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation LEO partners — key partners of ours in the fight against violent crime all across the country,” Patel wrote on X after the meetings. He pointed to the April 2025 launch of “Operation Not Forgotten,” an interagency surge designed to deliver more investigative resources to tribal lands, and said, “These people are often left uniquely vulnerable to drug trafficking, cartels, and other violent crime and we are taking steps to change that.”
The Justice Department’s Operation Not Forgotten has deployed rotating teams of FBI personnel to support field offices across the country; DOJ announced the initiative would surge 60 FBI staff into 10 field offices to assist unresolved violent-crime investigations in Indian Country. At the start of fiscal 2025, the FBI’s Indian Country program reported roughly 4,300 open investigations, including hundreds involving deaths, child abuse and sexual violence.
Local tribal leaders have welcomed improvements in information sharing and federal support. In a prior Justice Department statement about tribal law-enforcement access to national crime databases, former Pascua Yaqui Tribal Chairman Robert Valencia said the Tribal Access Program “will close gaps and loopholes in our tribal criminal justice system and help us protect our community,” thanking federal and state partners for the collaboration.
Patel framed the Arizona visits as part of a broader FBI-DOJ commitment to strengthen ties with Tribal nations and to produce “record results for crime takedowns in America,” saying the partnerships are essential to reaching remote and jurisdictionally complex communities.
Officials from the tribes and the FBI said they will continue coordination on investigations, training and technology sharing aimed at reducing violence and improving investigative outcomes for tribal communities.
