DPS video promotes Hobbs’ role creating immigration task force days before election

Key Points:

• Gov. Katie Hobbs formed Operation Desert Guardian in 2025 to streamline state and local law enforcement on immigration enforcement

• The Arizona Department of Public Safety released a video promoting the task force less than a week before voters decide on Hobbs’ reelection

• DPS claims the video was meant to inform the public about the task force without an eye on influencing voters

Less than a week before the election, the Department of Public Safety released a video extolling the benefits of Gov. Katie Hobbs’ Operation Desert Guardian.

And Hobbs, who signed the executive order creating the immigration task force to link DPS and the state Department of Homeland Security with local law enforcement in 2025, is featured in the 8½ minute video — much of it containing original footage shot by DPS employees — no less than nine times.

The entire video was posted Wednesday on DPS’ site on the social media website X. And links to it were sent that same day to every media outlet around the state.

It also comes as the Democratic governor, seeking reelection against Republican Andy Biggs, has been criticized by Republicans for not doing enough to secure the border against illegal immigration and the flow of drugs. They cite her decision to dismantle the Border Security Strike Force that had been established by Doug Ducey, her predecessor, and her vetoes of several border-related bills approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

DPS spokesman Bart Graves said the decision to make a video was made in June. And he said there was a conscious decision to include Hobbs.

“The governor’s office was informed of plans to produce the video, including our intention to feature Gov. Hobbs,” he said, noting the governor’s office “did not direct or determine the video’s content or release timing.”

So why five days before the election?

“We wanted to be consistent in making these stats public before the end of our data reporting period,” he said of the data about arrests and drug seizures in both the press release and the video.

But there is no annual report due now.

In fact, the last report on Operation Desert Guardian was a six-month update announced by the governor at a press conference on Sept. 5, 2025. There was no similar report at the end of the first full year.

The video begins with an explanation of Task Force SAFE, the governor’s 2024 decision to have National Guard soldiers assist Customs and Border Protection officers at ports of entry. She is seen shaking hands with several Guard members and getting a briefing.

That deployment, however, is nothing new.

Janet Napolitano had issued a similar order when she was governor in 2006. And, more recently, Ducey put Guard soldiers on the border during the first Trump administration and later after the 2020 election of Joe Biden.

But the main focus of the video is to detail what it says repeatedly is the success of Operation Desert Guardian.

A press release also issued Wednesday claims the operation is responsible for more than 2,900 arrests and the seizure of more than 8,900 pounds of illegal drugs with a street value of more than $19 million. And it specifically mentioned the seizure of about 1.2 million fentanyl pills.

There’s also a message from DPS Director Jeffrey Glover thanking Hobbs, who appointed him, “for her continued support and investment in this initiative.”

The video, however, is far more detailed — and includes more of the governor.

It includes some TV news footage, but the heart of the production actually was shot this year by DPS videographers. And it features in several places the governor — sporting an Operation Desert Guardian T-shirt and wearing a wireless microphone for the production — conferring in what appear to be opportunities set up specifically for the video.

For example, there’s one with Hobbs along with Glover, Coconino County Sheriff Bret Axlund and a narcotics officer whose face is blurred, standing near railroad tracks with a train passing by. The sheriff explains later in the video how criminals are now using the rail system to transport drugs.

Then there’s another video of Hobbs with Axlund in the back seat of a car, where, still in that T-shirt, explaining to him her thoughts behind the program.

“There is a perception that border crimes happens at the border,” the governor tells Axlund.

“But we know it’s all over,” she is taped as saying. “Being able to have those resources around the state and capitalize on all of the expertise around the state is really critical.”

There also are several clips of Hobbs, wearing that same shirt, addressing a group of law enforcement officers at what Graves said was a summit held earlier this summer.

Graves said there was no additional cost to DPS to produce the video.

It was filmed and produced using existing communications personnel and resources ‘within their established operating budgets,” he said.

The audience for all this, Graves said, was “the general public,” with distribution “by way of the news media.”

And there is the more generally available post on X.

Christian Slater, the governor’s press aide, declined to comment about the production of the video featuring his boss using public resources and, more to the point, the timing of its release.

Hobbs has sought to portray an image of someone concerned about border security in a nonpartisan way, even lashing out at times at the Biden administration over its lax enforcement.

But the governor also vetoed a series of border-related bills approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature since she took office.

One would have prohibited state and local officials and agencies from adopting or enforcing any policy or practice that prohibits cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

In her veto message last year, Hobbs said she has “worked productively with the federal government to secure our border.” And she specifically mentioned Operation Desert Guardian, which had been formed just two months before.

“But we should not force state and local officials to take marching orders from Washington, D.C.,” Hobbs wrote.

She penned similar veto messages for bills that would require state and local officials to enforce and cooperate with federal immigration laws, county detention facilities to share inmate information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, hospitals to share patients’ immigration status, and border crossings to only happen at ports of entry.