A vehicle that U.S. agents believed was connected to a laser report near the Tijuana border was stopped by Tijuana Municipal Police the next morning, where officers found it had been reported stolen and recovered a laser device, according to Grupo Animal. The stop does not, by itself, establish who aimed the laser or whether anyone detained was responsible for doing so.
A green laser from Mexican territory was aimed at Border Patrol agents.
According to Grupo Animal, Tijuana officers stopped the vehicle at 6:36 a.m. on Oct. 20, detained several people and recovered a laser. The report says authorities did not provide the detainees’ identities or an exact count. San Diego Sector Chief Patrol Agent Justin De La Torre credited Tijuana authorities’ prompt response and emphasized coordination and accountability when law enforcement personnel are endangered, FOX 5 and KUSI reported. The available accounts do not establish the eventual legal outcome.
Other laser reports offer different comparisons
The Tijuana report concerns agents on the ground. A separate CBP-documented incident involved an aircraft: on Feb. 9, about 13 miles west of McAllen International Airport, an AS-350 helicopter on patrol was struck three times by a laser from a vehicle on the Mexican riverbank. It shows another setting in which a laser was reported as an operational hazard, but it is not evidence about who was involved in Tijuana or how often ground agents face such incidents.
A broader aviation measure provides additional context, with an important limitation: the Federal Aviation Administration said pilots reported 10,994 laser strikes on aircraft in 2025, 14% fewer than the year before. Those figures concern aircraft and pilot reports, not incidents involving Border Patrol agents on the ground.
Sector apprehensions are a separate measure
CBP reported 1,793 apprehensions in the San Diego Sector during the first two months of fiscal year 2026, down 93% from 24,735 in the same period a year earlier, according to the agency’s sector release. Apprehension totals describe enforcement activity, not laser incidents; they do not establish a trend in the hazards discussed here.
