Created in 2015 by Governor Doug Ducey, the task force was his way of telling voters he's doing something about illegal immigration, which many Republican voters see as a huge problem. The state reportedly has spent $82 million on the task force since then, and this year it got an $11 million boost that will include the hiring of several new troopers. Yet, if the border strike task force does anything that the state doesn't already expect the Arizona Department of Public Safety to do, that would be unusual. As the Arizona Republic and New Times have found out, the program does little beyond act as Ducey's propaganda tool. Statistics detailing the task force's alleged successes borrow from the work of other law enforcement agencies, research shows. Fewer than 18 percent of the cases it works on involve drug smuggling or organized crime. That is, if a police agency stops a semitruck and finds a pound of meth on the driver, the task force might list it under its tally for drugs seized for the year. But this sort of smoke-and-mirrors crime-fighting program is just what you'd expect of one created by a politician. More criminals likely would get busted if the program wasn't so focused on trying to make Ducey look good.