In the Santa Teresa area, the number of migrant arrests has increased by 60% - now more than 2 million people.
Santa Teresa, New Mexico Border Patrol agents spotted men wearing camouflage camouflage suits hanging down.
Border Patrol Agent Gloria Chavez said the men were smugglers.
Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Milgram said cartels have become more aggressive about drug smuggling than in the past.
"There are two cartels. . . killing Americans with fentanyl at a catastrophic and record rate that we have never seen before," Milgram said.
"These cartels operate with deliberate treachery to get fentanyl into the United States and get people to buy it," she said.
Last year, more than 107,000 drug overdoses were reported in the United States, 70% of which were related to fentanyl.
A Customs and Border Patrol agent has apprehended three illegal immigrants who sneaked into the United States from Mexico wearing costumes that mimic the sagebrush of the Southwest.
A photo of the three men was posted on Twitter Thursday by Gloria Chavez, chief agent for the El Paso Sector Border Patrol.
"Tactics of smugglers!" - wrote the agent on his twitter. "People who enter the United States illegally often use extraordinary tactics to avoid detection and arrest. Credit to El Paso Sector Santateres agents for intercepting three migrants wearing camouflage suits to blend into the southern New Mexico desert.”