A Border Patrol officer patrolling the US-Mexico border shot and killed a man who stabbed him multiple times in Southern Arizona on Monday night.

CBP officials reported that the unnamed agent was patrolling near the transnational city of Nogales, Arizona, when he encountered a group of individuals he suspected to be aliens entering the country illegally. One man accompanying them group attacked the agent when he sought to apprehend the aliens, stabbing him multiple times.

The CBP agent went on to fatally shoot the alien, who may have been a smuggler moving a group of illegal migrants across the border. Deputies of the Santa Cruz Sheriff’s Office were called to provide backup, and the Border Patrol agent that was stabbed had to be airlifted to a Tucson hospital early on Tuesday morning. Fortunately, he was released from the hospital later the same day.

Cartel-affiliated criminal smugglers have increasingly sought to infiltrate the United States in Arizona, hoping to avoid a buffed border patrol presence in Texas and new wall construction in the most trafficked areas of the border.

Preliminary reports indicate that the Border Patrol agent may have been alone when he encountered the smuggler’s group of criminal aliens, a hazard that has resulted in violent attacks on Border Patrol agents by cartel-affiliated criminals before.

The FBI is reportedly investigating the incident. It’s unclear if the group of aliens encountered by the agent have been expelled under special coronavirus immigration regulations, transferred into the custody of immigration detention, or simply allowed to proceed into the country.