US military shoots down Border Protection drone, lawmakers say
he U.S. military has shot down a Customs and Border Protection drone, Democratic lawmakers said, describing the incident as evidence of a lack of coordination between the Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security and Federal Aviation Authority.
The FAA
closed airspace near the town of Fort Hancock in Texas on Thursday for “special security reasons,” the same reasoning given when air traffic was briefly halted at El Paso International Airport over an apparent communication breakdown between the Pentagon and DHS, in which a laser-based counter-drone weapon was used by DHS personnel against what the Trump administration described as Mexican cartel drones.
Democratic lawmakers Bennie G. Thompson (Mississippi), Rick Larsen (Washington) and André Carson (Indiana), the ranking minority-party members of the House Homeland Security and Transportation and Infrastructure committees, and the Transportation subcommittee on aviation, respectively, described the incident as a result of White House “incompetence.”
“Our heads are exploding over the news that DoD reportedly shot down a Customs and Border Protection drone using a high-risk counter-unmanned aircraft system,”
they said in a statement.
The FAA, CBP and Pentagon said in a joint statement that the military “employed counter-unmanned aircraft system authorities to mitigate a seemingly threatening unmanned aerial system operating within military airspace.” It did not acknowledge the provenance of the drone, but it did say the agencies “will continue to work on increased cooperation and communication to prevent such incidents in the future.”
The statement said the incident occurred far from commercial flights and populated areas and took place as part of Trump administration efforts to “mitigate drone threats by Mexican cartels and foreign terrorist organizations at the U.S.-Mexico Border.”
The FAA announced flight restrictions near Fort Hancock for “special security reasons,” lasting until June 24. Fort Hancock is about 50 miles southeast of El Paso, on the Mexico-U.S. border. The area has been a hot spot for President Donald Trump’s administration as it seeks to secure the southern border, with Fort Bliss, near El Paso, serving as a hub.
On Feb. 10, the FAA imposed an extraordinary 10-day ground-stop at the El Paso airport, which was quickly reversed. Officials later told The Washington Post that a laser-based counter-drone weapon was used by DHS personnel.
The Trump administration did not acknowledge the apparent breakdown in communications but said that “Mexican cartel drones” breached U.S. airspace and the U.S. military acted to disable them. Two U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the weapon is believed to have been
launched at something innocuous, probably a balloon.
The laser system had been temporarily transferred from the Pentagon to DHS with the approval of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, The Post previously reported.
“We said MONTHS ago that the White House’s decision to sidestep a bipartisan, tri-committee bill to appropriately train C-UAS operators and address the lack of coordination between the Pentagon, DHS and the FAA was a shortsighted idea,” the Democratic lawmakers said in their statement Thursday. “Now, we’re seeing the result of its incompetence.”
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois) separately called for a joint investigation into what happened, describing it as “alarming.”
“It’s also deeply troubling to once again learn about this chaos in the news — rather than through official channels,”
she said.
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