Keeping Texas' Skies Safe
- Griffin Saltron
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
Updated: 24 hours ago
The danger posed from cartel drones are real, and therefore needs to be countered.
Senate Committee on Homeland & Border Security
On February 11, 2026, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) shut down the airspace surrounding El Paso International Airport following the use of a laser weapon by the U.S. Department of War (DOW) on what was presumed to be a Mexican drug cartel drone.[i] The shutdown was originally declared for a ten-day period but was lifted after a total of seven hours. A few weeks later, that same weapon was employed in defense against yet another presumed cartel drone. Unfortunately, in neither case was this laser weapon used on cartel drones; instead, the first deployment was against party balloons and the second was a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) drone. While the utilization of the weapons exemplified communication issues between federal, state, and local officials, it also brought to light the prevalence of drone incursions on the U.S.-Mexico border. According to Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Aircraft Operations Division Assistant Chief Pilot Marc Tomerlin:
We do have hundreds of drone incursions coming from Mexico over into the United States on a daily basis.
In fact, the DOW estimates that “there are likely more than 1,000 incursions by unmanned aircraft systems along the U.S.-Mexico border each month." The cartels deploy these drones along the border in support of anti-trafficking operations. They are used to surveil law enforcement in support of drug and human trafficking operations or to facilitate the physical transfer of drugs by connecting packages to the drones. While these uses are legitimate threats to homeland security, drones are also at the forefront of modern warfare and pose a threat to Texans.
