The U.S. military fired a laser to bring down a drone operated by Customs and Border Protection in Texas, officials and lawmakers said, triggering a second airspace closure along the Mexico border this month and further exposing the apparent lack of coordination among government agencies.
The Federal Aviation Administration closed airspace near the town of Fort Hancock on Thursday, citing unspecified “special security reasons” and setting an end date of June 24. It was the same reasoning given when air traffic was briefly halted at El Paso International Airport weeks ago after a counter-drone system was used by Homeland Security personnel against what the Trump administration identified as Mexican cartel drones and other officials said was probably a Mylar balloon.
The incident happened at Fort Hancock, a border town where U.S. troops are assigned as part of the administration’s immigration enforcement mission. CBP did not notify the Defense Department that it was operating a drone in the area, so U.S. forces, suspecting a potential threat, used a laser system to disable it, a Pentagon official said, citing an initial assessment of the incident. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
A joint statement issued by the Pentagon, FAA and CBP does not indicate which agency bore responsibility for the episode or whether the federal government intends to undertake a broader review of drone operations in an effort to mitigate such incidents. The “engagement” was far from populated areas with no commercial aircraft in the vicinity, it said.
Military personnel “employed counter-unmanned aircraft system authorities to mitigate a seemingly threatening unmanned aerial system operating within military airspace,” the statement said. “These agencies will continue to work on increased cooperation and communication to prevent such incidents in the future.”
Reps. Bennie G. Thompson (Mississippi), Rick Larsen (Washington) and André Carson (Indiana), leading Democrats on the House Homeland Security and Transportation and Infrastructure committees, and the Transportation subcommittee on aviation, respectively, suggested the incident was 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, referring to the Defense Department.
Defense officials declined to identify the system used. One 20-kilowatt direct energy system built to shoot down drones, known as the LOCUST, was identifiedby the outlet Laser Wars last summer through photos of Army operations at Fort Bliss, a hub for U.S. military border support about 50 miles from Fort Hancock.
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.
President Donald Trump’s 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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